Course: Design Thinking
Instructor: Yuan Yanyue, Assistant Arts Professor
Students Enrolled: 10
Technology Used: Zoom, Slack, Google Docs/Slides
In Assistant Arts Professor Yuan Yanyue’s Design Thinking course, students are introduced to the concepts of ‘design thinking’ and challenged to apply them to specific problems and bring about socially-responsible innovations.
Because the class is project-based and relies heavily on group work, Yuan was concerned that the move to a digital environment might affect her ability to facilitate teamwork among students — especially those based in different time zones.
Quickly, Yuan settled on using a combination of asynchronous and synchronous online tools. From her home study in Shanghai, Yuan tapes lectures, leads live sessions, and conducts one-on-one office hours with her 10 students, half of whom are in China, while the other half are based in the U.S.