Design Forge explores how design thinking projects can enhance student learning

The “first-year student at X University” says she wants to do meaningful work that adds to her portfolio, but she has concerns about diving into a course that has project-based learning at its core. She struggles with understanding what she is supposed to do, and relies heavily on structured feedback from professors. 

“I hope my team pulls their own weight, and this project sets me apart from others, both as a team, and individually as well,” the “student” told the group gathered Thursday in Elon’s Center for Design Thinking. 

The “student” was actually Liesl Baum, associate director of strategic initiatives at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Virginia Tech. She was one of about 20 participants gathered in the Center for Design Thinking for the first Design Forge, a new offering from Elon held March 29 and 30 that is exploring how to leverage the benefits of design thinking to support student learning. 

During Design Forge, Baum and the rest of the group, led by Elon Director of Design Thinking Dawan Stanford, are considering how to integrate design thinking projects into course curricula in a way that enhances how students learn from the iterative and innovative process. The focus includes a look at the toolkit available to faculty members so they are able to weave these projects into the courses they teach in a way that they can support their students as they learn and ensure they have positive outcomes from the collaboration-based process. 

Design Forge is part of Elon’s design thinking initiative, now called Elon by Design, which was formally launched in 2016 with a focus on innovative new efforts to integrate design thinking into curricular and experiences across campus. Design thinking is a creative, solutions-generating process that starts with understanding real issues in real contexts. It then focuses on generating and testing solutions by encouraging creativity, teamwork, collaboration across disciplines, experimentation and learning from failures. Elon seeks to make these resources available to faculty who wish to explore what design thinking can mean for student learning.

Baum’s roleplay was early in the two-day Design Forge program as participants — 10 faculty and staff members from Elon joined by about a dozen peers from colleges and universities around the country — brainstormed the desires and fears of students as they participate in project-based learning experiences. As its name suggests, project-based learning is a teaching method that centers on students learning from engaging with one another for an extended period of time as they investigate a complex question or problem. 

Baum was presenting her group’s assessment of how students approach project-based learning to help guide the overall group as they explore what the learning journey should look like. Another element on Thursday was defining the roles faculty members should play as they support individual students and teams engaged in tackling these complex problems, as well as listing the challenges and opportunities from this type of approach.

Stanford told the group that the goal of the Design Forge, which is envisioned as a regular offering by Elon, is to look at design thinking projects as project-based learning. Design Forge is an opportunity to bring together practitioners and teachers of design thinking so they can have conversations about using projects to support how students learn, he said. 

“We want to pull together what we discuss here — what students show up with, what the learning journey looks like, what are the learning outcomes we’re seeking, and what would go into an ideal toolkit for faculty,” Stanford said. “The idea is to share this with a broader community of folks — how we might use design thinking to improve student learning.”

Design Forge is also offering participants the opportunity to get feedback from peers on a variety of projects they are working on through a “Hive Mind” session. Participants represented institutions such as the University of Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Northwestern University, Vanderbilt University, Carnegie Mellon University, Boise State University, the Milken Institute, Claremont Colleges, Texas State University, Tulane University and Alamance Community College. 

“I want everyone to benefit immediately from their participation in the event,” Stanford said. 

Looking beyond Design Forge, Stanford said the goal is to share the collective work from the two days of discussions and exercises. “I am hoping to make these lessons available so that we’re not just improving student learning at Elon, but we’re improving student learning at universities across the country,” Stanford said.