Abstract:

Design thinking characterizes the mental processes that practitioners use as they frame, explore, and re-frame ill-structured problems to derive design solutions. In recent years, professional fields such as engineering, architecture, and business are recognizing that design thinking can be more effective for solving complex and ill-defined problems than systematic problem-solving processes.

In Latvia, design thinking as a learning approach in education is being introduced gradually, in connection with the education reform School2030. The problem is determined by the readiness of teachers to understand the possible applications of design thinking in educational institutions. Design thinking approaches can be practiced not only to teach learning (metacognitive skills) and achieve results but also to be used in general to improve the whole educational process. Design thinking, through its special structure and stages of thoughtful action, increases the quality of self-study by using creative ideas and creative approaches to solving various tasks.

The aim of the article is to analyze the methodology of successful implementation of the design thinking model in the subject ‘Design and Technologies’ for achieving learning outcomes.

Research methods: theoretical - literature analyses, content analyses of the curriculum of the subject ‘Design and Technologies’, empirical – teachers' survey on design process evaluation.

The research results confirm the need to pay attention to the choice of teaching, learning, and assessment methods for each stage of design thinking. It promotes students' understanding of the creative design product development process and results.

Keywords:

Design thinking, creativity, subject ‘Design and Technologies’, teaching and learning methods and tools, evaluation.