Keywords

1 Introduction

The pedagogy of project-based courses is rather difficult to transfer but it is essential to teach innovation under the context of economic globalization [1]. According to The Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a focus on innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, communication skills, and teamwork plays a significant role in preparing students for the future [2]. There have been more and more schools and parents starting to focus on the cultivation of students in the basic education stage. The current global competition in economics makes it even more important than ever to develop excellent design skills [3]. Design Thinking serves as a trigger for innovation while bringing novel things into the world [4]. Therefore, Design Thinking has been gradually applied to the teaching of the K12 course around the world and has been made increasingly influential. Due to the joint promotion by various schools and enterprises, Design Thinking has experienced rapid development in the field of education across China. However, on the whole, there remains an apparent lack of consistency for the quality of research focusing on this field in China. A variety of different training institutions treat Design Thinking as what could attract the attention from the students. Actually, however, there is still no research conducted on how to cultivate innovative talents given the practicalities in China.

Based on the classic Design Thinking model proposed by Stanford University [16], the faculty of psychology in the Beijing Normal University developed the curriculum system of Empathy Design Thinking aimed at primary school students based on not only the strategy of user experience design but also the stage of physical and mental development that students are in under a Chinese context. Meanwhile, they entered into in-depth cooperation with the Experimental Primary School of Beijing Normal University for the research results to be applied in practice.

With regard to the Empathy Design Thinking course aimed at lower-grade students in primary school, the introduction of teaching toolkit will enable students to better understand and memorize the approaches to course delivery while ensuring the conformance to the characteristics of student development both physically and mentally. The student-centered teaching toolkit stimulates the interest of students in the learning process, provides students with better learning experience and timely feedback. In the meantime, it reduces the pressure on teaching. Moreover, multiple specific interaction responses are associated with inspiration and novel ideas [5].

Therefore, based on the curriculum of Empathy Design Thinking as well as the stage of physical and mental development that lower-grade primary school students are in, this paper will tailor the guidelines on the design of teaching toolkit to this course for improvement to the experience that students have in the learning process and the outcome of the course.

2 Related Work

In order to explore the design criteria of teaching toolkit in the course of Design Thinking that is applicable to lower-grade primary school students, desk research was conducted to analyze the relevant literature to Design Thinking, the level of development for students and the design of teaching toolkit.

As a forward-looking, innovative method [7], design thinking represents a kind of methodology [8, 9], the focus of which is on the development and cultivation of a problem-oriented mindset [10]. There are an increasing number of people and institutions with experience of its innovative power [9]. Among them, the design thinking model proposed by Stanford University has been widely applied in the field of education [11]. One of the models was suggested by Professor Larry from the Center of Design Research at Stanford University, who modeled students’ experiential learning as a cycle of four stages [12]. Not only does the cycle of experience improve understanding, it also builds a bridge between theory and practice. In the second model, it is believed that the pattern of Design Thinking is an iterative sequence that involves five main stages, including empathy, definition, ideal, prototyping, and testing, as shown in Fig. 1 [4]. This model has already been extensively applied in Design Thinking-related courses across different universities and has exerted a profound influence on Design Thinking education in the field of K12. Among them, Empathy is defined as an ability that enables us to comprehend the circumstances that others are in and the perspectives taken by others, both imaginatively and effectively [14]. Design theorists, as well as practitioners, describe empathy as a crucial influencing factor for Design Thinking [6]. The course is not purposed to make them a designer to develop various practical products. Instead, it is aimed at enabling students to develop the ability to understand others and think from the perspective of others over the course of learning.

Fig. 1.
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Design thinking model 5 stages

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The design of curriculum in primary school is required to be tailored to the characteristics of development for Chinese students, especially those in the lower grades and involved in this study. It has been demonstrated by the research that the stage of primary school plays an important role in the intellectual development of children, with the pattern of thinking based on specific image thinking. At this stage, attention should be brought to not only intuitive teaching but also situational teaching. Therefore, in practice, games, activities, performances and other methods can be applied to cultivate innovative thinking [15]. There is evidence suggesting that toys are beneficial for students to develop skills and the capability of innovative expression through close contact [16]. The learning design toolkit as described can be used to achieve three primary purposes as follows. Firstly, it provides detailed guidance to students on making theoretically informed decisions over the development of learning activities and the selection of appropriate tools and resources to undertake them. Secondly, it builds up a database of existing learning activities and examples of good practice which can then be adapted and reused for different purposes [17]. Lastly, it facilitates lower-grade primary school students to understand the esoteric and boring teaching content through teaching aids. In summary, it is effective in stimulating the interest of children in engaging with the class and cultivating their thinking ability.

