Unit 3: Design Thinking in Education

Overview

As an instructional designer or coach, you will often be tasked with leading innovations or innovative thinking exercises at your school. This activity will give you practice in learning how to think keeping a target audience in mind and designing possible solutions that would work for that target audience. It will help you channel your creative thoughts and energy towards solution building.

Performance outcome

• Candidates will experience and gain an understanding of design thinking while going through a design workshop.

What will you do?

1. Watch and annotate the video from the dSchool at Stanford University. Please use the video in the activity resources that has a star next to it. Use the participant packet in the Activity Resources to help the process through the workshop. 

2. Create a document and annotate the video on the different elements of the design cycle and how these could connect/implement into classroom learning and teacher planning. 

3. As a final annotation, provide a clear reflection on the video. 

4. Submit the document with your annotations and reflection.

5. The whole group will participate in a design thinking experience in the next VC. 

6. On the Discussion Forum, brainstorm ideas of how you would implement a design thinking workshop for teachers at your own school. List down the challenges you foresee and possible solutions to those challenges.

Report requirements

• Create a document and annotate the video, including a final annotation of reflection on the design thinking process. 

• Participate in a design thinking session with your cohort in the Virtual Classroom

• Brainstorm ways to implement a design thinking workshop at your own school

Overview

Now that you have gone through the design thinking exercise, you understand the process of thinking within an instructional design framework as well as brainstorming ideas for a solution that is relevant to the target audience. The first big step in creating a solution is understanding the learning needs of your target audience and then designing a learning solution that best meets their learning requirements. This learning need is sometimes also called the learning gap, i.e. the gap between the current level and the targeted goals. You can think of an elearning solution to help close this gap or meet the learning requirements or a blended learning solution. Try to pick a case that lends itself to use of educational technology, preferably an efficient and effective use of edtech. When building a solution it is important to keep reminding yourself not to over-engineer or underplay the solution and focus more on the learning value of what you are proposing. 

Performance outcome

• Candidates will create a learning design solution for an assumed target audience.

What will you do?

1. Review the TEACH-NOW Learning Design template that you will be using to design a learning solution for an assumed target audience. You will be completing Phase I of the Learning Design document for this activity. 

2. Review the research you conducted on learning theories and instructional design models in this module as well as the data from the surveys you conducted previously. 

3. Identify a target audience for whom you would like to design a learning design solution. It could be for students, teachers or support staff at your school or for a mixed group audience. It is important to identify the characteristics of the target audience specifically from the point of view of the learning needs or gaps that you have identified and how this impacts your learning solution. From your target audience description you should be able to derive:

   • The Purpose or Goal for your Learning Solution

   • The Learning Levels that you are targeting (higher- or lower-order thinking skills on the Bloom’s taxonomy)

   • Relevant learning theories, instructional design models, and other research  

4. Brainstorm with your cohort in small groups or with a partner on the possible learning solution you could design for your selected target audience. Discuss ideas and strategies that appeal to you and you think would be appropriate for your target audience.  

Report requirements

• Phase I of the Learning Design Solution document

Notes

You will be completing the learning design solution in the final unit of this module so try to get as much of the thinking about the learning solution done as you can so that you can spend the next week documenting and presenting it.