role of design thinking in education sector

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What is Design Thinking in Education?

In a world where artificial intelligence, exemplified by tools like ChatGPT, is reshaping our world, the human touch of design thinking becomes even more crucial. You might already be familiar with design thinking and curious about how to harness it alongside AI, or perhaps you’re new to this method. Regardless of your experience level, I’m going to share why design thinking is your human advantage in an AI-world. We’ll explore its impact on students and educators, particularly when integrated into the curriculum to design learning experiences that are both innovative and empathetic.

Back in 2017, I spearheaded a two-year research study at Design39 Campus in San Diego, CA, focusing on how educators used design thinking to transcend traditional educational practices. This study was pivotal in understanding how to scale from pockets of innovation to a culture of innovation. It’s rare to see a public school integrate these practices, and I always wondered, “Why is this the exception and not the norm?” How might design thinking when combined with AI tools, complement standards-based curricula by prompting students to tackle real-world challenges. We investigated the methods educators used to learn about design thinking and how they crafted learning experiences at the nexus of knowledge, skills, and mindsets, aiming to foster creative problem-solving in an increasingly AI-integrated world. The results revealed it had nothing to do with the technology. It had to do with people.

Design thinking is both a method and a mindset.

What makes design thinking unique in comparison to other frameworks such as project based learning, is that in addition to skills there is an emphasis on developing mindsets such as empathy, creative confidence, learning from failure and optimism.

Seeing their students and themselves enhance and develop their skills and mindset of a design thinker demonstrated the value in using design thinking and fueled their motivation to continue. In addition, it strengthened their self-efficacy and helped them embrace, not fear change.

The results indicate strong agreement amongst the educators between developing in demand skills such as creativity, problem finding, collaboration and communication and practicing design thinking. 

As workplaces determine how to leverage new and emerging technologies in ways that serve humanity, the two critical skills expected will be the ability to solve unstructured problems and to engage in complex communication, two areas that allow workers to augment what machines can do (Levy & Murnane, 2013.) 

Brynjolfsson and McAfee (2014) call this era, “The Second Machine Age,” characterized by advances in technology, such as the rise of big data, mobility, artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. The World Economic Forum calls this era, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution.” 

Regardless of the name we give this era, Schwab warned, as did Brynjolfsson and McAfee, that failure by organizations to prepare and adapt could cause inequality and fragment societies. 

That era that we once talked about, is not here.

The rise of generative Ai.

As Erik Brynjolfsson shares, “There is no economic law that says as technology advances, so does equal opportunity.” The World Economic Forum reinforces this by sharing, that while the dynamics of today’s world have the potential to create enormous prosperity, the challenge to societies, particularly businesses, governments and education systems, will be to create access to opportunities that will allow everyone to share in the prosperity. 

Schwab, Brynjolfsson and McAfee advocate for schools being able to play a powerful role in shaping a future that is technology-driven and human-centered. Design thinking, a human-centered framework is one method that can provide educators with the skills and mindset to navigate away from the traditional model established during the industrial area. To a learner-centered vision where we design learning experiences at the intersection of knowledge, skills, and mindsets.

The Future of Work

Designing schools for today’s learner is not just about solving a workforce or technology challenge. It’s also about solving a human challenge, where every individual has the access and opportunity to reach their potential. 

Despite the changing expectations of the workplace brought forth by this era, today’s education systems largely remain unchanged. Leaving graduates without the knowledge, skills and mindsets to thrive in future workplaces and as citizens. Furthermore, the lack of equity has led to what Paul Attewell calls a growing digital use divide deepening the fragmentation of society. 

​​A decade ago, some of the most in-demand occupations or specialties today did not exist across many industries and countries. Furthermore, 60% of children in kindergarten will live in a world where the possible opportunities do not yet exist (World Economic Forum, 2017).

In Technology, Jobs and the Future of Work, McKinsey states that 60% of all occupations have at least 30% of activities that can be automated. 40% of employers say lack of skills is the main reason for entry level job vacancies. And 60% of new graduates said they were not prepared for the world of work in a knowledge economy, noting gaps in technical and soft skills. Before our experience with ChatGPT I’m reminded of Imaginable by Jane McGonigal where she shares, “Almost everything important that’s ever happened, was unimaginable shortly before it happened.”

With an influx of technology over the past decade, with iPads and Chromebooks, and now the acceleration of AI technology, particularly over the past year, we have to wonder what gaps exist that prevent us from accelerating and scaling the change we want to see in schools. 

One reason is that this challenge is complex and overwhelming. This is where design thinking practices are helpful in moving from idea to impact. Design thinking practices provide the structure and scaffolds needed to take a complex idea and simplify it.

The Design Thinking Process

Too often design thinking is seen as a series of hexagons to jump through. Check off one and move onto the next. Design thinking is a non-linear framework that nurtures your mindset toward navigating change. 

It can be used in three areas:

• Problem finding
• Problem solving
• Opportunity exploration

The design thinking model is nonlinear. Resulting in a back and forth between the stages of inspiration, ideation and implementation, in an effort to continuously improve upon their potential solution (Shively et al., 2018). These stages were expanded by the d.School into empathy, define, ideate, prototype and iterate. In fact, there are many exercises that can be used to apply each area of the process. 

Let’s walk through each phase. Then I’ll share examples of how it is being used. I also want to preface this by saying that simply going through these stages is where most people misunderstand design thinking and don’t see the results they hoped for. These phases are here to help you develop an action-oriented mindset. Moving from identifying a problem to designing and then testing a solution to quickly get feedback. Each of these phases have numerous exercises to also help facilitate experiences based on your scenario.

Phase 1: Empathy

When you begin with empathy, what you think is challenged by what you learn. This alone is what makes design thinking so unique and is the first phase. During the empathy stage, you observe, engage and immerse yourself in the experience of those you are designing for. Continuously asking, “why” to understand why things are the way they are. 

This phase is where we see the most challenges, yet this phase is the most critical. An empathy map is probably the most common exercise. Yet there are others such as, “Heard, Seen, Respected.” Another challenge in this area is not speaking directly to the user. For example, I’ve sat in many “design thinking” experiences where the group will speculate on behalf of the users. For example, educators speculating about parents, administrators speculating about teachers. 

The purpose behind an empathy exercise is that when we begin with empathy, what we think is challenged by what we learn. While you can practice with each other, ultimately you must speak directly to who you are designing for.

Phase 2: Define

During the define stage you unpack the empathy findings and create an actionable problem statement often starting with, “how might we…” This statement not only emphasizes an optimistic outlook, it invites the designer to think about how this can be a collaborative approach.

Phase 3: Ideate

During the ideate phase you generate a series of possibilities for design. The focus here is quantity not quality. As you want to generate as many possibilities to see how they may merge together. As Guy Kawasaki shares, “Don’t worry be crappy.” Feasibility is not important at this step. Rather the key is to not think about what is possible but what can be possible. At the end, one of the ideas, or the merging of many ideas, is chosen to expand upon in the next phase. 

This is another phase where we see challenges. It is not enough to simply tell someone to get a piece of paper and then come up with lots of ideas. As adults, this is incredibly challenging and is also a muscle that needs to be developed. In fact, one of my favorite exercises is 1-2-4-all. Another is walking questions, where the prompt begins with “What if…” and then after each person writes something it is handed to the person on their right.

Phase 4: Prototype

During the prototype phase, ideas that were narrowed down from ideation are created in a tangible form so that they can be tested. During this phase, the designer has an opportunity to test their prototype and gain feedback.

Phase 5: Iteration

By quickly testing the prototype, the user can refine the idea. And have a deeper understanding to go back and ask questions to the group they are designing for. The feedback received from the user allows the designer to engage in a deeper level of empathy to refine the questions asked and the problem being defined. This brings us back to phase 1. 

You can find more of these exercises to lead your group through each phase at sessionlab.com . 

As schools strive to create student learning experiences that prepare them for their future, design thinking can play a critical role in complementing students’ knowledge with the skills and mindsets to be creative problem solvers.

Examples of Design Thinking in K12

While new approaches tend to be viewed with skepticism, an increasing number of studies are coming forward reflecting the promise of transferability of skills and mindsets from the classroom to real-world problems when utilizing design thinking. As expectations are raised about what student skills and mindsets are needed, the level of support for educators must increase as well to experience success in new strategies and the outcomes they promise. 

When student learning experiences include design thinking, their skills continue to be enhanced and developed. This in turn allows them to apply these strategies to be problem finders and problem solvers. Helping them be more comfortable with change and empowering them to solve unstructured problems. And work with new information, gaining knowledge, skills and mindsets that cannot be found in the confines of a textbook.

In “The Second Machine Age,” the authors share:

Technological progress is going to leave behind some people, perhaps even a lot of people, as it races ahead. As we’ll demonstrate, there’s never been a better time to be a worker with special skills or the right education. Because these people can use technology to create and capture value. However, there’s never been a worse time to be a worker with only “ordinary” skills and abilities to offer, because computers, robots, and other digital technologies are acquiring these skills and abilities at an extraordinary rate. The Second Machine Age | Erik Brynjolfsson | Andrew McAffee

Design thinking strengthens the mindsets and skills that today’s world demands with the ability to become creative problem solvers. Through nurturing the skills and mindsets developed through engaging in design thinking, schools can create more equitable use environments for all learners that leverage technology to accelerate creative tasks that can bridge the digital use divide.

Case Study 1: Design Thinking in Grade 6

A recent study by the Stanford Graduate School of Education highlights that through instruction, students transfer design thinking strategies beyond the classroom. And that the biggest benefits were to low-achieving students (Chin et al., 2019). 

The study included 200 students from grade 6. The researchers worked with the educators during class time to coach half the group of students on two specific design thinking strategies. And then assigned them a project where they could apply these skills.

