Abstract:
Pedagogy is a challenging subject, it has a wide scope comprised of theory and practice, and it couples with the new demand of the global trend to promote teaching innovations. This project applies design thinking to the curriculum design of pedagogical courses by incorporating two simultaneous phases based on five design-thinking skills. In the problem phase, students ‘empathise’ and ‘define’ how a certain strategy is planned by exercising pedagogical judgement. In the production phase, students practice three other design-thinking skills, i.e. ‘ideate’, ‘prototype’ and ‘test’ to try out new ideas in a full design thinking cycle. The evaluation results are positive. Based on 67 participants’ responses to a questionnaire at two-time points from two courses in which a design thinking curriculum is fully implemented, significance is identified in terms of creative self-efficacy and teaching innovation. Content analysis of students’ group lesson plan projects indicates emerging innovative elements, students reflected that they become more confident in lesson design and begin to develop reasoning in pedagogical design. The project has applied in four courses with varying extent of use of design thinking, benefiting over 264 students. The project materials are open-access which has attracted substantial viewers. The project advances the theory and practice of teacher training to promote scholarship in education.
Code:
T0248
Principal Project Supervisors:
Keywords provided by authors:
Start Date:
01 Dec 2020
End Date:
31 May 2022
Status:
Completed
Result:
This new curriculum design uses a new approach to develop teachers’ pedagogical knowledge in teacher education programmes. It runs in two phases simultaneously that guide students to ‘empathise’ and ‘define’ how a certain strategy is planned by exercising pedagogical judgment, and to ‘ideate’, ‘prototype’ and ‘test’ new ideas to achieve an innovative lesson design product. The evaluation results revealed that there were significant differences in students’ creative self-efficacy and self-perception of teaching innovation before and after attending the design thinking courses. Students’ lesson design project demonstrates emerging to promising innovative elements. Students found the design thinking approach effective as it provides a protocol for lesson planning, stimulates their interest in pedagogical design and achieves the transfer of knowledge. The project deliverables are shared via an open-access website: https://aclass.eduhk.hk/research/design-thinking and the results provide insights for teacher training and development to resolve the gap between theory and practice of teaching.
Impact:
The project provides a methodology of enhancing pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge which supports student teachers to think from a vantage point of approaching an innovative lesson design. It creates opportunities for students to involve as developers to collaborate with staff members in curriculum development, pilot-test and evaluate teaching materials. Such experience stimulates interdisciplinary knowledge development and encourages student-teacher collaborative research in education. Compared with traditional pedagogies which restrict students to traditional imagery and limited visions, this design thinking project proves its impact on prospective teachers and practitioners in exercising creative thinking abilities and pedagogical reasoning, therefore producing lesson plan designs of innovative qualities. The project benefited over 268 students in three different programmes, of both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The project and the teaching materials are shared with local and overseas audiences via an open access website and an international conference, it has reached over 1,000 delegates to date. Hence, the project has the potential to be widely adopted to benefit a larger number of teachers and students. The systematic evaluation and the positive outcomes of design thinking are able to make a timely response to the needs of societies for developing innovative teachers and promoting the scholarship of teaching by applying a new method of pedagogical knowledge developoment.
Deliverables:
Books/ Book Chapters/ Journal Articles/ Conference Papers
Lam, B. H., Yang, L., Yang, M., Ng, M. C. W., & Cheng, R. W. Y. (2021, December 10). Implementing a design-thinking curriculum in pedagogy courses to nurture creative teachers [Online conference presentation]. The International Conference on Learning and Teaching 2021. The Education University of Hong Kong.
Seminars/Presentations/Sharing Sessions
Lam, B. H. (2021, October) Introduce the design thinking approach of lesson planning to promote pre-service teachers’ capabilities of teaching innovation. The Education University of Hong Kong. (Number of participants: 50)
Teaching and Learning Resources/ Materials (including online resources)
Project Website: Implementing a design thinking curriculum in pedagogy courses to nurture creative teachers (2020-2022 (https://aclass.eduhk.hk/research/design-thinking)
Financial Year:
2020-21
Type:
TDG