As the carrier of students’ learning experience, the need of students for teaching toolkit undergoes constant changes with the growth of their age and the improvement of their cognitive ability. Traditionally, teaching toolkit features a relatively single structure and function, which makes it incapable to meet the needs of students in the process of growth [18]. For the future, the development of design for teaching toolkit is supposed to focus more on the user experience to be delivered by teaching toolkit, rather than the simple realization of teaching tasks and functions. In this sense, it will be designed in a way that could satisfy the needs of students at different developmental stages and conform to the characteristics of courses, which is conducive to improving the user experience derived by students and providing more assistance with teaching.

3 Settings

Empathy Design Thinking, a course offered by the user experience direction (BNUX) of the psychology department of Beijing Normal University, marks the first-ever innovative education course in China that integrates applied psychology with the concept of Design Thinking. The course tends to focus on interdisciplinary practice and is aimed at guiding students on how to learn through experience. The research and development of the course, in conjunction with the top experts from the design research center of Stanford University, conducts investigation into the development of Design Thinking courses which are more appropriate under the Chinese context.

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Course flow chart

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In this semester, the teaching object of Empathy Design thinking is comprised of 15 junior students, aged between 7 and 8. The course lasts one hour on a weekly basis for a period of 12 weeks. Meanwhile, in the teaching process, the students were split into four different groups for the study on in-group collaboration. The team of instructors is comprised of interdisciplinary teachers with extensive experience in the curriculum. The venue of teaching is a science classroom which is fit for collaborative teaching in small groups. The flow chart of course is illustrated in Fig. 2. The toolkits of the Persona and User Journey Map methods are employed to assist students in gaining understanding as to the theme background and character of the protagonist for the purpose of resolving the problem. Students are systematically taught to apply such innovative design methods as portraits and brainstorming to analyze problems and design innovative solutions, which is aimed at guiding them on how to put their ideas and solutions into practice. In designer toys, design universals are comprised of four different dimensions, which include physicality, functionality, fictionality, and affectivity [16]. The original paper toolkit is designed by taking into account the approach that needs to be taught as required by the course, which could not only assist with teaching but also make it more convenient for students to operate.

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Method toolkit of “Persona”

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Take the method of Persona shown in Fig. 3 as an example. Persona is beneficial for students to improve and understand the character image in a way that allows the character characteristics to reach a consensus among team members while assisting them with “human-oriented” design. Based on students’ characteristics and course themes, teaching toolkit is effective in simplifying the procedures of Persona and enabling students to gain a better understanding as to this method. In the meantime, the stickers and keywords are provided to reduce the difficulty of writing for students. The following part relates to the feedback received when teaching toolkit is applied in actual teaching.

4 Methodology

The subjects were comprised of 15 second-year students with participation in Empathy Design thinking and 10 teachers responsible for delivering the course. In the process of observing the teaching, how the teaching toolkit was applied by students to accomplish the course tasks were recorded and analyzed. In addition, one interview was conducted with the teachers of Design Thinking course, and their feedback on the use of the teaching toolkit was received, transcribed and analyzed (Fig. 4).

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The teaching process of Design thinking

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Throughout the course, four teaching assistants will be present to observe and record the class progress among the four groups of students in each class, in addition to recording the use of teaching toolkit by students, their class performance, and their group cooperation in the course table. Then, a summary will be made after each class to sort out the use of teaching toolkit by students during the course (see Fig. 5). Based on the results obtained from course observation, the cognitive development level of students ought to be taken into consideration for the design of teaching toolkit, such as literacy, word understanding and text writing, so as to assist students with expression through simpler methods. Nevertheless, in the design of the teaching toolkit, it is necessary to highlight the logical relationship between the steps and enable students to analyze the emotional changes and characteristics of the protagonist. The design of the teaching toolkit needs to be not only as simple as possible but also easily understandable for students.

