Abstract
With global trends turning towards increased personalization and expectations of higher education, the question of how to design relevant and high-quality advising services at scale that support learning outcomes, improve the student experience and enhance the acquisition of employability skills is a central challenge for many universities. The emergence of co-creation principles to better shape relevant solutions to engage students can also be applied to advising practice. This article explores the role of design thinking applied to advising at both the strategic and operational levels within one Australian university. With a holistic methodology, design thinking considers the needs of everyone in the system, delivering qualitative data that provides insights into behaviors and drivers that have implications for the ways in which advising services are defined, designed and delivered. It suggests that advising practice and the process of Human Centered Design share methods that can be powerful in bridging the gap that many students perceive between the institutional offering and the student experience.
Highlights
Advising students on curricular and co-curricular choices that support student success is increasingly recognized by educational policy makers as an integral component in enabling confident, capable, and critically-thinking learners who are ready for the world of work (Campbell and Nutt, 2008, p. 5; Kift et al, 2010, pp. 7–8; Young-Jones et al, 2013, p. 9)
Advising by Design and influence the design of advising programs at one university in Australia. It suggests that the idea of employing a range of defined methodologies drawn from design thinking can bring new insights into how institutions address advising impact and new ways of partnering for student success. It contributes to the growing body of literature on academic advising and personal tutoring, and the integral role this function plays in the student experience, student learning and engagement, and student success by increasing the understanding, empathy, and value of students’ lived experiences and their view on what assists and supports them to succeed
Design thinking has extended into the business, marketing, and management disciplines, with design-based methods and tools being applied in a range of customer experience and organizational settings through the lens of service design (Karpen et al, 2017, p. 393; Stickdorn et al, 2018, p. 22)
Summary
Advising students on curricular and co-curricular choices that support student success is increasingly recognized by educational policy makers as an integral component in enabling confident, capable, and critically-thinking learners who are ready for the world of work (Campbell and Nutt, 2008, p. 5; Kift et al, 2010, pp. 7–8; Young-Jones et al, 2013, p. 9). It suggests that the idea of employing a range of defined methodologies drawn from design thinking can bring new insights into how institutions address advising impact and new ways of partnering for student success In doing so, it contributes to the growing body of literature on academic advising and personal tutoring, and the integral role this function plays in the student experience, student learning and engagement, and student success by increasing the understanding, empathy, and value of students’ lived experiences and their view on what assists and supports them to succeed. One way of ensuring that advising is conceptualized and delivered holistically in partnership with students is to involve students alongside staff in the co-design, co-development, and even co-delivery of advising interactions, experiences, and services
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