CULTIVATING DESIGN THINKING VIA KNOWLEDGE BUILDING

Huang-Yao Hong

Content

Design thinking Knowledge building Two studies

Pre-service teachers designing technological products through knowledge building

Pre-service teachers designing lesson plans through knowledge building

Design thinking

Design thinking

Design thinking

Design thinking

The “world we live in today is much more a man-made, or artificial, world than it is a natural world” (Simon 1996, p.2). (video link)

Design thinking is concerned with all aspects of the man-made world including material objects and immaterial

concepts.

Design thinking

Design thinking

1st world knowledgeMatter = the natural world.

2nd world knowledgeMind = the psychological world.

3rd world knowledgeWhat’s mind? Doesn’t matter. What’s matter? Never mind. Ideas as building blocks for the 3rd

World

Design thinking

How to design a new chair?

Design thinking

How to design a new chair?

Design thinking

How to design different lighting experience?

Design thinking12

Design thinking

Types of design? Interior Fashion Architecture Game Garden Circuit …

Design thinking14 Instructional design

Designing instruction Designing learning materials Designing class activities Designing a course Designing learning experience Designing the next generation of citizens

Teaching with technology

Teaching with technology

facilitate knowledge acquisition and individual earning. e.g., Cobocards.com: online flashcard software WM3

Teaching with technology

To facilitate knowledge creation and collaborative learning, e.g., Scratch KF

Knowledge Building (KB)

Definition of KB: a social process focused on sustained production and improvement of ideas, of value to a community (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2006).

Knowledge Building (KB)

“Ideas” ‘conceptual

artifacts/objects’. basic ‘units of

thought’ or ‘objects of inquiry’.

building blocks for knowledge advances.

are improvable.

Example of idea Improvement

20

How to simply preserve food in a dormitory without a fridge?

Example of idea Improvement

21

Can we collaboratively work out some ideas for improving scissors, making it more useful…

Example of idea Improvement

22

Idea aversion23

Disempowerment of ideas (Papert, 2000) Idea aversion

Idea aversion24

Disempowerment of ideas (Papert, 2000) Emphasis on

acquiring factualknowledge

E.g. (traditional education) and (history 101)

Idea aversion25

Empowering ideas

Empowering ideas

Empowering ideas

Discussion

What do you think of knowledge building?

Advantages and disadvantages? Is it feasible?

Study 1

Pre-service teachers designing technological

products through knowledge building

Context and Participants

Context: A university course in Taiwan

Participants (n=30): teacher education students Ages: from 18 to 20 Planned to teach living technologies and

natural sciences at elementary school level Instructional goal: Develop design thinking

capacity

Instructional approach

Knowledge building pedagogy Real-world problems Generate their design ideas Work innovatively with ideas Design technology artifacts Example: To make a technology device

more energy-saving

Knowledge Forum

Computer-assisted online learning environment

A tutorial lesson was given at the beginning of the semester

Instructor with 6 years of experience of using Knowledge Forum in college teaching

Principle-based guidance to support online learning

Knowledge Forum

Data sources

A mixed approach to data collection Main data sources:

(1) students’ online interaction logs and discourse recorded in a KF database and

(2) the technology products designed by students.

Data analysis 1

Overall pattern of online interactions T-tests comparing two KB phases to show

main change over time. Content-analysis of the development of

ideas, examining how ideas were improved (3 criteria): Diversification Clarification Integration

Data analysis 1

Type Description Example Diversification

Presenting divergent ideas for solving a technological issue or problem

My ideas of a well-constructed building include: (1) having excellent safety measures, (2) using high-quality materials, (3) having practical value, and (4) being environmentally friendly.

Clarification

Adding details or more explanations to a focal idea for addressing a problem

I wonder if it is possible to change some electric equipment by using wireless power transmitters and receivers so that we no longer need electric wires or cables. But will this change cause other issues or problems? Let’s think about it.

Integration

Synthesizing two or more ideas into an even more persuasive idea

After reading all your ideas about generating electricity through daily human activities (e.g., during walking, swimming, talking, or cycling), I think we can integrate all the ideas by designing a power collector that can gather together all the tiny amounts of electricity generated from our bodily movement.

Data analysis 1

 Diversification  Description: Presenting divergent ideas

for solving a technological issue or problem

Example: “My ideas of a well-constructed building include: (1) having excellent safety measures, (2) using high-quality materials, (3) having practical value, and (4) being environmentally friendly.” 

Data analysis 1

Clarification  Description: Adding details or more

explanations to a focal idea for addressing a problem

Example: “I wonder if it is possible to change some electric equipment by using wireless power transmitters and receivers so that we no longer need electric wires or cables. But will this change cause other issues or problems? Let’s think about it.”