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Process of classroom observation

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After the completion of the course, interviews will be conducted with teachers and experienced teachers responsible for this semester’s course. Meanwhile, the feedback on students’ use of teaching toolkit will be collected from teachers and suggestions will be made on how to update teaching toolkit. Over the course of interview, more open questions will be raised and appropriate follow-up will be carried out based on the answers provided by the respondents. Besides, the interview outline will be constantly revised and iterated for the purpose of acquiring more comprehensive information and improving consistence with the required research questions. The interview process is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6.
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Process of teacher interview

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Finally, after the observation of students and interview with teachers, three researchers will be responsible for transcribing, reporting and coding the observation records and the interview recordings. According to the naming rules of coding material, the interview text will be numbered based on the order of the interview text and indicated as 01, 02, 03, etc. The teachers who teach this semester are marked with T, the teachers who do not teach this semester are marked with N, the replies to different types of the toolkit are marked with A, B, C, D, the unassigned toolkit is marked with U, and A denotes the design characteristics of the course. For example, the 8th subject teaches a course this semester, and those talking about the course without assigned teaching toolkit are marked with TU08. The codes of the interview content are marked with TU08a1, TU08a2, TU81a3, etc. Table 1 presents an example of coding.

Table 1. Examples of coding
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5 Results

As revealed by the results of coding, five characteristics exhibited by the teaching toolkit of the Design Thinking course were obtained as shown in Fig. 7, including functional usage, information presentation, visual presentation, logical architecture, and operation mode. Further with this, the following five teaching toolkit design guidelines were obtained as well, which are consistent with the Design Thinking course taken by primary school students.

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Coding of teaching toolkit

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Rule 1: Efficient Multi-person Collaboration

The completion of the Design Thinking course tasks ought to be based on the teamwork among all members of each group. Considering the fact that lower-grade primary school students have yet to develop a strong awareness of teamwork, however, there is a need to have teaching assistants in place to promote the process of task completion throughout the teaching process. The existing teaching toolkit allows multi-person operation for part of the content at the same time. Nevertheless, the drawback is that high efficiency can not be ensured in assigning tasks to group members, which could cause students to be confused about the operation process. Therefore, the teaching toolkit designed for this course needs to fulfill an efficient multi-person collaboration function. In the meantime, on the basis of this, the difficulty of design is reduced to allow the primary students to avoid the tedious operation process while completing the course tasks quickly and effectively. Finally, the teaching toolkit is applied to create a clear and vivid image of the target character and give a relatively comprehensive understanding. Besides, assistance will be provided by us with teaching during the subsequent program design stage.

Rule 2: Customized Content Presentation

The teaching toolkit of the Design Thinking course is formulated in line with the course theme and objectives, while the teaching toolkit design of different topics based on the same teaching method will show some relevance. Therefore, based on the simple, definite expression of vocabularies, as well as the information presented by the teaching toolkit in a way that could highlight the crucial points and demonstrate the clear structure, the materials under the same teaching method should be presented in the form of the content related to customized toolkit that can make it based on the original framework. According to the teaching objective, a minor adjustment can be made to the design of teaching toolkit. The information can be presented differently by the teaching toolkit depending on the exact contextual different theme. Meanwhile, the content of teaching toolkit can be adjusted to suit the actual level of physical and mental development of students at each stage, offer more or less key information as instruction, achieve a better fit with the zone of proximal development for students, and thus better targeted to assist teachers in achieving their teaching objectives.

Rule 3: Focused Visual Presentation

The teaching toolkit of Design Thinking course is frequently approached to suit the age of the students with a lot of cartoonish ICONS and auxiliary material. However, to ensure teaching toolkit could create fun at the same time, we need to attract attention from the lower-grade elementary school students and make it the focus of their attention based on the objective information, timely feedback on teaching toolkit to attract the attention of students at all stages of completing a task while avoiding students from being attracted by the non-critical design or style teaching toolkit. In the meantime, over the course of teaching toolkit design, the colors and patterns suitable for students at the current age can be matched to avoid the use of fancy and complicated graphic patterns to present to students and stimulate their interest in learning, thus bringing positive sensory experience.

