Abstract:

Newly defined 21st century skills and competences a university graduate must have and new learning habits of the representatives of the net generation require the application of interactive and innovative methods of didactics. Design thinking, problem-based learning, case studies, action-oriented approach, challenge based learning are frequently defined as innovative methods of didactics that should be applied in teaching/learning environments. Design thinking (DT) as an as a method to teach different disciplines has gained more and more popularity in secondary schools, universities and companies. Though frequently applied in engineering, technological studies and social sciences due to its correlation to provision of solutions and prototyping of products, design thinking is rarely applied to teach humanities, for example language studies, philosophy, semantics and pragmatics, translation or localisation. The usage of design thinking in the areas mentioned above is quite innovative and raising challenges since the process of learning and teaching requires more cognitive efforts of both students and the teacher. In addition to this, when applying DT all study process of a particular subject or study programme needs to be reconsidered and restructured due to the characteristics of design thinking method itself. This paper aims to discuss a case of applying design thinking approach to teach localisation at the second cycle study programme of Technical Translation and Localisation (European Master’s in Translation (EMT) study programme) and semantics and pragmatics as the subject of the I cycle study programme of New Media Language that are offered at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Kaunas University of Technology. Scientific literature about cases of the application of design thinking frequently present business cases, yet cases when design thinking is applied in language teaching, philology, linguistics, translation and localisation are quite rare. The novelty of the paper is related to an innovative approach applied when teaching subjects of humanities such as semantics, pragmatics and localisation. The paper presents the main concepts of design thinking, introduces the process of design thinking and present the case how design thinking was applied to teach subjects mentioned above. Challenges, advantages and disadvantages that are related with the application of design thinking as an innovative teaching method in face-to-face and blended type of studies under the current pandemic situation of COVID-19, student feedback and some examples of particular tasks are described in this paper as well.

Keywords:

Design thinking process, innovative approach, localisation, semantics and pragmatics, skills.