Enhance design undergraduates’ entrepreneurship, employability, and engagement with real-world problem solving and innovation

Entrepreneurship, employability, and engagement with real-world problem-solving and innovation are becoming essential to undergraduate education and yet fulfilled in pedagogy design. More specifically, for design students, these components will help them leverage their design knowledge and contribute to understanding design applications for economic, social, and environmental challenges and their future career development. This research paper presented the author’s teaching practice of design and development of the module Design Enterprise at DJCAD in the University of Dundee during the past two years to address the listed learning aims above and challenges for online teaching during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The curriculum design used the Double Diamond framework (a classic design thinking process framework) as the methodology to guide the teaching development process. The main description focuses on the workshop design with online teaching methods, supported by lectures, industry expert talks and tutorials. Observation and survey have been adopted to gather students’ responses to the curriculum design. Findings showcase positive effects on the identified four categories: understanding meaningful design practice, critical thinking and research, problem-solving and decision-making, and communication and presentation. The research has also identified the importance of inviting students to join the process of curriculum design and gathered experiences and insights on online teaching and blended learning. Further improvement has been pointed out from the survey, which needs guidance for time management and more in-person contacts to balance the disadvantage of online learning. These weaknesses will be considered for the next iteration of teaching development.