Teaching Design Thinking
I’ve taught design thinking for 7 semesters at the college level, as well as in a second language while living in Vanuatu.
My role: Course development, lecture planning, teaching design platforms, teaching design theories, mentoring new designers, providing design feedback, and offering networking connections.
Course Design
Course design is a lot like user experience design. My approach is to meet the students where they are and not where I want them to be. This is mutually beneficial and facilitates growth. Depending on the course level, I design my courses to promote design thinking methods, beginning with basic design principles and using the “learn by doing” method to teach comfortability in various design softwares.
Design Principles decks for my Design & Type 1 course.
Design Thinking
I modify the design thinking methodologies depending on my student’s base level at the beginning of the course. Empathy, defining your goal, ideation, designing and receiving feedback is a linear process in theory, however, in my years of working as a designer, this process is rarely ever linear. I teach and practice approaching design as a cyclical process with emphasis on the importance of scaling your processes with scope limitations in mind.
