Improving classroom delivery of engineering education through design thinking

Abstract

Teaching is an art which requires systematic exploration in manifestations, be it curriculum design, pedagogical strategies and theories, teaching material and practices, and technological interventions. Due to the interface of technology and the mitigating attention span of the students, teachers have realized that the old method of teaching is not relevant anymore. As a result in the different courses offered at the Engineering institute, the teachers are adopting divergent thinking, synectics and design thinking for better understanding of the concepts. Design thinking offers better solutions to the problems and includes analogies and synectics to clarify the concepts. Design thinking aids better student participation and fosters teacher-student relationship. The students are encouraged for team based learning, which make them more attentive. This paper discusses how design thinking has been applied in two popular courses at Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences, BITS Pilani namely General Biology and Computational Fluid Dynamics. The feedback suggests that through analogies and design thinking the profound concepts are made easy to grasp.