Students should not be receivers of information, as theories such as constructivism or liberation pedagogy already stated in the 70’s and 80’s, or other more modern approaches to teaching such as invisible learning (a meta-theory, focusing on motivation, curiosity-driven learning, and the impact of technology) reminded us. They should be shapers of knowledge, participants in a personalized instruction; learning by doing. We will show how to use design thinking (whose processes were first stablished in 1969)―which seems to have a natural link to STEM courses―in the Humanities, giving examples of some of our classes (Methods of Teaching Spanish, Revolutionary Ideas in Latin America). Deeper thinking and problem-solving challenge students to go beyond the typical question-answer sequence, since their attention is oscillating between their understanding of a problematic context and their ideas for a solution, what produces a constructive result. Design thinking means collaboration, and problem solving. It is also a process, to identify challenges, gathering information, generating and testing solutions, and refining ideas, so it is perfect to use in education, incorporating many other new tools, approaches, and theories, old and new, such as the “just in time” learning, Bono’s six thinking hats, and the flipped classroom.
We will show how to use design thinking, whose processes were first stablished in 1969, and which seems to have a natural link to STEM courses, in the Humanities, giving examples of some of our classes (lower level courses on Spanish Language, but also upper level courses of the BA in Spanish, and even the MA in Spanish (Methods of Teaching Spanish, Spanish Dialectology, Revolutionary Ideas in Latin America). Design thinking means collaboration, and problem solving through deep thinking, what challenge students to go beyond the typical question-answer sequence, since their attention is oscillating between their understanding of a problematic context and their ideas for a solution, what produces a constructive result. It is also a process to identify challenges, gathering information, generating and testing solutions, and refining ideas, all in a collaborative environment, so it is perfect to use in education, incorporating many other new tools, approaches, and theories, old and new. It can be used in any kind of classes, but since collaboration is a challenge in online and hybrid classes, it seems useful to create projects following this approach.
Design thinking is the cognitive process from which design concepts (e.g. ideas for products) emerge. It is an approach to learning through collaboration and problem solving, taking into consideration people’s experience and feedback. It integrates human, business and technical factors in problem forming, solving and design (Leifer and Steinert, 2011: 151; in Luka, 2014: 63).
When we apply this approach, and its tools, we are moving away from the focused, and somewhat narrow, analytical traditional academic teaching, and we foster inquiring and divergent thinking, creativity. But this does not mean chaos, since it is also a structured process to identifying challenges, finding information, refining ideas, generating prototypes/products, and testing them. There are some phases or stages with questions and techniques that we can follow to get students engaged but without let them feel lost. Design thinking encourages reflection, collaboration, experimentation, and incorporation of feedback to improve our product (Luka, 2014). This product is the project (poster, brochure, website, video…), and in a way this process is going to sound familiar to many language instructors, since multiple tools and strategies are widely used. For example, creating a digital story (something many foreign language instructors are familiar with) also follows a very structured, creative and user-oriented pattern. Also, many instructors in the teaching methodology area are used to various other techniques and approaches, such as project-based learning, for example, that have similarities with design thinking, since students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time investigating to be able to answer to an authentic, engaging, and complex question or challenge.
Design thinking can be used in a brief version or a long one, it depends on the project and the time you have. It provides a lot of tools, and you must pick what is best for your project. We will show some of these tools.