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Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context

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Abstract

Though design thinking has gained increasing popularity in higher education, few studies have explored how it is perceived and taught in non-western contexts. This study identified and reviewed twenty design thinking related courses offered as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) taught by instructors from a number of Chinese universities between February and June 2020. Further, we selected six courses from these MOOCs for in-depth analysis by reviewing the design cases and examples introduced in the course videos. Our findings reveal the absence of well-stated learning outcomes, and lack of diversity when it comes to the cultural contexts and design areas of the design cases covered in all the MOOCs. We propose three recommendations for future design of DT-related MOOCs in the Chinese context, in terms of situating teaching design thinking in the wider curriculum structure, integrating more active and peer learning components to create better flipped learning experiences, and increasing the diversity of design cases. Apart from supplementing current case studies, this research can shed light on why and how the teaching of design thinking can be modified in different contexts, to achieve quality rather than simply borrowing design thinking as a much-hyped concept.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Notes

  1. https://www.icourse163.org/ (The platform is certified by Higher Education Press, People’s Republic of China.).

  2. The following keywords are used to filter out discipline specific courses that are not DT-related:

    职业, 线性代数, 智能, 生物学, 网络, 环境, 运营, 市场, 数据, 社会, 城市, 鉴赏, 食品, 媒体, 信息技术, 营销, 造型, 单片机, 风景园林, 会计, 概率论, 数理统计, 微生物学, 控制, 素养, 技法, 教学法, 广告, 数据库, 生理学, 统计学, 马克思主义, 人工智能, 信息化, 品牌, 策划, 工业, 工程, 程序设计, 计算机, 大学物理, 电子, 法律, 机械, 高等数学, 英语, 制图, 艺术, 机械设计, 道德修养, 经济学, 数学, 系统, C语言, 计算, 数字, 力学, 数据结构, 互联网, 材料, 化学, Python, 模拟, 电路, 算法, 中学生, 结构, 工程图, 开发, 微积分, 物理, 心理学, CAP, 语言, 工艺, 写作, 化工.

  3. 211 stands for ‘100 universities for the twenty-first century.’ It was a project launched in 1995 by the Ministry of Education to identify National Key Universities and colleges. Selected institutions have been allocated more research funding to develop their academic research and teaching.

  4. https://app.xunjiepdf.com/voice2text.

  5. Some course lectures include short videos about design projects in English and these are excluded in our quantitative analysis.

  6. We therefore removed 13 words and phrases: design, thinking/mindset, innovation, product, method, solve/solution, technology, process, create, think, analyze/analysis, student, for example.

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Funding

This paper is part of the project funded by ‘Chenguang Program’ supported by Shanghai Education Development Foundation and Shanghai Municipal Education Commission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Arts and Sciences, NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Yanyue Yuan & Guangyu Wu

  2. NYU Shanghai, 1555 Century Avenue, Shanghai, 200122, People’s Republic of China

    Yanyue Yuan

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  1. Yanyue Yuan
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  2. Guangyu Wu
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Contributions

The corresponding author YY led the research design and contributed to the writing of the final paper. GW contributed to the quantitative analysis of course transcripts as one of the main data sources, as well as the translation of some of the course materials and creation of key tables and figures. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yanyue Yuan.

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Yuan, Y., Wu, G. Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context. SN Soc Sci 1, 143 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-021-00148-z

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