PLURALISING THE PRODUCT DESIGN PROCESS TO CREATE INCLUSIVE DESIGN-BASED TEACHING AND LEARNING OF GENERAL COMPLEX PROBLEM-SOLVING IN HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION

This study adopts a human-centred approach to pluralise the design process by involving Japanese high school teachers. This research aimed to determine the critical factors for pluralising the design process by first focusing on the investigating and defining of needs in the design process. The outcome of the research is to empower non-design-trained teachers to apply design thinking in complex problem-solving. The key ideas consolidated from this study are as follows. Firstly, design-based strategies used by design practitioners must be unpacked for non-design-trained teachers to apply for general educational purposes. Secondly, design vocabulary should not be used in the design-based strategies to allow non-design-trained teachers and students to comprehend the design process easily. For complex design-based strategies, the process has to be broken down further into sub-tasks to match students’ abilities and prior knowledge. Lastly, the design-based strategies used for general complex problem-solving should be scoped to the extent that they can be implemented at the school level.