The two strategies included seeking out constructive feedback and identifying multiple possible outcomes to a challenge. Each of these strategies were designed to prevent what the researchers called, “early closure”. Identifying the potential solution before examining the problem. 

After class the students were presented with different challenges to see how they would approach them. The students who were taught about constructive criticism asked for feedback when presented with the new challenge and were more likely to go back and revise their work. 

This area was significant, as a pre-test revealed that low-achieving students were behind their high achieving peers when seeking out feedback, a gap that the researchers say disappeared after classroom instruction, highlighting the need for this to be taught to all students, not just advanced students in electives.

As Attewell shares, “Placing computers in the hands of every student is not a solution because the challenge lies in addressing the “ digital use divide – changing the tasks that students do when provided with computers.” 

He further highlights the students who gain the types of skills highlighted by the Future of Jobs Report are white and affluent students. These students are more likely to use technology to develop trending skills with greater levels of adult support. Whereas minority students are more likely to use it for rote learning tasks, with lower levels of adult support. 

While design thinking is often found in pockets, presented to students already interested in this area, or the students who are in certain electives, the study led by the Stanford Graduate School of Education demonstrates the advances that can be made when this is offered to all students.

Case Study 2: Design Thinking in Geography

Another study (Caroll et al., 2010) focused on the implementation of a design curriculum during a middle school geography class. And explored how students expressed their understanding of design thinking in classroom activities, how affective elements impacted design thinking in the classroom environment and how design thinking is connected to academic standards and content in the classroom. The students were a diverse group with 60% Latino, 30% African-American, 9% Pacific Islander and 1% White.

The task was for students to use the design process to learn about systems in geography. The study found that students increased their levels of creative confidence. And that design thinking fostered the ability to imagine without boundaries and constraints. A key element to success was that educators needed to see the value of design thinking. And it must be integrated into academic content.

A challenge often associated with design thinking in education is not integrating it into mainstream education as an equitable experience for all learners despite showing that lower achieving students benefit more (Chin et al, 2019). 

If students are to experience dynamic learning experiences, then organizations must raise the level of support for educators and give them the time and space to learn and integrate design thinking.

How Educators Use Design Thinking

Educators are facing a number of challenges in their professional practice. Many of the requirements today are tools and methods they did not grow up with. Furthermore, the profession is tasked with designing new methods often within traditional systems that have constraints that may serve as roadblocks to change (Robinson & Aronica, 2016). 

A 2018 study by PwC with the Business Higher Education Forum shared that an average of 10% of K-12 teachers feel confident incorporating higher-level technology that affords students the opportunity to use technology to design learning that is active, not passive. 

As a result, students do not spend much time in school actively practicing the higher-level trending skills expected by employers. Moreover, the report shows that more than 60% of classroom technology use is passive, while only 32% is active use. While the study suggests that many teachers do not have the skills to engage students in the active use of technology, 79% said they would like to have more professional development for how to leverage technology to design learning that is active.

Case Study 3: Design39 Campus

As I shared earlier I led a two-year research study at Design39 Campus. The study examines how it helped teachers evolve their practice. At Design39 teachers are called “Learning Experience Designers” (LEDs). Borko and Putnam (1995) share that how educators think is related to their knowledge. To understand how LEDs are using design thinking to complement the standards-based curriculum, it was important to understand how they acquired and applied this knowledge.  

Despite design thinking having its roots outside of education, when asked, “What does design thinking mean to you?” The LEDs identified many commonalities amongst their own work as educators and design thinking. Moreover, they appreciated the alignment of their work with the vocabulary and structure of the design thinking framework. 

Over 50% of the LEDs interviewed identified design thinking as providing them with a common vocabulary and structure for what they already do. The LEDs identified educators as inherent design thinkers due to the shared human-centered focus of working with users. In this experience educators design challenges with cyclical learning tasks involving testing, feedback and iteration, and a design mindset to address the wide variety of complex problems within their individual classrooms and across education organizations.

One LED shared:

I just look at it as a process, a process in my mind that we kind of naturally go through as educators, and so with the design thinking process I feel that it is codifying what we do and so we start off always in empathy and empathy is the heart of design thinking and so we are problem solving, who are we problem solving for – people, our learners and so this entire process that we go through of brain dumping it, trying it, getting feedback and coming back to it again so that we can make sure we were really insightful about what the problem really was for the users and we continue around this process to fine tune a potential solution is the design thinking process. Learning Experience Designer | Design39 Campus

One of the ways mastery of knowledge is demonstrated is by teaching others. To assess their mastery of design thinking in education, learning experience designers were asked to describe their confidence in teaching someone else how to integrate design thinking into their curriculum.

Many LEDs acknowledged that although this is what it often looked like in the first year of the school opening, they have since had the time, space and collaborative opportunities to explore and create deeper integration. This was a point of reference mentioned by 78% of LEDs.

I think a lot of people see design thinking as one science activity, we design think everything from rules to problems that come up in the playground, it’s all through the day, they (the learners) are always looking for problems to solve. Learning Experience Designer | Design39 Campus

In another example, four LEDs made a note using the exact same language that “design thinking is not always cardboard and duct tape.” What allows them to design learning that is more meaningful  one LED highlighted:

Not every day is about using duct tape and cardboard, sometimes to do the design to solve the problems you have to hunker down and read and research and so some days, design thinking is highlighting and taking notes. Learning Experience Designer | Design39 Campus

Another LED elaborated on this idea by sharing that

Design thinking is a way of thinking, not always a product that is created at the end. Learning Experience Designer | Design39 Campus

LEDs in all focus groups shared how ultimately design thinking was an opportunity to design lessons that are “ bigger than we are .” 

This allowed for the LEDs to design learning experiences. With this, the end result was not to just design a potential solution to a challenge that was identified. Or to simply go from one standard to another, checking off boxes along the way, but that the solution, the work the learners were doing lived beyond the classroom for an authentic audience, where learners are working on real world problems and presenting their solutions to a real world audience.

Almost all of the LEDs shared that to them design thinking was a mindset. It is a process of inquiry that allowed for a more human centered environment where the learner was the focus. 

This highlighted a critical shift in the culture at Design39, an element Sarason (2004) discussed in saying no one ever asks:

“Why is school not a place where educators learn as well?” 

Bring a Design Thinking Workshop to Your School

We’ve invested in technology. Now it’s time to invest in people. Let’s discuss how design thinking practices can enhance the work you are doing in your school, giving everyone the mindset and skills to navigate change with enthusiasm and optimism. Use this calendar to schedule a time with Sabba to discuss bringing a workshop to your school. Workshops can be delivered both virtually and in-person.

Attewell, P. (2001). The first and second digital divides. Sociology of Education, 74(3), 252-259

Borko, H., & Putnam, R.T. (1995). Expanding a teacher’s knowledge base: A cognitive psychological perspective on professional development. In T. Gusky & M. Huberman (Eds), Professional development in education: New paradigms and practices (pp.35-65). Teachers College Press. 

Brown, T & Wyatt, J. (2010). Design thinking for social innovation.  Stanford Social Science Review, 8 (1), 30-35.

Brynjolfsson, E. (2014).  The second machine age: Work, progress, and prosperity in a time of brilliant technologies  (1st t ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.

Carroll, M., Goldman, S., Britos, L., Koh, J., Royalty, A., & Hornstein, M. (2010). Destination, imagination and the fires within: Design thinking in a middle school classroom. International Journal of Art and Design Education, (29)1, 37-53.

Chin, D. B., Doris, Blair, K.P., Wolf, R., & Conlin, L., Cutumisu, M., Pfaffman, J., Schwartz, D.L. (2019). Educating and measuring choice: A test of the transfer of design thinking in problem solving and learning. Journal of the Learning Sciences. 1-44. 

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. (2013). Dancing with Robots. NEXT Report.

McKinsey Global Institute (2017). Technology, Jobs and the Future of Work. McKinsey. 

PwC (2017). Technology in U.S. Schools: Are we preparing our students for the jobs of tomorrow . Pricewater House Coopers. https://www.pwc.com/us/en/about-us/corporate-responsibility/library/preparing-students-for-technology-jobs.html .

Robinson, K., & Aronica, L. (2016). Creative schools: the grassroots revolution that’s transforming education. Penguin Books.

Shively, K., Stith, K.M., & Rubenstein, L.D. (2018). Measuring what matters: Assessing creativity, critical thinking, and the design process. Gifted Child Today, 41(3) 149-158.

World Economic Forum. (2018). The future of jobs: Employment, Skills and Workforce Strategy for the Fourth Industrial Revolution . World Economic Forum. 

I believe that the future should be designed. Not left to chance. Over the past decade, using design thinking practices I've helped schools and businesses create a culture of innovation where everyone is empowered to move from idea to impact, to address complex challenges and discover opportunities. 

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Design Thinking in Education

Design Thinking is a mindset and approach to learning, collaboration, and problem solving. In practice, the design process is a structured framework for identifying challenges, gathering information, generating potential solutions, refining ideas, and testing solutions. Design Thinking can be flexibly implemented; serving equally well as a framework for a course design or a roadmap for an activity or group project.

Download the  HGSE Design Thinking in Education infographic  to learn more about what Design Thinking is and why it is powerful in the classroom.

Design Consultation for projects, session, and courses, including active learning and facilitation strategies.

Brainstorming Kits including Post-it notes, Sharpie markers, and stickable chart paper.

Physical Prototyping Cart with dozens of creative, constructivist supplies, including felt, yarn, foil, craft sticks, rubber bands, Play-Doh, Legos, and more.

For more information about TLL resources or to check-out brainstorming or prototyping materials, contact Brandon Pousley .

