Curriculum design thinking: a new name for old ways of thinking and practice?

The term design thinking has two current meanings –the study of the practices of working designers—the other meaning refers to the human-centred ‘open’ problem solving process decision makers use to solve real world ‘wicked’ problems. Design thinking in this latter sense has increasing purchase outside the design fields per se. Claims have been made that design thinking in this sense can radically improve not only product innovation but also decision making in other fields, such as management, public health, and organizations in general. Although many remain skeptical of the concept and its broad application, many design and management schools in North America and elsewhere, now include course offerings in design thinking. The lack of such courses in Australia presents an opportunity to design a curriculum for design thinking, employing design thinking’s own practices. Curriculum development is something of a wicked problem in itself, aiming to develop a future course of action based on current precedents and other sources of information, which are then trialed in practice. This paper describes the development of a design thinking unit at Swinburne University through design thinking practice.