Abstract:

This study explores how the Design Thinking framework can be introduced into secondary school English lessons to support students’ creative confidence and reflective learning. The approach builds on the understanding of Design Thinking as an iterative, human-centred way of solving problems (Brown, 2009; Razzouk & Shute, 2012), and on the idea that creative confidence develops when learners feel able to take risks, experiment and trust their own ideas (Kelley & Kelley, 2013). In this implementation, students worked through the five stages of the design cycle — Empathise, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test — while completing a small research project on a personally meaningful topic. Each stage was adapted for language-learning purposes and embedded naturally into everyday lesson routines, following recent calls to use design-thinking-oriented strategies in education (Wrigley & Straker, 2017).

In the Empathise and Define stages, students identified real issues, conducted brief interviews and shaped their research questions. The Ideate and Prototype phases encouraged them to generate a range of possible directions for their writing, organise their thinking and produce early drafts. During the Test stage, students engaged with peer and teacher feedback, revising their work in line with iterative learning principles (Brown, 2009). Throughout the entire cycle, students kept reflection journals, giving them space to explain their choices, assess their challenges and recognise their progress — an approach closely linked to building metacognitive awareness (Kelley & Kelley, 2013).

Data for this study were gathered from student reflections, classroom observations and an evaluation rubric developed to track indicators of creative confidence such as flexibility, risk-taking, persistence and ownership of learning. The findings suggest that working through the Design Thinking cycle supported deeper engagement with writing tasks and encouraged students to approach their work with more independence and curiosity. Many reported higher motivation, stronger idea generation and a clearer sense of how revisiting and refining their drafts improved the final outcome, echoing earlier research on the value of iterative design cycles in learning (Razzouk & Shute, 2012).

The study offers practical suggestions for teachers interested in integrating Design Thinking into regular English lessons. These include facilitating structured reflection, making assessment criteria transparent and using visual scaffolds so that each stage of the design cycle remains accessible to students. The poster will showcase examples of lesson flow, student work and an adaptable evaluation template to help teachers implement similar approaches in their own contexts.

Keywords:

Creative confidence, Design thinking, English language teaching, Reflective learning, Secondary education.