Design Thinking At Scale: A Report on Best Practices of Online Courses

Design Thinking has arguably become a state-of-the-art innovation methodology. It has received increasing attention from both media and educational institutes around the globe. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for Design Thinking education. In this research we aim to answer the question of whether and how Design Thinking can be taught in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that promise scalable teaching. In this chapter we discuss the potentials as well as challenges of teaching Design Thinking in a MOOC environment. In order to learn about the pedagogies and practices required for high quality teaching, we look into four Design Thinking MOOCs and through the lens of a widely used pedagogical framework called the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. We also pay careful attention to the technological features and the didactical methods applied in selected courses and how they support the fulfillment of these principles. Further, the research team aims at setting up an online course on Design Thinking in collaboration with the openHPI platform—one of the Europe’s frontrunner MOOC providers. Thus, we compare the results to the capacities and features of openHPI and examine its potentials for supporting and hosting a design thinking MOOC. Finally based on the best practices observed in the selected courses and the literature, we propose general recommendations for course designers and report on results of interviews with Stanford d.school course instructors on the challenges and potentials of a digital Design Thinking learning environment as well as the path of future research.