Other Resources  There are dozens of ready-made activities, workbooks, and curricular guides available online. We suggest starting with the following:

Stanford — d.school  and the  The Bootcamp Bootleg IDEO — ' Design Thinking for Educators ' and the  Design ThinkingToolkit Business Innovation Factory —  'Teachers Design for Education'  and the TD4Ed Curriculum Research —  Design Thinking in Pedagogy  —  Luka, Ineta (2014). Design Thinking in Pedagogy. Journal of Education Culture and Society, No. 2, 63-74.

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Impact of design thinking in higher education: a multi-actor perspective on problem solving and creativity

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• Published: 05 January 2022
• Volume 33 , pages 217–240, ( 2023 )

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This study investigates the effects of using design thinking on students’ problem solving and creativity skills, applying a constructivist learning theory. A course where students use design thinking for analyzing real problems and proposing a solution, was evaluated. The study involved 910 novice university students from different disciplines who worked in teams throughout the semester. Data were collected at three times during the semester, i.e. at the beginning (t0), in the middle (t1) and at the end (t2), after solving a short case study. Each time the problem solving and creativity skill of each student was rated by three different actors, i.e. the students themselves (self-evaluation), one peer and one teacher (facilitator). The objective of this study is to investigate whether the problem solving skills and creativity skills improved along the course, as rated by the three actors. A repeated measures ANOVA was used for the data analysis of this within-subjects design. Results show a significant improvement on students’ problem solving and creativity skills, according to the three raters. Effect sizes were also calculated; in all cases the effect sizes from t0 to t1 were larger than t1 to t2. The multi-actor perspective of this study, the adoption of reliable and valid measures and the large sample size provide robust evidence that supports the implementation of design thinking in higher education curriculum for promoting key skills such as problem solving and creativity, demanded by labor markets. Finally, a discussion that puts forward an agenda for future research is presented.

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Introduction

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) face the challenge of promoting in their curricula the demands of labor markets in a world that is constantly changing, more technologically-driven and presenting ill-defined problems (Griffin et al., 2012 ; Wan and Gut 2011 ). Among the top five skills in demand for 2025 are problem-solving and creativity (World Economic Forum, 2020 ), often referred to as twenty-first century skills in terms of the new abilities students should be able to do to surpass the basic skills and knowledge expectations of the past, especially when considering the implementation of new technologies (Binkley et al., 2012 ; Lemke, 2002 ). One educational approach that fosters the development of these key skills, is labeled as design thinking (Luka, 2020 ; Scheer et al., 2012 ). Design thinking has been used as a means for value creation and innovation in different fields including business, medicine, science and various stages of education (Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ).

Design thinking was first coined by Simon ( 1969 ) and it has during recent decades gained popularity in HEIs contexts (Kleinsmann et al., 2017 ; Liedtka, 2014 ; Matthews & Wrigley, 2017 ; Razzouk & Shute, 2012 ; Spee & Basaiawmoit, 2016 ). Moreover, HEIs perceive the curriculum implementation of design thinking as a safe learning space where students can work in multidisciplinary teams boosting their skills and knowledge beyond their fields of study (Wrigley & Straker, 2015 ). Results from a recent design thinking review study show that it is mostly associated with skills in educational settings in terms of: collaboration/teamwork, creativity, problem solving, and empathy (Guaman-Quintanilla et al., 2018 ).

Nevertheless, researchers criticize the lack of a systematic assessment of design thinking results (Liedtka, 2014 ), as well as the lack of accurate, performance-based measures to study its impact (Razzouk & Shute, 2012 ). Moreover, Steinbeck ( 2011 ) criticizes the lack of comprehensive design thinking assessment approaches that fit the complex nature of design thinking and its application in multidisciplinary settings. In addition, Spee and Basaiawmoit ( 2016 ) point at the absence of statistically robust empirical studies to underpin design thinking effectiveness.

In this study, we assessed the impact of a compulsory first-year course called ‘Analysis and Problem Solving’ in an Ecuadorian University. In this compulsory course students learn how to analyze and solve a real-life problem using design thinking. This course offers as such as an promising opportunity for measuring students’ problem solving and creativity skills, as a result of using design thinking in university settings. Data were collected at three time points during a semester taking into account three raters: students as self-evaluators, peers and facilitators. To the best of our knowledge, no studies have adopted a multi-actor perspective to study design thinking impact. Therefore, the present study sheds light on the impact of design thinking, motivated by: (a) the HEIs growing interest on design thinking; (b) problem solving and creativity, as the most-mentioned skills related to design thinking; and the (c) lack of robust empirical studies to measure the impact of design thinking.

The remaining part of the paper proceeds as follows: First, we review the literature to define design thinking guidelines on a conceptual and theoretical framework. Next, the research method and description of the quasi-experimental procedure is provided. Finally, based on our findings, a discussion that puts forward an agenda for future research and implications for universities curricula is presented.

Conceptual and theoretical framework

• Design thinking

Authors argue regarding a clear definition of design thinking (Blizzard et al., 2015 ; Goldschmidt & Rodgers, 2013 ; Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013 ; Kimbell, 2011 ). One of the most cited definition of design thinking is: “A discipline that uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.” (Brown, 2008 , p. 2). A detailed analysis of design thinking literature in Higher Education settings, helped defining the following main characteristics: human-centered approach, solution of ill-defined problems, creativity, teamwork/collaboration, prototype-driven (Carlgren et al., 2016 ; Fleury et al., 2016 ; Ito et al., 2015 ; Lugmayr et al., 2014 ; Patel & Mehta, 2017 ; Razzouk & Shute, 2012 ; Wrigley & Straker, 2015 ). Design thinking supports dealing with complex real-life problems, following a human-centered approach and demands students to be avid interdisciplinary collaborators (Brown, 2008 ; Scheer et al., 2012 ). Literature also shows that the teachers’ role in design thinking is to be seen as a facilitator, rather than an instructor (Scheer et al., 2012 ). In a design thinking intervention, the facilitator presents students with the context that comprises of the challenges, collaborative groups, and tools and activities (Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ). Furthermore, facilitators stimulate students to unleash their creative potential promoting a conducive environment to develop reflection about what worked and what can be learned from things that did not work (e.g. Kelley & Kelley, 2013 ).

In addition, Wrigley and Straker ( 2015 ) propose five-steps along an ‘Educational Design Ladder’ to foster the development of design thinking. The authors point out that by following these steps, students acquire knowledge and skills to apply design thinking in different contexts and projects. Moreover, building on their approach about ‘design-based learning’ (Luka, 2020 ) or ‘design methodology’ (Huang et al., 2019 ), the scholars put forward approaches such as: the four-stage process – also called the ‘Double Diamond’ – proposed by the UK Design Council ( 2007 ); the popular five-stage model of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (d.school) ( 2010 ), among others. The stages/models help developing operational interventions to attain the aforementioned impact on problem solving and creativity.

Based on the literature, we propose the following definition of design thinking: Design thinking is a way of working and thinking that goes beyond the pure design context, as it is a way of solving ill-defined problems using methods and mindsets typically associated with designers, but adapting them to different real contexts and applying a human-centered and prototype-driven approach, which fosters creativity and promotes the value of teamwork.

In the following sections we analyze the learning theory that helps describing and explaining the impact of design thinking, as well as how it is connected to the development of problem solving and creativity skills.

Constructivism and its relation to design thinking

Design thinking challenges the teacher-centered approach. The latter is also known as ‘the sage on the stage’ teaching delivery method where a teacher transmit their knowledge (by lecturing) to students who passively absorb the content (King, 1993 ). In contrast, design thinking is linked to constructivist learning theory (Noweski et al., 2012 ; Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ; Scheer et al., 2012 ). Constructivism serves as an umbrella term to bring together a diversity of views sharing two main ideas: (a) learning is not seen as transmission of knowledge but as an active process of constructing knowledge; and (b) instruction is a process of supporting the knowledge construction process (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996 ). Jonassen et al. ( 1995 ) argue that constructivism raises the assumption that knowledge depends on how people create meaning from their experiences. In addition, the aforementioned authors also emphasize the importance of the social context in the design thinking learning environment based on the socio-cultural constructivist approach of Vygotsky ( 1978 ).

Constructivism beliefs about learning assert the need for embedding students in real-world situations where they function as a part of a community that contributes to solving real-world problems (Lave & Wenger, 1991 ). Furthermore, constructivist environments should engage students in their construction of knowledge through collaboration that insert learning in a meaningful context and reflection on what has been learned (Jonassen et al., 1995 ). Regarding to evaluation, constructivism focuses on the thinking process and the students’ abilities to argue and support decisions that are related to the development of self-reflection and metacognitive skills (Karagiorgi & Symeou, 2005 ).

Since the learner is at the center of the constructivist teaching–learning process, teachers are seen as facilitators rather than instructors (Murphy, 1997 ; Noweski et al., 2012 ; Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ). This role implies guiding and supporting students in their construction of knowledge, providing instruction and feedback, monitoring progress and evaluating (Neo, 2003 ). Additionally, Duffy and Cunningham ( 1996 ) state that teachers should play the role of coaches to guide learners and support them as scaffolds.

The link between design thinking and constructivist learning theory remains fuzzy. Pande and Bharathi ( 2020 ) tried to map constructivist tenets to design thinking phases. Design thinking main characteristics (human-centered approach, solution of ill-defined problems, creativity, teamwork/collaboration, prototype-driven) can also be linked to constructivist tenets (Jonassen, 1994 ); we explain these connections as follows: Constructivist tenets provide multiple representations of reality, represent the natural complexity of the real world, provide real-world, case-based learning environment, rather than pre-determined instructional sequences. In this regard, design thinking enables students to deal with complex real-life problems (Scheer et al., 2012 ). Moreover, design thinking uses a human-centered (also known as user-centered, user-driven, customer-oriented) approach, therefore students are encouraged to develop more empathy towards different views and feelings (d.school 2018 ), providing the means to bring out real users’ perspectives while analyzing the problem and testing possible solutions. Other key characteristic of design thinking found in most of the literature is the focus on prototyping; in this sense, prototyping develops the skills and competences of students by encouraging them to work on authentic real-life problems (Jussila et al., 2020 ).

