2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Design thinking in collaboration with students to identify and address learning challenges in two science and engineering courses
Presented at Design Thinking and Student Design Teams
Research in engineering education has called to our attention the need for transformative mindsets and complementary tools for student-centred learning and related teaching opportunities. Despite, or perhaps due to the logical and pragmatic nature of traditional science and engineering approaches, the authors appreciated the opportunity to learn from broader conversations in teaching and learning inquiry and from educators in other disciplines about more meaningful ways to generate a deeper understanding of student learning challenges and how they might be addressed to improve our teaching. In this study, we built on the literature on “design thinking” and “students as partners” as pedagogical approaches to enhance student learning.
The objective of this work was to explore how science and engineering educators can use empathetic design, known in the design space as “design thinking,” to engage students in improving their learning. Individual interviews were conducted with students from two courses, a graduate level engineering course and an undergraduate science course. Participants described their values and motivations in relation to their learning though stories about specific aspects of the course curriculum. An empathy map, a design thinking tool, was used by researchers to analyse each interview, identifying needs and insights about students’ engagement in each course. Based on this initial understanding of student learning challenges, researchers generated ideas to improve learning. Participants were then invited to join small focus group discussions to share their feedback and contribute their own ideas on the reimagined learning experience.
From researchers’ reflections and collaborative discussions, three themes emerged in relation to fundamental learning problems shared by students across disciplines: students’ challenges in allowing themselves to be vulnerable – and more specifically, learn from failure – throughout the learning process, collaboration with peers and instructors to achieve understanding (in contrast to a divide and conquer strategy to attain the “correct” final outcome), and, related to each of these, co-learning opportunities for students and educators for greater impact on both teaching and learning.
This study demonstrates the value of engineering and science educators applying design thinking tools and mindsets in collaboration with students as partners in reimagining their teaching and learning experiences.
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Monica De Paoli McMaster University [biography]
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Dr. Robert V. Fleisig McMaster University [biography]
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