Exploring Group’ Design Thinking Patterns in a Principe-based Knowledge-Building Environment

Abstract

This study adopted a principle-based knowledge-building pedagogy to engage groups in four design-thinking modes (i.e., observation, synthesis, ideation and make proto- types) in an online environment. Participants were 38 college students enrolled in an "Introduc- tion to Living Technology" course at a Taiwanese university. They were randomly assigned to eight groups. Each group discussed their design ideas in a computer-supported collaborative knowledge-building environment - called Knowledge Forum (KF) - to collaboratively design a product. Data includes students' design discussion in KF and analysis focused on online knowledge-building activities and groups' design-thinking modes. In general, knowledge- building activities cultivated students in design-thinking modes during the design process as a group. Specifically, the extent to which groups sustained online engagement and the advance- ment of their group knowledge had a major impact on their design performance. Ways of ap- plying knowledge-building principles to foster effective design processes are discussed.