Another tenet of constructivism focuses on knowledge construction, not reproduction. Jonassen ( 1997 ) argues that students facing ill-defined problems synthesize their own understanding of the situation rather than find a straightforward solution for an already defined problem. Since design thinking is characterized by working with ill-defined problems, this suggests a connection with this tenet. Besides, according to Scheer et al. ( 2012 ) the design thinking process pushes the teacher to become a facilitator of a constructive learning; i.e. designing the space to let students experiment different mental models and methods, balancing instruction and construction, so pupils can convert abstract and general principles into meaningful practice.

Constructivism also builds on working on authentic and contextualized task. In this sense, during a design thinking intervention, the facilitator introduces students with a context that includes the real-life problem (Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ). Moreover, contextualizing may be also manifested through the focus on a human-centered approach within a design thinking process, which helps identifying insights and delivering innovation that reflects what users want (Brown, 2008 ).

Additionally, design thinking entails “for different situations apply different perspectives and new perspectives generate new situations” (Scheer et al., 2012 , p. 13) which reveals another key tenet of constructivism: Enable context-and content dependent knowledge construction. Moreover, prototyping (as a design thinking main characteristic) requires students, users and others to experience and interact with prototypes for building successful solutions (d.school 2018 ) which means the knowledge is constructed by students based not only in the content (e.g. prototyping techniques) but also in the context through validation of those prototypes.

Fostering reflective practice is a next constructivist tenet promoted by design thinking. Design thinking promotes students to reflect on their problem solving approach (Scheer et al., 2012 ). Besides, as part of the human-centered approach of design thinking, students try developing empathy with the actors involved in the situation, empathy involves emotion and logic, which stimulates insights, inspiration and intuition (Glen et al., 2015 ). Prototyping is another opportunity to foster reflection as students explore ways to turn prototype failures into opportunities (d.school, n.d.).

Finally, the last constructivist tenet is about supporting collaborative construction of knowledge through social negotiation. In this regard, most of the design thinking literature points at collaboration (or teamwork) as one of its main characteristics. For instance, Brown ( 2008 ) suggests a design thinker needs to be an enthusiastic interdisciplinary collaborator. Both the collaboration and human-centered approach of design thinking supports the Kanselaar's ( 2002 ) idea of learning as the negotiation of meaning since shared ideas among users and/or other stakeholders, as well as teammates (knowledge-building community), should be accepted and agreed upon. For instance, prototyping helps to overcome the boundaries between different stakeholders, reducing miscommunication, as well as the amount of effort required to discuss and share ideas (Björklund et al., 2017 ). Furthermore, in design thinking, team competences are promoted to express opinions and share knowledge; also, students and teachers build trust (Scheer et al., 2012 ).

• Problem solving

In the education context, problem solving promotes higher-order skills and it is positioned as one of the key skills learners have to develop (Jonassen, 1997 ). Hesse et al. ( 2015 ) provide the following definition for problem solving: “an activity in which a learner perceives a discrepancy between a current state and a desired goal state, recognizes that this discrepancy does not have an obvious or routine solution, and subsequently tries to act upon the given situation in order to achieve that goal state. It is accompanied by a number of mental and behavioral processes that might not necessarily take place in sequential order but can run in parallel” (p. 38). The authors emphasize the collaborative nature of problem solving by working on intertwined activities and building on each other’s contributions. Building on the scope and nature of the present study, we especially build on the rephrasing of the above definition by Rhodes ( 2010 ): “The process of designing, evaluating and implementing a strategy to answer an open-ended question or achieve a desired goal.” (p. 41).

Constructivism consistently emphasizes problem-solving as a key learning outcome (Kanselaar, 2002 ; Murphy, 1997 ; Neo, 2003 ). Since design thinking is aligned with constructivism, problem-solving is clearly an associated skill (Alhamdani, 2016 ; Anand et al., 2015 ; Bhatnagar & Badke-Schaub, 2017 ; Khalaf et al., 2012 ; Lugmayr et al., 2014 ; Taajamaa et al., 2013 ). This connection can be explained as follows. One of the main characteristics of design thinking is working with real and ill-defined problem. According to Voss and Post ( 1988 ) working with these type of problems challenge students’ problem- solving skills. This is confirmed by Jonassen ( 1997 ) who argues that when dealing with ill-defined problems, students must (re)frame the design problem, recognize divergent perspectives, and collect evidence to support or reject the alternative proposals. Moreover, in instructional approaches to implement constructivist learning principles, the focus is mainly on developing the skills related to solving the problem in an authentic context (Duffy & Cunningham, 1996 ), as also happens in design thinking. During the process for solving problems, students establish a reflective practice with the situation. Reflection is one of the tenets of Constructivism, and as explained in the previous section, design thinking also promotes reflection while dealing with ill-defined problems, developing empathy, and testing prototypes. As mentioned earlier, other common aspect of constructivism and design thinking is the emphasis on collaboration. In this regard, during a problem-solving process the achievement of a group is considered to be more effective because it brings together different abilities and skills, which might lead to better collective outcomes (Siemon et al., 2019 ).

As mentioned earlier, creativity is a dominant skill in the design thinking literature. However, the concept also introduces conceptual confusion (Egan et al., 2017 ; Hernández-Torrano & Ibrayeva, 2020 ). Psychology-driven definitions of creativity stress originality and usefulness (Runco & Jaeger, 2012 ; Stein, 1953 ). However, Sawyer ( 2006 ) goes beyond this approach by stating that creativity is “the emergence of something novel and appropriate, from a person, a group, or a society” (p. 33). Sawyer adds that creativity consists of combining divergent and convergent thinking and switching back and forth at different points in the creation process. This is reiterated by Lindberg et al. ( 2011 ) who put forward a problem space and solution space in design thinking. Both spaces include diverging and converging activities. Based on the scope and nature of the present study, the creativity definition of Rhodes ( 2010 ) defines our approach in the best way: “It is both the capacity to combine or synthesize existing ideas, images, or expertise in original ways and the experience of thinking, reacting, and working in an imaginative way characterized by a high degree of innovation, divergent thinking, and risk taking.” (p. 27).

The literature stresses the linkages between constructivism and creativity (Asmar & Mady, 2013 ; Lim, 2014 ; Neo, 2003 ). Creativity is mentioned in the design thinking literature either as a characteristic of the process (e.g. Lewrick et al., 2020 ), or as one of the skills being developed throughout the process (Alhamdani, 2016 ; Clemente et al., 2017 ; West et al., 2012 ). The constructivist framework helps to understand the link between creativity and design thinking. For instance, divergent thinking —one well-studied aspect of creativity (Caughron et al., 2011 )—is fostered in design thinking since students need to explore and be flexible for handling real-world information they often have to collect themselves. Another example stresses how during the ideation process students have to make choices (IDEO n.d.). And during brainstorming, a technique commonly used in design thinking (Lewrick et al., 2020 ), students create and build on a pool of choices, and develop argumentations in relation to a final choice (IDEO n.d.). Moreover, in design thinking courses, facilitators help students to unleash their creative potential promoting a conducive environment to develop reflection. This helps them to learn from things what did (not) work (Kelley & Kelley, 2013 ). The link with creativity also pushes the instructional design of related environments. According to Caughron et al. ( 2011 ) systematic reviews of literature about creativity training stress the provision of challenging materials, real world exercises, along with multiple opportunities for practice by trainees, among others. These design guidelines reflect both constructivist and design thinking characteristics, as explained in previous sections.

Additionally, some scholars have put forward the linkage between problem-solving and creativity (Caughron et al., 2011 ; Martz et al., 2016 ; R. K. Sawyer, 2006 ). Sawyer ( 2006 ) points out that creative processes involve problem solving and decision making; similarly, decision making requires creative inspiration. Sawyer additionally stresses that creativity involves both problem solving and problem finding. Martz et al. ( 2016 ) suggest an interdependence between problem solving and creativity; and Star and Rittle-Johnson ( 2008 ) found that problem solvers show flexibility -one of the creativity dimensions (Torrance, 1974 )- when dealing with a challenging part of a problem.

Building on the available theoretical and empirical literature, the authors of this study put forward the following two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1 (H1)

Students who participated in a design thinking course improve their problem solving skills.

Hypothesis 2 (H2)

Students who participated in a design thinking course improve their creativity skills.

The present study was set up as a field experiment in which university first-year students, regardless of their major, enrolled in the course ‘Analysis and Problem Solving’ (also referred to as the design thinking course), in an Ecuadorian University. This compulsory course seeks to develop in students their problem solving and creativity skills when developing solutions for real-life problems by applying design thinking. The study was set up throughout a complete academic term (from May to August 2019) and included administration of a pretest (t0), a mid-semester test (t1) and a post test (t2). During 14 weeks of classes students received a wide range of in-class training tasks and work in cooperative teams (five to six students) to find a solution for a real problem presented by an Ecuadorian organization (e.g. NGO, small business, etc.), called ‘sponsor’. At the end of the course, teams were expected to present a prototype solution to tackle the problem. In this study, students’ progress in terms of problem solving and creativity was investigated by analyzing their answers when solving a case study (see Research instrument section). Students tackled such case at the start (t0), in the middle (t1) and at end of the course (t2). On the base of a rubric, students, the facilitator, and student peers rated the case solution. In other words, the research data emerged from three different actors at three data points in time.

