Design Thinking in Education

"Design Thinking is a design methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful in tackling complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown, by understanding the human needs involved, by re-framing the problem in human-centric ways, by creating many ideas in brainstorming sessions, and by adopting a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing. "

This was the jargon that normal people would have a problem in understanding. So let's use simpler language now.

Design Thinking can be used as a teaching method, which involves factoring in a student's knowledge base, various methods of learning, individual problems faced by students in understanding difficult concepts along with designing study content and teacher training to make it make learning student-centric. 

Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon outlined one of the first formal models of the Design Thinking process in his 1969 seminal text on design methods, “The Sciences of the Artificial,”. Herbert Simon's model has a sequence of seven major stages, each with component stages and activities, and it was largely influential in shaping some of the most widely used Design Thinking process models today. There are many variants of the Design Thinking process in use today, and while they may have different numbers of stages ranging from three to seven, they are all based upon the same principles featured in Simon’s 1969 model.

The five-stage model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford is as follows: 

Step 1 -      Empathize,

Step 2 -      Define (the problem),

Step 3 -      Ideate,

Step 4 -      Prototype, and 

Step 5 -      Test.

Let’s understand these five different stages of Design Thinking, by taking the classic problem faced by Mathematics teachers in helping students develop a sense of Probability, so that they can solve questions based on Probability in Aptitude Tests such as SAT, GMAT, GRE and CSAT. The reason we picked up this problem is that Probability in school and college syllabus does not create a problem as students handling Probability as part of school/college syllabus have the contextual foundation to understand it and questions are not confusing. On the other hand, when a teacher teaches Probability to students preparing for an Aptitude Test such as SAT or GMAT, then a lot of students may be out of touch with Mathematics or may have mentally decided that Mathematics is not their cup of tea, so these students have a mental barrier to challenging themselves with a difficult topic of Mathematics. Moreover questions in Aptitude Tests use confusing language and are objective (MCQs) with attractive trap answers. A third issue is that dozens of equations may be required to solve the Probability questions. Mugging up these formulas is not enough as you also need to realize which formula is required in which kind of a question. And if you have the sense to realize which specific formula is required, then you would automatically be so good at Probability that you do not need to mug up formulas, instead you will be capable of creating the specific formula depending on the question at hand. Well ! This needs a lot of hard work. These three problems require that a student has a sense of Probability, which is not even needed in a school/college exam.

We observed that teachers for Aptitude Tests have a certain sequence when they teach related concepts. They start with teaching Probability, move on to Permutation and then Combination, while the concept of Factorial is mentioned in the passing, when it's needed. All such teachers struggle with improving scores of their students and we wanted to solve this problem by using Design Thinking.

We will use the five-stage model proposed by the Hasso-Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford towards this end.

Step 1. Empathise - The first stage of the Design Thinking process is to gain an empathic understanding of the problem you are trying to solve. This involves consulting experts (experienced teachers) to find out more about the area of concern through observing, engaging and empathizing with students to understand their experiences and motivations, as well as immersing teachers in the physical environment to have a deeper personal understanding of the issues involved. Empathy is crucial to a student-centred design process such as Design Thinking, and empathy allows design thinkers to set aside his or her own assumptions about the situation in order to gain insight into students and their needs.

Depending on time constraints, a substantial amount of information is gathered at this stage to use during the next stage and to develop the best possible understanding of the users, their needs, and the problems that underlie the development of that particular product.

At this stage we found that students worked hard in class and practiced Probability questions at home. They could look at solved questions and understand them, but in about 30% new questions, they could not understand which formula is to be used to solve the problem. Teachers shared that students can understand how they solve the problems in class, but because of a disconnect somewhere, students got stuck completely while attempting 30% of new questions.

Step 2. Define (the Problem)

During the Define stage, we put together the information we have created and gathered during the Empathise stage. We will analyse our observations and synthesize them in order to define the core problems that we and our team have identified up to this point. We should seek to define the problem as a problem statement in a student-centric manner.

To illustrate, instead of defining the problem as our own wish or a need of the company such as, “We need to teach students better, so that they can independently solve all Probability questions independently after class, with a certain amount of practice,” a much better way to define the problem would be, “We need to identify why students get stuck on 30% questions of Probability despite being taught all concepts in class and understanding the representative questions solved by the teacher in class.”

The Define stage helped the designers in our team to gather great ideas to establish features, functions, and any other elements that will allow them to solve the problems or, at the very least, allow students to resolve issues themselves with the minimum of difficulty. In the Define stage you start to progress to the third stage, Ideate, by asking questions which can help you look for ideas for solutions by asking: “How might we teach Probability in a manner so that students can independently solve all question types with minimum amount of practice?”

