Design Thinking as a Course Design Methodology

Abstract

As the pace of societal and business change intensifies, so does the need to update curricula and innovate and optimize the delivery of courses within higher education institutions. Using an exploratory case study, we studied the use of Design Thinking as a course design method for designing an undergraduate entrepreneurship course. Despite being most commonly known as product or service design methodology, Design Thinking has shown promise as an innovation-oriented approach to course design. The case study shows how unlike traditional course design methods, the Design Thinking method is more empathetic and focused on the needs of students, is iterative, and supports creative solutions for key problems in the course. The key mindsets the teaching team developed were: (1) treating a course as an ever-evolving prototype; (2) empathizing with customers (students) to understand their beliefs, motivations, and needs; (3) rapidly responding to student feedback and consequently altering the prototype; and (4) changing the role of faculty members to not just deliver content but also to develop necessary skills and mindsets as well as to offer active support to student teams during project work. Some challenges of the method, such as the costs of continual prototyping, are also examined. This study adds to the limited body of literature on the use of Design Thinking in higher education for course design and innovation.