About the course

The Analysis and Problem Solving course adopts a design thinking approach (Fig.  1 ) based on the combination of both the model of the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University (d.school) ( 2010 ) and the “Double Diamond” model (Design Council, 2007 ); reported by Santos Ordóñez, González Lema, Puga, Párraga Lema, & Vega, ( 2017 ). The latter follows 6 stages.

Design thinking approach used in the Analysis and Problem Solving course

The first diamond of the design thinking approach clusters three stages: Research, Empathy and Define; while the second diamond consists of the other three stages: Ideate, Prototype and Validation. Each diamond represents the divergent (left side) and convergent (right side) thinking the students are expected to adopt. Moreover, the students were informed of the possibility of iterating through all design thinking stages; for example, students could do additional exploratory research at any stage, or re-define the problem after discovering a new insight while testing an early prototype.

Meeting one of the tenets of constructivism, and at the same time one main characteristic of design thinking, each facilitator searched for real problems (5 or 6) before starting the semester. Those problems were proposed mainly by NGOs or small businesses (called ‘sponsors’). During the first week of classes, facilitators presented the problems to their students and students indicated their interest about each problem by ranking them. Next, facilitators set up multi-disciplinary teams and assigned teams one of the problems to work upon during the semester, i.e. each team worked on a different problem. Students worked collaboratively in the same team during the whole semester analyzing the problem and proposing a solution (called course project) following the design thinking approach presented in Fig.  1 . Collaboration is also one of the tenets of constructivism and a characteristic of design thinking.

During the course, students applied specific techniques and tools in each design thinking stage, guided by the facilitator. They immediately applied those techniques and tools to tackle their projects during the class and when doing related homework. The course outline that includes the description of each design thinking stage as well as the techniques and tools learned in each stage is presented in Online Resource 1. Class sessions were very active and alive with plenty of time for students to apply and discuss the techniques and tools learned. Classrooms were equipped with a projector, rounded tables (one table per team), whiteboards, markers, post-its and other provisions to boost group communication. The course was divided into two large subparts, in the first part students worked along the three stages of the first diamond (Fig.  1 ). By the end of the third stage, the teams presented the progress on their course projects applying explicitly the three design thinking stages: they presented what (and how) they learned about the context of the problem and the stakeholders involved, insights discovered and how they (re)frame the problem. In the second part of the course, students adopted the three stages of the second diamond. They subsequently used their creativity to ideate as many solutions as possible to the defined problem. Next, they evaluated and filtered those ideas. In a next step they built prototypes to materialize the best ideas, testing them with real potential users. By the end of the course, the teams presented their projects, explaining their solution process and presenting an argumentation as to the adequacy of their problem solution. All the sponsors were invited to attend these presentations. Online Resource 2 depicts an example of the development of a prototype solution proposed by one team, during the course. Their sponsor was Asperger Foundation – Ecuador who supports parents of children with Asperger’s syndrome. In this case, they focused on “clients” who had limited access to the services provided by the foundation. From the many ideas being generated in the Ideate stage, the best idea was selected to develop an app for parents of children with Asperger’s syndrome. Next, they built a low-fidelity prototype using basic materials to outline the data flow and to check the usefulness and usability of their proposed functionality. This helped validating their prototype with the sponsor and potential users. This stage helped getting feedback in view of making adjustments. By the end of the course, the team built a high-fidelity prototype using an online tool that aimed at delivering a close instantiation of the final product. This was presented during the final exam in the presence of the sponsor, facilitator and classmates. The sponsor – in the case of the Asperger foundation – was very satisfied with the results.

The students attended 28 sessions of 90 min (3 h per week). The course structure, contents, activities and materials were the same for all sections and facilitators followed the same guidelines. Finally, it should be noted that the other courses taken by students in their first semester are mainly focused on the development of hard skills instead of skills such as problem solving and creativity.

Participants

In this study N = 910 freshmen students participated who were enrolled in the Analysis and Problem Solving course. The average age was 19 years (SD = 2.17). The students’ background information is presented in Table 1 . The majority of the students were men, coming from urban areas. As expected, since this course is offered to first-year studens, most of them did not have working experience. Most of the participants were enrolled in a Science and Engineering program.

Given the large number of students, the course was taught to subgroups of students (sections). Each section comprised 35 students -on average- from different disciplines. In total, 27 sections of the course guided by 26 facilitators were included in this study. The facilitators were informed about the research study beforehand to minimize risk of bias. Informed consent was signed by all students after ethical clearance from university authorities.

Research instruments

In this study the research instruments used were (a) a case study developed by the authors Footnote 1 that was followed by a series of tasks/questions to be answered by students individually; (b) a rubric based on case specific criteria to map the quality of the problem solving and creativity skills. The same case study was presented at t0, t1 and t2. This case was based on a real-life problem related to user-experiences of a new service for riding bicycles at a university campus. To observe the use of problem solving and creativity skills, students were asked to complete four tasks related to the case study using a paper-based form.

Identify and properly define the main problem of the case.

Before proposing a solution to the problem you defined, what would be your strategies or steps to follow?

Propose and describe at least one innovative solution for the problem defined in question 1.

Reflect on the solution process(es) resulting from the former task.

The case study and the tasks were not used as scaffolds of the design thinking process, they were never discussed during the classes and they did not have any influence in the students’ course grades. Students did not have access to the case or tasks beforehand, and they were not informed that the same case and tasks would be applied three times. The students received 25–30 min to read the case study and solve the tasks/questions. Next, the solutions to the case study proposed by each student for the 4 tasks/questions were rated by peers, by themselves, and by their facilitator. The students identified themselves with a code only; thus, rating by peers and by facilitators involves a blind process. The involvement of the three raters is critical to respect the underlying constructivist assumptions related to design thinking; i.e. given the emphasis on students’ personal involvement and engagement, the key role of collaboration with peers and the supportive role adopted by the facilitators, all three should put forward their measurement of the impact on problem solving and creativity. In addition, the answers posed by the students for the 4 tasks/questions were rated on the base of rubrics. The evaluation instrument used by the three referred raters was based on an adapted version of the VALUE (Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education) rubrics Footnote 2 (Rhodes, 2010 ), and it focused on the identification and analysis of indicators related to problem solving and creativity. Each rubric criterion presents a description to be rated along five performance levels: A, B, C, D, E; where A represents the highest score and E the lowest. Given the scope of the course, the problem solving rubric used in the study focused on 4 out of the 6 original VALUE rubric criteria: (1) Define problem, (2) Identify strategies, (3) Propose solutions, (4) Evaluate potential solutions. The creativity rubric included 4 out of 6 of the original VALUE rubric items: (1) Acquiring competencies, (2) Taking risks, (3) Innovative thinking, (4) Connecting, synthesizing, transforming. Eight criteria were provided to develop a rubric to rate case solutions from a problem solving and creativity angle. The rubric started with the following instruction: “In order to use the rubric efficiently, we suggest you the following criteria to be applied to each of the answers about the case. Task 1 could be evaluated using the criterion Define problem; Task 2 with Identify strategies; Task 3 with Propose solutions, Innovative thinking, Taking risks; Task 4 with Evaluate Potential Solutions, Acquiring competencies, and Connecting, synthesizing, transforming”. The former induced a systematic approach in which raters first read the student input for each task and next applied the specific rubric criterion. This resulted in defining an explicit performance level (A, B, C, D, E). Some examples of the answers for question #3 (Propose and describe at least one innovative solution for the problem defined in question 1) were:

Example 1: “Students must take a cycling simulation test that recreates real-life campus’ road conditions to verify that students know how to use the bicycle correctly on different types of slopes. If a student passes the test, he will be allowed to use the bicycles” Example 2: “Visible and intuitive signs will be placed along the road of the bicycle lane to let cyclists know the moment and the type of gear shift that should be applied to the bicycle, depending on the peculiarity of each section of the road.” Example 3: “An online training for students embedded in one of the university’s technology platforms about the correct use of bicycles on campus. At the end of the training, students must take a test, and those who pass the test will be registered on a database of people allowed to borrow a bicycle on campus.”

Moreover, a pilot study collected feedback from course facilitators and undergraduate students (not involved in the present study) regarding the research instruments. Thus, this feedback allowed the authors to check the translation (from English to Spanish) and the consistency in interpretations. Note that these VALUE rubrics were not shared as part of the course; i.e. they were not part of the learning process.

Prior research has reported acceptable validity and reliability of VALUE rubrics (Finley, 2012 ; Mcconnell & Rhodes, 2017 ; Rhodes & Finley, 2013 ; Simper, 2018 ). Nevertheless, the translated and adapted versions of the instruments were reassessed in the context of the present study using univariate and multivariate techniques. Table 2 summarizes reliability analysis of the instruments at t0, t1 and t2 obtaining Cronbach’s alpha; i.e., how closely related rubric items are as a group. Given the use by three different raters, the coefficients suggest that the items for each skill (problem solving and creativity) have relatively acceptable internal consistency.

To check construct validity, the problem solving and creativity items were considered in an exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis with Varimax rotation) by imposing a two-factor solution (see Table 3 ). The analysis was repeated on the base of data from students, peers, and the facilitators at t0, t1 and t2. The analysis results show how all four creativity items load on the same factor (Factor A) at t0, t1 and t2 based on data from the three actors, except when processing t0 student self-evaluation. The problem solving items loaded on the second factor (Factor B). However, two items often loaded on the creativity factor (“Propose Solutions” and “Evaluate Potential Solutions”). At t2, most of the items fitted the specific factor as expected. Thus, the results reiterate the conceptual overlap between problem solving and creativity as stated earlier (Sawyer, 2006 ). In sum, this factor analysis allow us to conclude that the instruments were valid in the present context.

