Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context

Abstract

Though design thinking has gained increasing popularity in higher education, few studies have explored how it is perceived and taught in non-western contexts. This study identified and reviewed twenty design thinking related courses offered as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) taught by instructors from a number of Chinese universities between February and June 2020. Further, we selected six courses from these MOOCs for in-depth analysis by reviewing the design cases and examples introduced in the course videos. Our findings reveal the absence of wellstated learning outcomes, and lack of diversity when it comes to the cultural contexts and design areas of the design cases covered in all the MOOCs. We propose three recommendations for future design of DT-related MOOCs in the Chinese context, in terms of situating teaching design thinking in the wider curriculum structure, integrating more active and peer learning components to create better flipped learning experiences, and increasing the diversity of design cases. Apart from supplementing current case studies, this research can shed light on why and how the teaching of design thinking can be modified in different contexts, to achieve quality rather than simply borrowing design thinking as a much-hyped concept. Keywords Design thinking • MOOCs • Higher education • Learning outcomes • Design casesOver the past two decades, design thinking (DT) has re-emerged as a popular concept and framework to promote innovative problem-solving approaches. The close association between DT and innovation is advocated by both IDEO, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford University. IDEO is a design consultancy that applies DT in the corporate setting, and the latter (widely known as the Stanford

Application of Multimedia Technology in Online Piano Teaching

“…Yuan and Wu identified and reviewed twenty design thinking related courses to be taught by coaches from many Chinese universities as MOOC (massively open online courses) between February 2020 and June 2020. ere were a lack of well-represented learning outcomes and a lack of diversity in the cultural context and design domain of all the design cases covered by the MOOC. e future was designed with DT-related MOOC in a Chinese context for instructional design thinking within a broader curriculum structure that integrated more active and peer-to-peer learning components to create a better flipped learning experience and increase design diversity [4]. ese studies are instructive to a certain extent, but in some cases, the demonstrations are insufficient or inaccurate and can be further improved.…”

The Implementation of Design Thinking in Education: Will It Serve the Purpose?

“…Numerous scholars have laid out different interpretations of Design Thinking from past studies. The well-known interpretation without using the term Design Thinking itself comes from Herbert Simon (1969) which is a systematic approach to solving obstacles existing in real life and turning them into preferred ones (Girgin, 2021;Henriksen et al, 2019;Johansson-Sköldberg et al, 2013;Koh et al, 2015;Yuan & Wu, 2021). By focusing on the concept of 'existing' and 'preferred', Design Thinking managed to distinguish itself from the Pure Sciences process since Pure Sciences usually cares more about how matters really are while Design Thinking focuses on how matters expect to be and comes up with solution or prototype to achieve the intended objective.…”

“…The elaboration of wicked problems by Buchanan (1992) becomes the underlying concept of the next prominent interpretation of Design Thinking which is the step-by-step methodology consisting of two phases. The first phase is an analytical path of problem definition, then subsequently, a synthetic sequence of problem solutions that will be used when dealing with ill-defined disputes prevailing in real life (Henriksen et al, 2019;Johansson-Sköldberg et al, 2013;Luka, 2020;Tschimmel & Santos, 2019;Yuan & Wu, 2021).…”

“…The concern surfaces on how to implement Design Thinking when planning a lesson. As per the research of Yuan & Wu (2021), there are challenges in integrating the Design Thinking approach with planning a lesson if the learning outcome is not fully identified at the early stage. Hence, it is vital for teachers to have a better understanding of the Design Thinking strategy before using it.…”