Data analysis 1

Integration Description: Synthesizing two or more ideas

into an even more persuasive idea Example: “After reading all your ideas about

generating electricity through daily human activities (e.g., during walking, swimming, talking, or cycling), I think we can integrate all the ideas by designing a power collector that can gather together all the tiny amounts of electricity generated from our bodily movement.”

Data analysis 1

Inter-coder Cohen’s kappa (κ) coefficient was computed as .894.

Deep design thinking is usually represented by idea synthesis activity (Meinel & Leifer, 2012).

It was expected that progressively more idea-synthesizing activities (rather than just focusing on idea diversification and clarification) could be found towards the end of the course.

Data analysis 2

Quality of the technology products technology products in concept ; not actual

products The goal was to foster design thinking,

rather than producing real products. Peer-assessed using Besemer’s (1998)

“Creative Product Analysis Matrix (CPAM).”

The original scale has an internal consistency reliability level of Cronbach’s α = .83.

Data analysis 2

CPAM adopted a 7-point Likert scale. Using a 4-point average as a baseline

rating for comparing another commonly seen product (e.g., a typical toilet)

A one-sample t-test was conducted to see if there were any significant differences between the designed products and the baseline products.

Results

Online interaction and idea development patterns over time

Results

Online building-on activities, from phase 1 (left) to phase 2 (right). Each dot/line = a student/connection.

Results

Example of developing & synthesizing ideas to design a tech product (i.e., toilet)

Results

Enhanced design capacity: designed (left) vs. common (right) product, w/ sig. diff. btw 2 sets of ratings (M=5.83, SD=0.77,

t=19.05, df=9, p<.001):

Study 2

Pre-service teachers designing a lesson plan

through knowledge building

Context & participants

Context: A university course in Taiwan

Participants (n=13): pre-service teachers Plan to become middle-school math

teachers Duration = a semester (18 weeks) Instructional goal: Develop design thinking

capacity

Instructional approach

Knowledge building Highlights sustained improvement in the

participants’ teaching ideas and teaching artifacts (e.g., lesson plans) by means of collaborative knowledge advancement.

A common educational view in Taiwan: Learning as knowledge telling Goal of teacher education: helping teachers

to master core teaching knowledge and skills.

Instructional approach

Principle-based guidance: Real ideas and authentic problem: idea

generation activity (i.e., posting initial teaching ideas for lesson design)

Epistemic agency: self-initiated and -directed teaching practice, with participants taking turns to practice teaching

Idea diversity and improvement: online peer feedback through sustained online collaboration

Knowledge Forum

Knowledge Forum Tutorial lesson on how to use Knowledge

Forum was provided in the beginning of the semester.

Principle guides participants to generate their teaching ideas, develop their teaching artifacts (e.g., lesson

plans, learning sheets, and teaching media), and

provide feedback to one another for improving teaching

Data sources

Teaching ideas recorded in the database Students’ lesson plans Videotaped teaching practices.

Data analysis 1

Quality and types of feedback for ideas contributed online Content analysis on feedback (essential

activity as the capacity to give constructive and productive feedback to help one another design lessons and improve teaching practices represents a critical factor in developing one’s critical thinking and articulation skills (Shute, 2008), which constitutes an important part of one’s design thinking.

Coding scheme: TPACK (Mishra & Koehler, 2006)

Data analysis 1

Data analysis 2

Analysis on design focus Collins’ (1996) argues that depending on

one’s design focus, there are trade-offs in designing any learning environments.

Coding: didactic vs. constructivist design focus

Data analysis 2

Data analysis 2

Analysis on micro-teaching (video-taped) Using class activity (e.g., teacher lecture or

student discussion) as unit of analysis Content-analyzed (using same coding scheme)

Didactic-oriented (e.g. lecture, demonstration, asking true-false questions, direct instruction…).

Constructivist-oriented: (e.g., problem-solving, teamwork, group debate and discussion…).

Percentage of time allocated to each teaching activity was compared, using a paired-sample t-test for analysis.

Results

Analysis of the quality and types of teaching ideas

Results

Change in participants’ design focus and teaching orientation as learning outcomes

Summary

Design thinking as important skill for pre-service teacher education

Knowledge building pedagogy as an innovative, pedagogical means to facilitate design-thinking

In particular, principle-based instruction seems to be able to give the pre-service teachers enough flexibility to work more creatively and adaptively with their design ideas for continuously improving their design artifacts.

Limitations

The measurement was mainly focused on assessing design ideas and designed artifacts

No direct evidence (experiment) to confirm that there is a causal effect on participants’ design thinking skills

Case studies: can only suggest that KB is related to positive changes in participants’ work with their design ideas and designed artifacts.

Thanks!