This week’s spotlight: all things education.

Here’s your homework: identify a problem in your classroom, school, or district and come up with an innovative, collaborative solution in less than an hour. Sound like a tall order? Well, here’s a cheat sheet.

IDEO, an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered approach to helping organizations improve, teamed up with educators at Riverdale Country School in New York City to create a free toolkit to help teachers apply design thinking to school-related questions—from how best to incorporate technology into curricula to where to place chairs in the library.

According to the toolkit’s introduction, design thinking is a problem-solving process which is “human-centered, collaborative, optimistic, and experimental.”

It’s the same open-minded and creative problem solving that good teachers already push their students to practice—but here it’s framed for teachers’ conundrums instead.

Curious about using design thinking at your school? Download the complete Design Thinking for Educators toolkit to learn more.

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Have you used design thinking in your classroom? Tell us about your experience.