Changes in design thinking through participation in design based wilderness education

Abstract

In the summer of 2014, 30 students from the Singapore University of Technology and Design and 6 students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology participated in a 10-week Global Leadership Program (GLP) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. GLP provides students with the opportunity to develop design thinking and engineering science competencies alongside leadership skills. A curriculum combining elements of design-based learning and wilderness education was developed and implemented to holistically address the development of these three skillsets. This pilot study is the group’s first attempt to investigate the effect of participation in design-based wilderness education on student design thinking. Through qualitative analysis of student interviews 8 major themes that students associated with changes in their design thinking were identified: being flexible, the importance of high-fidelity testing, the value of simplicity, the importance of trying, survival as motivation, having empathy for others, trusting the process, and identifying team strengths.