Resource:How to create a design thinking class for incoming first-year students

NEED AND GOAL

The need identified in this  ‘How To” is to create a design thinking class for the incoming first year students. A popular topic in the UIF exploration of higher education is the incorporation of design thinking, which when incorporated into curriculum is highly beneficial.

The purpose behind the course is to lay a framework of design thinking skills that students will use later in their college careers while simultaneously learning about their major.

Through this article we discourseone example which relates how we can design a design thinking class for the fresher’s.

Jason Weis is a fourth year student studying Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech (GT). At Georgia Tech, Weis has been involved with many mentorship programs, including being a co-founder of the campus wide KNIT Mentorship and a leader of the BME Mentorship Program. He became part of University Innovation Fellow by March 2017. Since becoming a UIF, Jason and the GT Leadership Circle have designed and implemented a class that integrates design thinking and exploring BME.  

OBJECTIVES AND GOAL                                                              

The purpose behind the course is to lay a framework of design thinking skills that students will use later in their college careers while simultaneously learning about their major. While introductory courses can be passive and information-oriented, Design thinking is an engaging and creative way for students to gain critical thinking and problem solving skills.

WHY DESIGN THINKING?

Starting a class centred around design thinking would be a useful tool for students as it would encourage exploration of what they could do with their majors and more. Additionally, this class would help shape critical thinking process of the students by engaging them in hands on experience. Design thinking allows the students explore ideas in different ways and dive deep into their meanings.

ACADEMIC PERMISSION

Once the direction and type of changes to the curriculum are decided on, the end “goal” of the work will be to gain academic permission for the changes to be made. In some cases, permission comes from faculty support and committee acceptance and in others it requires a more stringent administrative review.

Oppositions can be dealt by conducting a few classes to interested students and gaining support from them that can be shown to the authorities to gain their confidence.

SUPPORT

Academic support is one of the hardest, but most important steps in creating change. There are three major groups to interact with that will enable build support are:

1. Students

Getting a large audience on board is an important step.

2. Faculty

Faculty support is crucial to creating change in curriculum.  They are the ones who teach the classes on a daily basis and know all of the connections needed to change the direction of a course. So  working with these professors will eventually lead us to the right people and help create change.  

3. Administrators

Administration is the most difficult to receive support from. They don’t want to see a change in the campus immediately as they usually assume it as money they have to spend, and this is why it is hard to get them invested financially.  

FACULTY

Instructors are either the faculty or students who can

·         Tutor the students, what design thinking is?

·         Guide the students

·         Walk around to mentor their projects

·         Inspire them by their prototypes etc.

STUDENTS

Students who do well in the course could potentially be trained to teach the following year; however, as of right now only University Innovation Fellows have been trained to facilitate the course. For the first time running this course, the intention is for first year biomedical engineering students at Georgia Tech to be trained in the ways of design thinking. This includes about one thousand students. Students are inspired by the UIF team and the groundwork they have laid out for prototyping. It is optimal for first year’s to be the initial students who try out this course because they are often so open to opportunities and creativity. Through this design thinking primed class they are able to show amazing results in the form of prototypes, presentations, and many more..

 

TIMELINE

The existing timeline for curriculum review at your university can be used to introducing these classes as well like one hour a week or so.

CLASS STRUCTURE

The class structure can expand to topics of one introductory course for all majors to help freshman decide a major based on their interests in this design thinking class.

GRADINGSYSTEM

Any grading system with considerable importance to attendance can be used. Attendance is important because only if you are present and prototype can you learn the concept of the day.

Grading system of opted in this course depends on

•         Attendance
•         Assignments
•         Prototyping
•         Presentations

COST

To create this program there is not much funding. The main costs are of the prototyping materials needed throughout the class such as sticky notes, paper etc. This class has minimal cost to the school and the students are expected to buy just the “Design Your Life” textbook for reference.

CONCLUSION

Thus a design thinking class would be one of its kind and help students explore the real essence of education.

Written by

Shruthi co

Bhavyatha Pandrangi

Lexy Foor

Savanna Turner

Sally Todd

Srikar Kashyap Pulipaka

Jaran Arroyo