Research procedures

Building on the course structure, data were collected three times (t0, t1, t2) during actual class time and using paper-based forms. During the first week the first data collection was carried out (t0), then 8 weeks later (week 9) for a second time (t1) and 6 weeks later (week 15) for the last time. Given the natural (or authentic) setting of this study, the number of students participating in each data collection point differed. Details about the number of participants and procedure of the data collection in each time point and per rater are presented in a chart that can be found at the Online Resource 3. Each data collection session lasted about 60–75 min. The data collected during this research did not affect students’course grades. Results of this study are not reported at the level of course’s sections.

Before the intervention, the 26 facilitators agreed to participate in this study. Prior to the study, they received a training session, which focused on data collection and the application of rubrics to evaluate students’ performance in terms of problem solving and creativity. Hence, a standardized procedure was followed by all facilitators as they received instructions and a “kit” with the forms for the collection sessions.

At t0, in each course section, the students signed an informed consent, filled out a background questionnaire, and received the case study next to a sheet with the tasks/questions to be answered. Once the time for reading the case and answering the tasks was up, the facilitator collected all the answers’ sheets. Immediately after this part of the session, the facilitator assigned randomly to each student one answer sheet from one of the classmates (blinded version) and a rubric (see Research Instrument section) to rate the answers. At that stage, the facilitator explained how to use the rubric. Once completed, the facilitator collected the original answer sheets and filled out rubrics. Next, students were given their own answer sheets (identified by a personal code) as well as the same rubric to rate their personal answers. At the end of the session, the facilitators collected all sheets. Afterwards, the facilitators applied the rubric themselves to evaluate the work of each student. To facilitate this part of the process, SurveyMonkey software was used. The same procedure was applied at t1 and t2. As stated earlier, students were not aware of when and how they would be evaluated.

Analysis approach

To test the two hypotheses on whether students would show a higher performance in their problem solving (H1) and creativity (H2) skills as a result of a design thinking course, the researchers adopted repeated measures ANOVA. In addition, the perspectives of the students, their peers, and the facilitator were considered. The analyses were carried out with SPSS version 25. A significance level of p < 0.05 was put forward. Effect sizes (Cohen’s d) were additionally calculated in view of interpreting the importance of the analysis results.

Descriptive data analysis

Table 4 summarizes descriptive data of the dependent variables at t0, t1, t2. The results of the attained average scores reflected an apparent improvement over the time in all cases.

Figure  2 illustrates a consistent increase in problem solving scores according to the raters (students’ self-evaluation, peers, facilitators). Figure  3 shows the students’ performance in creativity based on the three raters. Hence, there it is evident an overall improvement from t0 to t2.

Mean in “Problem solving” scores (N students = 693; N peers = 682; N facilitators = 607)

Mean of “Creativity” scores (N students = 691; N peers = 682; N facilitators = 607)

The results of a correlation analysis of the scores are presented in Table 5 . The correlation measures describe positive and significant correlations.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): students who participated in a design thinking course improve their problem solving skills.

Self-evaluation results: the repeated measures within-subjects ANOVA show a statistically significant effect on problem solving performance over the time, according to the students’ evaluation, as presented in Table 6 . When looking at the analysis of contrasts results, we find a significant change from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and from t1 to t2. We observe an effect size of d = 0.85 in the change from t0 to t2. The effect size between t0 and t1 is larger than between t1 and t2.

Peers evaluation results: problem solving performance seems significantly affected over the time (see Table 6 ). Contrasts results reveal a statistically significant increase from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and also from t1 to t2. In contrast to self-evaluation’s effect sizes, a smaller effect (d = 0.60) is observed when comparing t0 and t2. The effect size from t0 to t1 is larger compared to t1 to t2.

Facilitators evaluation results: repeated measures ANOVA reflect that problem solving performance shows a statistically significant improvement over the time (see Table 6 ). When zooming in the contrasts results, we observe significant changes from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and also from t1 to t2. The ratings provided by facilitators show the largest effect size from t0 to t2 (d = 1.17), compared to the other two raters. The effect size between t0 and t1 is much larger than the change from t1 to t2.

Therefore, we can reject the null hypothesis and accept H1 : Students who participated in a design thinking course improve their problem solving skills .

Hypothesis 2 (H2): students who participated in a design thinking course improve their creativity skills

Self-evaluation results: the repeated measures within-subjects ANOVA results reveal a statistically significant increase in creativity performance over the time (see Table 7 ). When looking at the contrasts results, we observe statistically significant changes from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and also from t1 to t2. We observe an effect size of d = 0.94 when comparing t0 to t2. The effect size of changes between t0 to t1 is larger than the changes observed from t1 to t2.

Peers evaluation results: following the above statistical analysis approach, Table 7 shows that creativity performance has a significant increase over the time. Moreover, contrasts results indicate statistically significant improvements from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and also from t1 to t2. There is a slight smaller effect size related to changes from t0 to t2 (d = 0.79), compared to the one observed in students’ self-evaluation. The effect size from t0 to t1 is larger compared to t1 to t2.

Facilitators evaluation results: creativity performance shows a statistically significant improvement over the time, as shown in Table 7 . When looking at contrasts results, we also found significant changes from t0 to t2, as well as from t0 to t1, and also from t1 to t2. Similar to what happened in Problem Solving results when analyzing facilitators’ ratings, this type of rater reflects the largest effect size from t0 to t2, (d = 1.28), compared to students’ self-assessment and peers. The effect size of changes from t0 to t1 is considerably larger than the effect size related to changes from t1 to t2.

Therefore, we reject the null hypothesis and accept H2 : Students who participated in a design thinking course improve their creativity skills .

The present study explored the effects of design thinking on problem solving and creativity skills in first-year university students at three points in time (t0, t1, t2). A key aspect of the present study is the multi-actor perspective since the data were collected from different sources: self-reports, from peers and from facilitators. In addition, a strength of the present study is the robust design based on an operational definition of design thinking and the adoption of reliable and valid measures to study the impact on problem solving and creativity.

According to the data collected from the raters, the design thinking intervention had a positive significant impact on students’ problem solving (H1) and creativity (H2) skills when comparing t0 vs t2, as well as the other time slots t0 vs t1, and t1 vs t2 (see Table 6 and Table 7 ). A relevant observation is that from t0 to t1 the effect size of related changes seems to be larger than from t1 to t2. Nevertheless, all the time slots show a positive and statistically significant improvement.

Note that by t1, students had experienced the three design thinking stages: Research, Empathy and Define. Thus, in general terms, students were expected to adopt a human-centered approach, develop insights into their project-related problems and (re)defined their specific problem focus. At t2, the students had finished the other three design thinking stages: Ideate, Prototype, Validation; i.e., in the second part of the course students were encouraged to generate as many solution ideas as possible and tested the best ones with real users until proposing one that better fits to the problem previously defined. The scope of this study does as such not allow to determine at what specific stage the strongest development in problem solving or creativity skills did occur. Nevertheless, based on the techniques and tools students adopted at each stage, we might conclude that the first diamond of design thinking (research, empathy, defined) could contribute to a larger extent to the development of problem solving skills; while the second diamond (ideate, prototype validation) might have contributed more to boost students’ creativity skills.

Regarding Hypothesis 1, the results can be linked to the main features of the design thinking design and characteristics that were inspired by constructivist learning theory (Pande & Bharathi, 2020 ). The systematic mapping of problem solving phases onto the design thinking phases might have offered students sufficient structure and support to deal successfully with the complex problem solving projects; or as Lindberg et al. ( 2011 ) pose: Design thinking promotes a problem exploration space where instead of creating general hypotheses or theories about the problem, people get an intuitive (not completely verbalized) understanding through observing exemplary use cases or scenarios; and synthesizes this information to point of views. Our findings about the positive impact on problem-solving skills after a design thinking intervention confirm earlier research (Alhamdani, 2016 ; Bhatnagar & Badke-Schaub, 2017 ; Khalaf et al., 2012 ; Lee & Benza, 2015 ; Linton & Klinton, 2019 ; Lugmayr et al., 2014 ; Matsushita et al., 2015 ; Taajamaa et al., 2013 ). In addition, the emphasis on structured collaboration, explicit reflection on experiences, plans and products and the explicit availability of feedback by the facilitators and ‘sponsors’ might have boosted the design thinking potential. The importance of structure in the adoption of constructivism is a constant in the literature (Alesandrini & Larson, 2002 ). However, the lack of structure is often used to explain failure in the adoption of constructivist learning theories (see Kirschner et al., 2006 ). Therefore, current constructivist approaches often explicitly stress and embrace a ‘guided discovery’ principle (Mayer, 2004 ).

Furthermore, hypothesis 2 was also accepted. Creativity is often looked at through a constructivist theoretical lens (Edwards-Schachter et al., 2015 ) and it is one of the main skills associated with the outcomes of design thinking (Tsai, 2021 ). Prior research reported a positive effect of design thinking on the development of creativity skills (Balakrishnan, 2021 ; Benson & Dresdow, 2015 ; Clemente et al., 2017 ; Lee & Benza, 2015 ; Saggar et al., 2017 ; West et al., 2012 ). To explain our positive results, we can refer to specific design thinking design guidelines that pushed students’ divergent thinking in a pre-structured way. As Lindberg et al. ( 2011 ) point out there is a ‘solution space’ in design thinking where people are asked for a vast number of ideas in parallel and to make these explicit through sketching and prototyping techniques. In this way, ideas are expected to be converted into cognitive representations. Both spaces, problem space and solution space, in design thinking generate “a system of checks and balances to ensure that the conclusive solution will be both innovative and suitable for the social system that the design problem addresses” (Lindberg et al., 2011 , p. 6). Since the design guidelines offer structure, Sawyer ( 2011 ) stresses the need to balance this structure with more open instructional approaches when pursuing an impact on creativity. For example, one study based on self-perception questionaries (Ohly et al., 2016 ) found no design thinking-impact on creative self-efficacy after an intervention (n = 69). According to the authors of that study, the group format used in that course as well as a weak focus on creativity (shorter than a third of the course) may be the cause. The latter reinforces the importance of a proper structure, planning and guidance by the facilitator during a design thinking course which is fundamental, especially for promoting creativity.

