Hernández-Leo D, Agostinho S, Beardsley M, Bennett S, Lockyer L. Helping teachers to think about their design problem: a pilot study to stimulate design thinking. Paper presented at: 9th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies EDULEARN17; 2017 July 3-5; Barcelona, Spain, pp. 5681-5690. Open access: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/32247

1. Barcelona, June 3rd, 2017
Helping teachers to think about their design
problem: a pilot study to stimulate
design thinking
Hernández-Leo D, Agostinho S, Beardsley M, Bennett S, Lockyer L. Helping teachers to
think about their design problem: a pilot study to stimulate design thinking. Paper
presented at: 9th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning
Technologies EDULEARN17; 2017 July 3-5; Barcelona, Spain, pp. 5681-5690.
Open access: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/32247

2. Learning design / Design for learning
n Supporting teachers in defining the best possible
conditions for students’ to learn
(representations, sharing, interpretation for software systems)
— Methodologies, languages, tools…
— Potential for sharing
• Complex process, many factors to consider
• Observed that teachers work as designers, even if they
don’t consider their work in terms of design
Better support to educators’ design thinking process

3. http://ilde.upf.edu/about/
Integrated Environment
for Learning Design

5. (Co-)author
Implement
(instantiate +
deploy)
Explore /Investigate /
(Co-)conceptualize
Evaluate
Produce
a
detailed,
formal
and
reusable
defini4on
of
a
learning
design
Apply
an
authored
learning
design
using
a
specific
VLE,
a
par4cular
group
of
students
and
set
of
tools
Work
on/with
ideas
for
design,
e.g.
crea4on
of
representa4ons
of
design
elements
and
their
interconnec4ons,
understanding
of
the
context
and
expected
users
Learning design lifecycle

6. Learning design tools in ILDE
- Hernández-Leo, D., Asensio-Pérez, J.I., Derntl, M., Prieto, L.P., Chacón, J., (2014) ILDE: Community Environment for Conceptualizing, Authoring
and Deploying Learning Activities. In: Proceedings of 9th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2014, Graz, Austria, pp.
490-493.

7. Need of support for “problem definition”
• Support to the initial phase of identifying a design problem
• Problem Generation Tool (20 questions, 3 foci)
Understand the nature of the design problem and your goals (Q1-7):
Sample questions: What kind of problem is this? Why is this design being
done? What initial ideas do you have?
Map your context (Q8-15):
Sample questions: Who are the students? How will the course be taught?
Who will teach in this course?
Plan your design approach (Q16-20):
Sample questions: What do you need to produce? What preparation do
you have to do? What is your initial plan or steps you will follow for
your design process?

8. Problem Generation Tool in ILDE

9. Pilot preliminary evaluation
• Eight participants, already familiar with ILDE
• Between 1-5 years of teaching experience
• A morning workshop:
• Introduction to the workshop
• Thinking about a scenario
• Thinking “openly” about the problem they aim to solve in their
scenario (documenting in ILDE – open conceptualization)
• Thinking using the Problem Generation Tool in ILDE
• Data: Artifacts produced in ILDE, responses to a questionnaire,
observations

10. Results
• Findings provided as descriptive key themes
• Marta elaborated on the design problem by focusing on the
solution
• Kenet’s design problem description become somewhat clearer but
many questions were not answered
• Lara elaborated on the design problem, presented a solution, and
suggested ideas to evaluate the solution
• Sia provided little elaboration of the design problem
• Antonio elaborated on her design problem by providing student
details and ideas for a solution
• Cross analysis identifying the most useful questions, those not clearly
understood, additional questions suggested by participants

11. Summary of results
• Participants found the Problem Generation Tool helpful
• The level of perceived usefulness by question varied across
participants, while a few questions were not sufficiently clear and
need to be revised.
• Overall, there was evident elaboration of the participants’ design
problems thus suggesting design thinking was stimulated and
identification of the design problems scaffolded.

12. Conclusions
• Educators’ design thinking: Support to generating the design problem
• Problem Generation Tool, in the context of ILDE (Integrated Learning
Design Environment)
• Preliminary study,
• Receptiveness to use this form of design support
• Deeper investigations needed

13. davinia.hernandez-­‐leo@upf.edu
Hernández-Leo D, Agostinho S, Beardsley M, Bennett S, Lockyer L. Helping teachers to
think about their design problem: a pilot study to stimulate design thinking. Paper presented
at: 9th annual International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies
EDULEARN17; 2017 July 3-5; Barcelona, Spain, pp. 5681-5690.