Training the Mindset as well as the Method: how EYEYAH! uses Seeing to Develop Thinking.
Design Thinking is often introduced as a five-step method—Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype, Test. Yet the greatest obstacle for learners is not remembering the steps; it’s thinking like a designer. To truly harness the power of design thinking, educators must cultivate both mindset and method.
Mindset Before Method
The method gives structure, but mindset fuels curiosity, empathy, and experimentation—the qualities that make design thinking a transformative human-centred discipline. A fixed focus on templates and toolkits can reduce design thinking to a box-ticking exercise. The real goal is to nurture habits of observation, questioning, and reflection. Students who are encouraged to pause, notice, and make meaning develop the flexible thinking needed to reframe problems and explore multiple perspectives.
The Power of Images in Thinking
Images have a unique ability to open minds before words can. When students encounter thought-provoking visual stimuli— such as detailed illustrations or visual metaphors —they begin to see systems, emotions, and relationships. This visual literacy trains empathy, observation, curiosity and divergent thinking. By decoding what they see and sharing multiple interpretations, learners are already practising the foundational skills of empathy and ideation.
Visible Thinking Routines as Mental Scaffolds
Harvard Project Zero’s Visible Thinking routines—such as See-Think-Wonder or Think-Puzzle-Explore—provide a language for slowing down perception and externalising thought. When used with images, they create a safe space for curiosity and conversation. Students articulate observations, surface assumptions, and build on one another’s insights. Over time, this develops a classroom culture of reflective dialogue, creativity, and shared meaning-making—the exact mindset that enables effective design thinking practice.
From Looking to Making
When learners first learn how to look, they become better equipped to make. Visual enquiry cultivates empathy and perspective-taking, while reflection through visible thinking strengthens metacognition—the ability to think about one’s own thinking. These intertwined skills turn design thinking from a procedural framework into a genuine way of seeing and acting in the world.
EYEYAH runs teacher training workshops from a 3-hour introduction session to 12-hour sprints.