Our findings for both hypotheses show a decrease in effect size (Cohen’s d) in the facilitator scores when comparing t0 to t1 versus t1 to t2 (Table 6 and Table 7 ). Thus, the facilitator expectations might have introduced bias in students’ evaluation (Jussim, 1989 ). In fact, some facilitators reported that their expectations on students’ performance were higher at the end of the course than at the mid-term. Nevertheless, it is interesting that for both skills, changes in facilitators’ scores reflect the largest effect sizes from t0 to t2, compared to students’ self-evaluation and peers’ scores in the same time slot. The above suggests the largest effect sizes in both skills’ improvement is related to the level of experience of raters. In the context of this study, facilitators could be considered the best trained raters, not only because their knowledge and experience in design thinking; but also because of their experience as teachers in the Analysis and Problem Solving course and other courses.

A key limitation of the present study is the lack of a control group. This is difficult to achieve since all first-year students in this university must enroll in the Analysis and Problem Solving course. Hence, future research could compare first-year scores from students enrolled in a different university in comparable programs. A further limitation to be addressed in future research is the background variables of students (professional experiences, gender) and the potential impact of mediating variables, such as motivation and/or self-efficacy. Moreover, the multi-actor focus of the present study could also be enriched by adding data resulting from qualitative research. As exemplified above, perceptions of the facilitators might be biased due to their expectations of progress related to time. It would be also interesting to complement the results obtained with the projects developed by students’ teams as part of the course. However, since the projects represent a significant percentage of the course grade, we prefer not to include them as measurement instruments since this would violate the informed consent agreement and could have introduced bias. As mentioned earlier, there is research pointing at the validity and reliability of specific VALUE rubrics; nevertheless, in our current context an inter-rater reliability study could result in more convincing arguments to adopt the instruments used. Finally, some readers may have a concern about a potential Hawthorne effect; however we rule out that risk since (a) students were informed that their participation in this course would not affect their grades; (b) students did not know exactly when and how they would be evaluated; (c) students’ names and personal information remained anonymous during the entire process; (d) students did not have access to consult their case’s answers at any point of the study; and the instruments as well as the results related to the study were not discussed during the semester.

Conclusions

The current study was an attempt to address critical features of current and past empirical research to study the impact of design thinking on creativity and problem solving skills of students in higher education. Therefore, we aimed at answering the call of Razzouk and Shute ( 2012 ) to set up a new wave of design thinking research that builds on valid performance-based assessments to examine the effects of the design thinking process on various students’ skills. Building on data from a large sample size and an intervention that operationalized design thinking design principles in a replicable way, we added a multi-actor focus to the impact study by looking at the performance ratings from students, peers and facilitators. In addition, the researchers are open to exchange their approach, materials, procedures and research instruments to facilitate a wider adoption of design thinking in higher education and achieve the key aim of developing the skills demanded by labor markets.

Data availability

The researchers are open to exchange, upon request, their approach, materials, procedures and research instruments.

Code availability

Not applicable.

The case study can be shared upon request to the authors.

The adapted version of the VALUE rubrics used in this study can be shared upon request to authors. The original versions of the VALUE rubrics can be accessed at https://www.aacu.org/value-rubrics .

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge ESPOL’s i3lab-Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center for administrative support. Also, our acknowledgment to facilitators and students for the participation and valuable feedback to carry out the study.

This research was partially funded by Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral and VLIR Network Ecuador.

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Sharon Guaman-Quintanilla

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Department of Accounting, Corporate Finance and Taxation, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Sharon Guaman-Quintanilla. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Sharon Guaman-Quintanilla and all authors commented on the next versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Guaman-Quintanilla, S., Everaert, P., Chiluiza, K. et al. Impact of design thinking in higher education: a multi-actor perspective on problem solving and creativity. Int J Technol Des Educ 33 , 217–240 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-021-09724-z

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Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges

This very informative article discusses design thinking as a process and mindset for collaboratively finding solutions for wicked problems in a variety of educational settings. Through a systematic literature review the article organizes case studies, reports, theoretical reflections, and other scholarly work to enhance our understanding of the purposes, contexts, benefits, limitations, affordances, constraints, effects and outcomes of design thinking in education.

Specifically, the review pursues four questions:

• What are the characteristics of design thinking that make it particularly fruitful for education?
• How is design thinking applied in different educational settings?
• What tools, techniques and methods are characteristic for design thinking?
• What are the limitations or negative effects of design thinking?

The goal of the article is to describe the current knowledge base to gain an improved understanding of the role of design thinking in education.

Read more...

How To Use Design Thinking In Education

Design Thinking is superfluous to mention when talking about innovation. Design thinking often comes to light when a group of people has to start a new project or solve a complex problem. Design thinking helps you solve problems creatively. Before design thinking, startups and industries used many techniques to solve such complications, but design thinking explicitly focuses on human-centered creative problem-solving. Design thinking skills in education enable students to identify and generate innovative solutions for the problems they face.

Design thinking is the strategy of empathizing and using additional tools to innovate or solve problems creatively. Students who can solve complex problems are named astute workers of society. The approach for design thinking may be different for different companies, but the 5 phases associated with design thinking will remain the same.

The first phase is often about gathering information and understanding the customer’s needs.

Define the ideas and conclude the information gathered from the previous step.

At this phase, you present ideas generated from the facts gathered from the previous step.

In this phase, you filter the ideas and decide the best course of action. You are required to develop a partial test prototype according to the design. The test prototype inspects whether the ideas suit and match the customers’ perspective.

You test the prototype with the end-users to validate the design before the development.

Design Thinking in Education

Design thinking perhaps is applied to any subject which primarily focuses on innovation and creation. Design thinking in education will let a student solve a problem individually. The learning process in design thinking integrates problem-solving and problem finding.

1) Design thinking will help a student in creative thinking.

Since design thinking resembles innovative thinking, it ensures students improve their individuality. Design thinking allows students to detect and define issues and subsequently develop solutions.

2) Design thinking will make a student open-minded

Design thinking shapes the path of the creativity of a student. When students start solving their problems with their ideas, it will enhance their confidence. That assurance will make them speak for their rights and accept reality.

3) Designing thinking – a must skill

As discussed previously, companies have multi techniques for designing and solving the issues. Industries are broadly applying the design thinking approach as it deals with every bit that can give a customer a satisfying project.

In design thinking, students will adapt to learning which involves gaining knowledge through exploring. Design thinking involves the accurate pathway of analyzing problems which gives great experience to them.

MIT ID Innovation

If you want to deep dive into design thinking, we recommend looking into MIT ID Innovation. It is the leading and the best design thinking course in Pune . MIT ID Innovation offers you digital transformation courses, user experience design courses, and design thinking.

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Design thinking in education: a case study following one school district's approach to innovation for the 21st century.

Loraine Rossi de Campos , University of San Francisco Follow

Date of Graduation

Document type.

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College/School

School of Education

Leadership Studies

Organization & Leadership EdD

First Advisor

Christopher N Thomas

Second Advisor

Patricia Mitchell

Third Advisor

The latest reform movement in education, known as 21st-Century Learning, is in

response to the transition from a primarily industrial-based economy to a knowledge- based one. 21st-Century Learning demands that educational organizations become more receptive to societal changes and provide educational services that can make the contributions needed to sustain our economic position in the world.

The purpose of this dissertation study was to understand how design thinking supports the implementation of 21st-Century Learning within a school district. Moreover, this project was designed to capture and understand how the strategic integration of design thinking, in the form of a District Design Team (DDT), promoted innovation within an elementary school district.

An opportunistic, single-case study, this dissertation was focused on the particular phenomenon of innovation within a specific elementary school district (Merriam, 2009). A Conceptual Framework was used to interpret and discuss the findings. Known as artifact analysis, this dynamic model captured the process and the context of the DDT while bringing into focus the attributes of the Design Team's role as a sophisticated artifact within the district (Halverson 2003, 2006; Halverson et. al., 2004).

Findings from this study indicated that the use of the DDT supported the communication of a definition for 21st-Century Learning throughout the district. Affordances like the use of an Implementation Plan, generated from the newly adopted Strategic Plan and a shared vision among district and site level leadership, aided the DDT in their work. Members of the DDT reported that design thinking played an important role in the mindset of the team and approach of the leadership. Further, all members of

the DDT identified benefits around the use of design thinking either as a problem-solving approach used to create opportunities to explore innovations in education or as a classroom application through design learning. The DDT also identified constraints and frustrations with the DDT process and the application of design thinking. This unique opportunity in public education yielded both practical and theoretical insight into the systemic change process of this small suburban school district.

Recommended Citation

Rossi de Campos, L. (2015). Design Thinking in Education: A Case Study Following One School District's Approach to Innovation for the 21st Century. Retrieved from https://repository.usfca.edu/diss/116

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Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges

2019, Open Education Studies

The article discusses design thinking as a process and mindset for collaboratively finding solutions for wicked problems in a variety of educational settings. Through a systematic literature review the article organizes case studies, reports, theoretical reflections, and other scholarly work to enhance our understanding of the purposes, contexts, benefits, limitations, affordances, constraints, effects and outcomes of design thinking in education. Specifically, the review pursues four questions: (1) What are the characteristics of design thinking that make it particularly fruitful for education? (2) How is design thinking applied in different educational settings? (3) What tools, techniques and methods are characteristic for design thinking? (4) What are the limitations or negative effects of design thinking? The goal of the article is to describe the current knowledge base to gain an improved understanding of the role of design thinking in education, to enhance research communicati...