Rule 4: Systematic Logic Architecture

The teaching toolkit of Design thinking course allows interaction with each other, and the courses in the previous stage play a guiding role in the later stage. In the process of teaching toolkit design, the content of each module in a single teaching toolkit is required to be consistent and there is supposed to be a logical relationship between each step. The contents of each teaching aid ought to set up connection through the contents of the teaching toolkit, the contents learned in the previous course can be intuitively recalled by conducting review, and the teaching aid needs to be related to each other both internally and externally to establish a system, for the cultivation of logical thinking among students.

Rule 5: High Feedback Interactive Mode of Operation

The existing Design Thinking courses offered in primary schools are common in adopting paper-based teaching toolkit and students learn how to collaborate with others by hand drawing and collage. In doing so, students are exposed to various teaching tools within a short period of time, which brings freshness to course learning. However, the existing flat and static form is incapable to maintain the learning task for a long time. In the meantime, the paper version of the teaching toolkit makes it difficult for students to modify the original answer over the course of performing task and daub excessively, resulting in the chaos of the result sharing. According to the feedback provided by students and teachers, electronic and dynamic paper teaching toolkit is more effective in stimulating the interest of students in learning, while the high interactivity of teaching toolkit itself can also replace the teaching assistants to reduce the possibility of wrong operations and play a guiding role in students’ learning with more concise and targeted feedback. Through prompt feedback, students can quickly realize their growth and change in the course learning process, which is conducive to the development of subsequent learning behaviors. At the same time, an electronic teaching toolkit can be applied to record students’ operations in the background of the program, which could facilitate the comparative analysis of Design thinking courses to cultivate the ability of creative thinking for students.

6 Discussion

From the perspective of user experience design, this paper presents a study on the design and criteria of teaching toolkit for the Design thinking courses and applies psychological methods and pedagogy theories to propose the criteria of teaching toolkit design suitable for the Design thinking courses offered in primary schools, thus laying a foundation for the characterization stage of the Design thinking courses in the future. Based on the practical curriculum, this project conducts research from multiple perspectives and applies the results to the curriculum by analyzing the observation and interview results.

Throughout the process of research, various difficulties and challenges worthy of reflection were encountered. In general, as this course is aimed at the lower-grades primary school students and their level of physical and mental development is low, their capability of reading, writing and verbal expression remains limited, which makes it difficult for us to collect information by scale or through interview. Therefore, we conducted observation, recorded the information through photos and video clips, reconsidered and sorted it out after each class. Researchers need to observe the in-class interaction of students with teaching toolkit and their feedback at the same time, which requires a substantial amount of information and may be subject to influence from various subjective factors. Therefore, in the following research, we coded the specific behaviors of students in the course and combined qualitative research with quantitative research.

Finally, the teaching toolkit of Empathy Design thinking for lower-grade students in primary school is as follows: efficient multi-person collaboration mode, customized content presentation, focused visual presentation, systematic logic architecture and interactive operation mode with high feedback.

7 Conclusion

In recent years, Design Thinking education has undergone fast-paced development across China and has been met with increasingly widespread application in K12 teaching. There are more and more schools integrating Design Thinking into interdisciplinary courses for the purpose of fostering creativity and problem-solving skills. The empathetic Design Thinking course is delivered in primary school to cultivate creative thinking for children, which has a profound influence on their growth. Teaching toolkit, as an assistant to teachers, is significant to the course content full of creativity and logical thinking. These can help students gain intuitive and systematic understanding of the course content and complete the tasks assigned by the teacher.

The education received and the thinking pattern cultivated in the primary education stage could play an extremely important role in their later life. However, up to now, the setting of courses in the industry has yet to be standardized, while the design and research of teaching toolkit for the optimal teaching experience are even more limited. The study of the guidelines involves neither evaluation nor optimization of the guidelines. The next step will be to focus on the testing part of the current guidelines and test the applicability of the teaching toolkit designed in line with the guidelines to further optimize and extend on this basis.