Abstract:

Design research has always tried to shed light on the way designers think, opening a variety of discourses on this topic, both in the professional and in the academic fields. On the other side, in Politecnico di Milano design students are exposed to “learning by doing” design studio courses, where they are required to acquire the skills and competences needed to think and act as a professional designer through action.

Current design practice, the one we teach to our students, is the result of a century of disciplinary developments, deeply influenced by societal and technological changes. Even though students become aware of such changes in design history courses, it is sometimes hard for them to link the practical knowledge acquired in design studio courses with the theoretical one. As a result, students may attain practical design skills without critically reflecting on the reasons why the designers’ way of thinking and acting evolved in that specific way. For example, in recent years, designers had to embrace two digital revolutions: first the advent of web 2.0 and then the availability of digital fabrication technologies. These two revolutions are having a huge impact on our societies, from several points of view. Similarly, given the increase of social and environmental awareness, designers must today face the responsibility of the ethical end environmental implications of their professional practice.

In our view, a deeper understanding of all the societal and technological changes that happened since the rise of the design discipline, is fundamental to better understand today established designers’ way of thinking. Moreover, we strongly believe that a student able to critically link the current state of design profession to the historical facts that brought design to its current state, will be also able to get a deeper understanding of future societal and technological challenges. This paper will provide insights on a possible approach to help students cultivating their critical thinking. As a result, they will be better prepared to the fast changes of the design profession.

The paper presents the case of the course “Design Thinking and Processes” that is part of the curriculum of the Design and Engineering MSc of Politecnico di Milano. The course aims at stimulating critical reflection through the understanding of how design has evolved from its birth to nowadays, going through four perspectives: technical, human, digital and social. In order to reach such aim, the course heavily adopts active learning through seminars, flipped classrooms and group discussions.

After three years of experimentation and refinement, the course appears to be coherently designed in terms of intended learning outcomes, assessment strategy, activities and contents. All this will be illustrated in the paper. The overall course has been assessed by students throughout the first semester of the current academic year. The paper aims at discussing the results of this assessment.

In general, the paper offers to teachers and scholars an example of an active-learning approach to support students’ learning about the way designers think.

Keywords:

Design Thinking, Active Learning, Design Education.