Teaching design thinking through gamified learning

Abstract

Entrepreneurial capacity has long been considered as a key transversal competency applicable in all subjects and educational levels. It empowers individuals to explore their talents, to introduce creative ideas, and to take action towards turning ideas into viable solutions that contribute to business growth and social wellbeing. Design thinking is a human-centered, solution-oriented approach to entrepreneurial innovation that aims at introducing solutions to business as well as social issues by better understanding how a user experiences a proposed service or product. This paper introduces the design and implementation of active learning digital services supported by gamification principles in learning contexts that facilitate the introduction of design thinking to higher education engineering students. The proposed learning intervention engages students in the design thinking processes of empathizing, ideating, designing, and validating through an on-line learning platform that promotes collaboration in and across teams, brainstorming, and peer reviews of designs allowing students to learn from experience through cases inspired by real world challenges. Copyright © 2019 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved.