2023 Design Thinking Fundamentals A

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Academic unit or major
Graduate major in Engineering Sciences and Design
Instructor(s)
Saito Shigeki  Sakamoto Hiraku  Inaba Kazuaki  Hijikata Wataru  Nakatani Momoko  Taoka Yuki  Kado Masanori  Kahlon Yuval 
Class Format
Lecture / Exercise    (Face-to-face)
Media-enhanced courses
Day/Period(Room No.)
Mon5-8(Ishikawadai Bldg.5 , Design Factory)  
Group
A
Course number
ESD.A402
Credits
2
Academic year
2023
Offered quarter
1Q
Syllabus updated
2023/3/23
Lecture notes updated
-
Language used
English
Access Index

Course description and aims

This class provides students an opportunity to learn the knowledge and the capability needed in "Design Thinking" approach through intensive lectures and practices of a team project. The class starts with the question, "What is Design Thinking?". The students are requested to understand and master the "Design Thinking" approach about how to find and solve the problem from the fundamental level. The knowledge and skill obtained in this class is highly related to the following Engineering Design projects. When engineers faces various problems, they must know how to solve them with strong viewpoint of key issues in problems. Therefore, students in this class learn fundamental five steps; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, and understand how to use these steps through basic exercises. They also experience the iterating processes from "finding potential user needs" to "ideating as prototyping solutions to problems".

Student learning outcomes

The goal is to understand fundamental five steps of "Design Thinking" approach; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, through lectures and practices of a team project.

Keywords

Design Thinking, Project-Based-Learning (PBL)

Competencies that will be developed

Specialist skills Intercultural skills Communication skills Critical thinking skills Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

All lectures are to be held at workshop spaces, such as Design Factory, Ishikawadai 5th bldg., 3rd floor.
Students are supposed to have a group work under instructors' supervision. The class style is Project-Based-Learning (PBL).
In the Design Thinking Fundamentals A, lectures are given mainly in English (though Japanese usage is accepted in group discussions).

Course schedule/Required learning

  Course schedule Required learning
Class 1 DTF-A (held on Monday in English at Design Factory) Each instructor specifies her/his class schedule. Design Thinking Fundamentals Course Structure Module 1: Introduction to Design Thinking Module 2: Research & Inspiration Module 3: Synthesis & Opportunity Areas Module 4: Ideation & Concept Development Module 5: Prototyping Module 6: Storytelling Module 7: Final Presentation Each instructor indicates assignment.

Out-of-Class Study Time (Preparation and Review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

Each instructor specifies textbooks.

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Each instructor specifies materials.

Assessment criteria and methods

Each instructor specifies criterion and methods for assessment.

Related courses

  • ESD.B401 : Engineering Design Advanced
  • ESD.B402 : Engineering Design Project

Prerequisites (i.e., required knowledge, skills, courses, etc.)

Each instructor specifies requirements for her/his class.

Other

The workshop space in Ishikawadai Bldg. No. 5 3rd Floor Design Factory will be used.

This lecture restricts the number of students based on the maximum number of project groups. The enrollment of the following students will be preferentially accepted. If there are too many participants, selection such as interviews is carried out.
(i) Students in Engineering and Science Design Graduate Major.
(ii) Students who are willing to practice "empathizing with users through producing prototypes" and "overcoming the diversity of students with different backgrounds." These are evaluated by enrollment experiences of the related courses and interviews with the instructors.

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