Educational Leadership

Have you heard of design thinking? Are you using it in the classroom? Emily and Adam from the Getting Smart team dive into the topic to share what it is, how it can improve practice and how educators can rethink how they facilitate learning.

Institutions of higher education are looking for new approaches to retain students, ensure timely progression and graduation, and maximize learning. University culture, structure, and incentives can often paralyze institutions, making it challenging to focus the work of faculty and administrators in a meaningful and timely way. Research conducted at Boise State University shows that design thinking has the potential to increase the creative capacity of university staff at all levels to rapidly improve the student experience.

Institutions are embracing instructional design as online courses and programs proliferate. Designers hope they'll soon be viewed as part of the academic landscape, rather than merely as tech support.

Here are some papers associated with the themes of my recent podcast interview with Jason Lodge and Mollie Dollinger. Teaching as design (Goodyear 2015) In medias res: reframing design for learning (Goodyear & Dimitriadis 2013) Forward-oriented design for learning: illustrating the approach (Dimitriadis & Goodyear 2013) Teaching-as-design and the ecology of university learning (Ellis & Goodyear…