We have used our Curriculum Creation Process, a modified design thinking model, to support teachers as they work on curriculum development.

Traditional courses progress the student learning from conceptual understanding towards demonstrations of skill and capacity in a linear, topically focused manner. Setting this scaffolding is set in place, fixes the problems, and the solutions are typically within a known range. But many course problems are research questions that defy simple explanations or right/wrong answers. For these courses, need a more dexterous approach.

Design thinking a popular problem-solving approach is surprisingly well suited for curriculum development in the humanities and social sciences.

Design Thinking is a mindset and approach to learning, collaboration, and problem solving. In practice, the design process is a structured framework for identifying challenges, gathering information, generating potential solutions, refining ideas, and testing solutions. Design Thinking can be flexibly implemented; serving equally well as a framework for a course design or a roadmap for an activity or group project.