Abstract
In response to the changes of technological and sociological landscape, education policies and experiments are emerging globally. Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation (THDI) is a newly reformed educational institution in China. It operates in the Chinese public education system and is designed to model 21st-century learning practices by applying a design thinking (DT) methodology and problem/project-based learning (PBL) pedagogy. This case study gives an overview of the school, outlines the practice of the past 27 months since its establishment and elaborates the tensions during transition phases. Synergy, the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, is identified as the goal of reducing tensions, and three design initiatives have been implemented for improving the collaboration among high school and college teachers. The school reform is the first of its kind in China and it hopes to shed light on the design and education research.
Keywords
Design thinking, PBL pedagogy, school reform, synergy
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.291
Citation
Gong, Y., and Lou, Y. (2020) Transforming a Public School: A Case Study of Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation and Its Search for Synergy, in Boess, S., Cheung, M. and Cain, R. (eds.), Synergy - DRS International Conference 2020, 11-14 August, Held online. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2020.291
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Transforming a Public School: A Case Study of Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation and Its Search for Synergy
In response to the changes of technological and sociological landscape, education policies and experiments are emerging globally. Tongji-Huangpu School of Design and Innovation (THDI) is a newly reformed educational institution in China. It operates in the Chinese public education system and is designed to model 21st-century learning practices by applying a design thinking (DT) methodology and problem/project-based learning (PBL) pedagogy. This case study gives an overview of the school, outlines the practice of the past 27 months since its establishment and elaborates the tensions during transition phases. Synergy, the concept of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, is identified as the goal of reducing tensions, and three design initiatives have been implemented for improving the collaboration among high school and college teachers. The school reform is the first of its kind in China and it hopes to shed light on the design and education research.