Design Thinking is not limited to the business sector or specific academic and professional fields. As a collaborative and human-centered approval, it offers benefits to STEM education in the following ways:

  • nurtures existing traits such as interdisciplinary problem-solving, teamwork, election, critical thinking, and crisis management in students;
  • helps in the induction and development of new ingenious, creative, and innovative ideas;
  • encourages students to address challenges with a sense of empathy, viewing a problem through the eyes of someone actually confronting it.

However, various STEM fields have different interpretations regarding the concept of design thinking in terms of how they interpret DT and which part of the stages are the most useful for the activities. For example, in business and management studies, DT is important for enhancing critical thinking and careful planning for creative and innovative ideas. In engineering, design is often perceived as a routine matter.

From the first steps of the Design Thinking methodology, the design team (it may include professors & students or only students) learns how to practice empathy, with the backup guidance or facilitation of a professor. The 1st step (Empathise) helps see a problem from the user's point of view and find solutions that meet their needs.

Through 2nd step (Define) the design team practices critical thinking while in the next step (Ideation) problem-solving is one of the most important soft skills that a design team can further develop in practice, as it is the stage where the goal is to generate a wide range of ideas and solutions. This can lead to more effective solutions that meet the needs of the people they are designed for.

In the step of Prototyping, open-mindedness, and creativity are essential soft skills that designers can further practice and simultaneously improve as part of their efforts to design their prototype. Finally, in the last step (Test) it is a good opportunity for team members to be more adaptable, flexible, and active listeners as it is the stage where they get feedback from the users so they should be prepared for any possible changes or adjustments in their design.

It is worth mentioning that other soft skills such as collaboration and teamwork are also important for all stages of Design Thinking, no matter the followed step as it is not necessarily a linear process. This can help to break down silos and foster a more collaborative culture within an organization or a university team that collaborates for designing beneficial solutions for the targeted users of their community.

teamwork