Related Papers

Design Thinking is an innovative, creative and human-centered process and mindset that employs collaborative multidisciplinary teams in order to generate user-focused products, services or experiences. It has been applied beyond the original sphere of design work to business, engineering, technology, and more recently, education, because of its ability of advancing creativity and innovation by applying an empathetic, flexible and iterative approach. With the quest for a teaching methodology for 21st century skills, work habits and character traits, there has been, in the past five years, keen and wide interest towards Design Thinking as applied in education. This paper therefore provides a systematic, comprehensive and analytical methodology in mapping out and offering a critical review and analysis of over 68 journal articles, books and reports on design thinking in education. Overall, this paper recognizes the gains that can be made from utilizing Design Thinking as a methodology in education especially in the global quest of teaching 21st century skills. This paper also suggests a need to pursue further studies on the development of a Design Thinking framework for teaching.

Design Thinking is an innovative, creative and human-centered process and mindset that employs collaborative multidisciplinary teams in order to generate user-focused products, services or experiences. It has been applied beyond the original sphere of design work to business, engineering, technology, and more recently, education, because of its ability of advancing creativity and innovation by applying an empathetic, flexible and iterative approach. With the quest for a teaching strategy for 21st century skills, work habits and character traits, there has been, in the past five years, keen and wide interest towards Design Thinking as applied in education. This paper therefore provides a systematic, comprehensive and analytical strategy in mapping out and offering a critical review and analysis of over 68 journal articles, books and reports on design thinking in education. Overall, this paper recognizes the gains that can be made from utilizing Design Thinking in education especially in the global quest of teaching 21st century skills. This paper also suggests a need to pursue further studies on the development of a Design Thinking framework for teaching, learning, curriculum design & teacher training.

David Wooff

Book review for: Design Thinking for Education; Conceptions and Applications in Teaching and Learning, By Joyce Hwee Ling Koh, Ching Sing Chai, Benjamin Wong, Huang-Yao Hong.

Milena Droumeva

For most of my life, despite myself, I realize I’ve held the notion that school should be tough, boring, a character-builder, a secret society club one must prove worthy to enter. Seeing education as a prototyping process has finally allowed me (and thus, will create a space for my students) to have fun, to enjoy, to go on tangents, to push my dubious creativity, and gain confidence in the space between iterations.

proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED’09): Design Society

Åsa Ericson

Product development processes are commonly represented in sequential models covering the necessary stages from planning to product rollout, while processes to take needs into the development activities show other aspects, namely that understanding needs requires, for a product developer, additional skills. In our curricula for engineering design education we apply some aspects of design thinking to bring together (a) business savvy, in terms of understanding people&#x27;s needs as market opportunities, and (b) product ...

Carolina Gill

This paper's aim is to describe the collaborative efforts of two designers/educators who have been teaching the application of mindsets and methodologies associated with design thinking during the last eleven years. This journey started with a request to one of the authors to co-teach a course in the engineering training program at NASA in 2004 and has taken both authors through multiple iterations of courses in academic and professional environments. Several dimensions of the design-thinking curriculum are then detailed, explaining the evolution of the courses as the processes, methodologies and tools become increasingly recognized as useful tools to address complex challenges in which analytical approaches offer limited results. Participation of multiple disciplines, contexts and delivery methods are also discussed.

Proceedings of the 20th Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2018)

Katja Tschimmel , Joana Santos

Based on continual social and technological transformations, many academics and governmental organisations call attention to the need for urgent changes in Education. Design Thinking (DT), an innovation method derived from design methodology connected to business innovation, has shown itself also as an useful method to be applied in the innovation of educational systems. This paper provides an introductional approach to Design Thinking and its possible role in educational contexts as a method to rethink learning/teaching experiences. For this purpose we present the conceptual background of Design and Design Thinking, introduce Design Thinking in Education, and present the D-Think Toolkit, a new framework which aims to support the understanding of the designer's mindset and culture, and the application of its methods and tools in the redesign of education. The toolkit is the main result of the European research project D-Think, developed between 2014 and 2017 with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. The conclusion of our paper highlights that DT offers a complementary framework for the innovation work of educators, so transforming them into change-makers. The designers' creative and empathic mindset and collaborative working approach can enrich the reflection on the educators new role as 'learning facilitators'.

International Journal for Innovation Education and Research

Fabiano Pamato Nunes

Children become more motivated to learn when what is presented to them reflects or simulates their own reality, providing a sense of authenticity to education. This article aims to analyse which studies have already been carried out in the scope of the use and teaching of Design Thinking for children in the school environment. In order to achieve this aim, a descriptive exploratory research was conducted, based on the integrative literature review, with the Scopus and Web of Science platforms as the basis. It was noticed that Design Thinking is a valuable tool for the empowerment of children and adolescents, as it stimulates empathy, communication, creativity, and the ability to analyse and solve problems. One point that should be drawn from the articles is that there is few formally structured materials on the use of Design Thinking as a pedagogical practice, which can hinder its more accelerated dissemination. Finally, although interventions are centred on children and adolescents...

Journal of Ege Education Technologies

Yelız Tunga

Design thinking is a rising term in educational literature and role of design thinking in classrooms is one of current research subjects in these days. Design thinking a general approach that utilize the designer’s methods and sensibility to overcome problems in efficient and effective way in terms of technological and commercial aspects. In educational context, it is seen as a learning approach that mainly focuses on developing creative confidence of students. Before the emergence of design thinking, in educational literature design as a keyword has been one of the most used term in educational researches, as well. Design based learning, learning by design, reflective design based learning, learning technology by design are several examples. Therefore, it is necessary to recognize that whether design thinking is entirely new phenomena for educators or it is just the replication of previous design related learning approaches. In this paper, definition and current position of design thinking in the literature and relationship between design thinking and previous design related learning approaches has discussed. It is obtained that design thinking is sparkling phenomena yet it doesn’t completely new approach for educators and it has several similarities in both practice and theoretical perspective with earlier design-related educational studies.

Technology Supported Active Learning

Petri Vesikivi

Design thinking has been offered as a solution for various challenges entrepreneurship, educational, learning and team teaching to name few areas. In this chapter we concentrate on the educational, learning and stakeholder involvement—especially teachers and students—when using design thinking in module design. We shall present the previous studies on design thinking in module and curricular design. We describe step by step our experience on applying the design thinking methods, tools and mindset into designing an engineering project-based module anew. In the end, we ponder about the outcomes of the experience, which have been constructive but challenging.

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One domain in which design thinking finds a huge application is the education sector. These days, educators are using design thinking extensively to improve the quality of education in schools, especially in the kindergarten classes. Design thinking has been used in schools to upgrade the curriculum, or to redesign the student spaces or to make the entire experience of the students worthwhile.

Design thinking helps the school administrators to solve institution-based problems, helps in making the curriculum more valuable to the students and to engender design thinking skills in students as well.

REDLab Group

Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education has a REDLab group which conducts research on how to apply design thinking in kindergarten, 1 st to 12 th grade, secondary and post-secondary academic settings. The REDLab group has teamed up with Hasso Plattner Institute to create Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, which works for applying rigorous academic methods to understand the reasons behind the success and failure of design thinking programs.

In schools, students normally attempt exams in the form of question-answers based test, fill in the blanks or match case type of questions. All these don’t prepare the students for a society that is complex and has much more to it than plain facts.

Tools at Schools

The Tools at Schools group once conducted an activity with the 8 th grade students in The School at Columbia University. The activity included redesigning a locker, chair or desk to suit the requirements of 21 st century students. Design thinking was applied in this activity and the results were displayed in International Contemporary Furniture Fair. Design thinking also helps the pupils to learn how to work collaboratively in a team.

Degrees and Certification in Design Thinking

Design thinking has become so popular in the education sector that Radford University has begun offering a Master of Fine Arts degree in design thinking. It is an online degree emphasizing of design principles and design methodologies.

The Victoria-Cedar Alliance in Singapore offers a six-year Imagineering Program. This program offers an opportunity for the students to gain a deeper understanding of social issues, develop empathy and work to improve the lives of fellow human beings.

In education, design thinking helps the students to understand that they can create their own future by borrowing frameworks from other areas. This enables them to design their own experiences and participation.

Design thinking also helps in pedagogy. Teachers find it easy to find solutions by learning from the experiences of others, rather than just reading contents of a book. The collaborative activities help the teachers to teach the concepts in a better fashion to the kids.

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• Students – To develop the skill of solving problems creatively by asking the right questions. Today’s students need to connect the dots between academic knowledge & industrial applications to emerge as agenda-setters of tomorrow.
• Faculty – Our teachers need to shift themselves from “Teaching” to “Learning” & our customized programs aim to do exactly the same by brining mindset transformation.
• Leadership – Leaders need to design an ecosystem by bringing all the stakeholder together to champion Design Thinking to create inspired faculty and curious learners within the campus.

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Not at all. The programs of the School of Design Thinking are unique such that they not only introduce the concept, principles and tools of Design Thinking to participants, but they help ‘prepare the Design Mind’.

It varies based on the requirement of the audience. The School of Design Thinking does not take a one-size-fits-all approach. The faculty understands the needs of the participants and then formulates the sessions to meet participants’ unique requirements.

It all starts with the mind. While it is important to be familiar with Design thinking Tools, it is imperative to first design the thought (mind). The most important tool in Design Thinking is the human mind.

Most programs are anchored at the 8012 FinTech Design Center – a space that is dedicated to learn and practice Design Thinking across all domains and not limited to Financial Technology (Banking, insurance and other financial services). If teams from other parts of India cannot travel to the Design Center, the faculty would visit the organization. During the lockdown due to COVID 19, all courses have been duly modified to be offered online.

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