Stage 3. Ideate

During the third stage of the Design Thinking process, designers were ready to start generating ideas. We had grown to understand our students and their needs in the Empathize stage, and we had analyzed and synthesized our observations in the Define stage, and ended up with a student-centric problem statement. With this solid background we and our team members could start to 'think outside the box' to identify new solutions to the problem statement we had created, and we could start to look for alternative ways of viewing the problem. There are hundreds of Ideation techniques such as Brainstorm, Brainwrite, Worst Possible Idea, and SCAMPER. Brainstorm and Worst Possible Idea sessions are typically used to stimulate free thinking and to expand the problem space. It is important to get as many ideas or problem solutions as possible at the beginning of the Ideation phase. You should pick some other Ideation techniques by the end of the Ideation phase to help you investigate and test your ideas to find the best way to either solve a problem, or provide the elements required to circumvent the problem.

At the Ideation stage, we realized that teachers not only did not flexibly come up with new ideas that could question their teaching regimen but also played the Devil's Advocate to any new methods of teaching the topic.

Ideation stage suggested that we tag every question of the related topics of Probability, Permutation and Combination, followed by identifying the competencies needed to solve the question. This competency identification was done to a micro-level of even documenting whether a student needs to be competent to handle the four mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

Stage 4. Prototype

The design team now produced a number of inexpensive, scaled down versions of the Faculty Note that was a script to be followed by a teacher while teaching PPC, then aligned the Faculty Note with the Text Book, Practice Exercises and Topic Test covering all possible type of questions on PPC. We investigated the specific features found within the Faculty Note and study material, so they we could investigate the problem solutions generated in the previous stage.

Prototypes were shared and tested within the team itself, in other departments, and on a small group of student volunteers outside the design team. This is an experimental phase, and the aim was to identify the best possible solution for each of the problems identified during the first three stages. The solutions were implemented within the prototypes and, one-by-one, they were investigated and either accepted, improved and re-examined, or rejected on the basis of the students' experiences. By the end of this stage, the design team had a better idea of the constraints inherent within the product, the problems that were present, and had a better/more informed perspective of how real users (new students) would behave, think, and feel when interacting with the end product.

Stage 5. Test

Designers or evaluators rigorously tested the complete product using the best solutions identified during the prototyping phase. This is the final stage of the 5 stage-model, but in an iterative process, the results generated during the testing phase are often used to redefine one or more problems and inform the understanding of the users, the conditions of use, how people think, behave, and feel, and to empathize. Even during this phase, alterations and refinements are made in order to rule out problem solutions and derive as deep an understanding of the product and its users as possible.

We may have outlined a direct and linear Design Thinking process in which one stage seemingly leads to the next with a logical conclusion at user testing. However, in practice, the process is carried out in a more flexible and non-linear fashion. For example, more than one stage may be conducted concurrently by different groups within the design team, or the designers may collect information and prototype during the entire project so as to enable them to bring their ideas to life and visualize the problem solutions. Also, results from the testing phase may reveal some insights about users, which in turn may lead to another brainstorming session (ideation) or the development of new prototypes.

It is important to note that the five stages are not always sequential — they do not have to follow any specific order and they can often occur in parallel and be repeated iteratively. As such, the stages should be understood as different modes that contribute to a project, rather than sequential steps. However, the amazing thing about the five-stage Design Thinking model is that it systematizes and identifies the 5 stages/modes you would expect to carry out in a design project – and in any innovative problem solving project. Every project will involve activities specific to the product under development, but the central idea behind each stage remains the same.

Our Take - The final prototype had certain features that were not completely being used by the most experienced of teachers, but when teachers used the complete prototype, they could flexibly accept the prototype as it gave measurable improvements in students. The features were :

Sequence - The correct method of teaching the related topics of Probability, Permutation and Combination is to start with Factorials as a foundation and teach all representative questions of factorials. This is to be followed by teaching Combination, then Permutation and finally Probability. Factorials has to be taught as a topic with same rigor that is used for Probability, even though no direct question is asked on Factorials.

Tagging - Having a comprehensive list of all possible questions which are solved by teacher in class and done as part of home work by student ensures that any lacuna in a student's understanding is identified and addressed.

Memory Reminders - After a class, students needed a table with a list of written formulas and the kind of questions in which they were used on.

Pre-Priming - Before a topic is taught, students need to be aware of the foundation which is needed to benefit from the class. 

This is an ongoing project. Any inputs on teaching Probability, Permutation and Combination for Aptitude Tests is solicited.