University seminar courses are constantly being taught, revamped, or newly designed, to meet the emerging needs of students.Using sound educational design strategies allows educators an opportunity to gain perspective from multiple angles and deepens understanding of power and politics inherent throughout the process.Considering course design beyond easily measurable academic outcomes can create space for classroom interactions which consciously support dignity, joy, and meaningful collaboration.Additionally, educational design thinking demands better understanding of relevant learning theories which in turn plays a role in aiding educators in ensuring alignment of course objectives, theory, and practice.Naturally, educator beliefs are strengthened and classroom facilitation techniques are more varied, when learning theories are thoroughly understood.Norman (2013), a design expert, emphatically stresses that "a brilliant solution to the wrong problem can be worse than no solution at all: solve the correct problem" (p.218).Ensuring that educators are indeed solving the right problem is perhaps the most fundamental challenge, but through revisiting personal assumptions and reframing the problem in a cyclical ongoing process, it becomes possible to step closer to achieving that goal.For the purposes of this paper, it will be assumed that the problem is: how to design meaningful, memorable, transformational, and reflective curricular activities for higher education students in Japan.What will become apparent is that, rather than being frustrated with the lack of definitiveness in the design process, accepting and embracing flexibility, and leaving space for the unexpected, leads to growth and unimagined possibilities for both educator and pupils.
Catherine Takasugi (Fri,) studied this question.