Review Article Stefanie Panke* Design Thinking in Education: Perspectives, Opportunities and Challenges

Computer Science: Valentim, Silva, and Conte 
(2017) argued that is important to teach design thinking 
in Computer Science and Software Engineering courses 
as an analytic and creative process because it provides a 
human-centered view of technological artifact design. As 
such, it allows instructors to better prepare students for the 
software development industry. The authors conducted 
an empirical study with 17 postgraduate students in the 
context of mobile applications design. Overall, students 
considered design thinking valuable to their mobile 
application projects. Bosman (2019) conducted a class 
with 10 transdisciplinary technology students that 
deployed design thinking to generate an entrepreneurial 
mindset. Based on the results of pre-/post-surveys, the 
author observed that participants shifted their learning 
perspective from “weakness-focused” to “strengths-
focused”. 
Mentoring and Advising: The University of 
Wisconsin–Madison held a five-day design thinking 
workshop to redesign the university’s advising and 
registration process and provide students with a more 
intuitive enrollment experience, especially at orientation 
(Apel, Hull, Owczarek, & Singer, 2018). Parrish, Parks, and 
Taylor (2017) highlighted the potential of design thinking 
as a mentoring technique in the university’s work-study 
program as an opportunity to draw from the student’s and 
employer’s dual perspectives, enriching the knowledge of 
both parties: The mentor can encourage pragmatic growth 
and meaningful reflection as the mentee offers insight into 
the preferences and needs of today’s student. Utilizing the 
design thinking paradigm, design solutions to personal 
and institutional challenges can be developed together, 
creating authentic, interdisciplinary understanding. 
Similarly, Leeder (2019) described design thinking as an 
approach for mentoring training in sports coaching.