Potentials and problems of teaching design thinking as massive open online courses in the Chinese context

Though design thinking has gained increasing popularity in higher education, few studies have explored how it is perceived and taught in non-western contexts. This study identified and reviewed twenty design thinking related courses offered as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) taught by instructors from a number of Chinese universities between February and June 2020. Further, we selected six courses from these MOOCs for in-depth analysis by reviewing the design cases and examples introduced in the course videos. Our findings reveal the absence of well-stated learning outcomes, and lack of diversity when it comes to the cultural contexts and design areas of the design cases covered in all the MOOCs. We propose three recommendations for future design of DT-related MOOCs in the Chinese context, in terms of situating teaching design thinking in the wider curriculum structure, integrating more active and peer learning components to create better flipped learning experiences, and increasing the diversity of design cases. Apart from supplementing current case studies, this research can shed light on why and how the teaching of design thinking can be modified in different contexts, to achieve quality rather than simply borrowing design thinking as a much-hyped concept. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021.