Open Learn Course

Level Up Your Teaching - Free Course!

The online course Teaching design thinking with digital technologies is aimed at teachers or tutors at any level of education including primary, secondary, further and higher education. The course focuses on helping teachers to understand what design thinking is and how it can be used in teaching with the support of complementary digital technologies, which can enable easy and effective implementation of design thinking in both a physical and an online setting. 

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By the end of the course you should be able to:

• Explain to your students what design thinking is and why the Exten.(D.T.)² Digital Design Thinking Model can help provide solutions to challenges they face in school, work or life.
• Demonstrate the added value of using digital technologies for design thinking activities.
• Experiment with digital technologies and reflect on which ones to use in design thinking projects.
• Use design thinking projects to help students identify and solve real-world problems they find relevant and meaningful.
• Develop an activity plan you can implement with your students next time you teach.

This course has been designed by the project Extending Design Thinking with Emerging Digital Technologies Exten.(D.T.)². The project has been co-funded by Horizon Europe and Innovate UK and involves partners from Sweden, UK, Greece, Norway, Belgium, and Ireland.  

Note: The course activities are practical in nature and involve tasks such as downloading files to your device, creating a set of commands and manipulating different web applications to produce artefacts. Even though mobile devices such as phones, tablets, iPads, etc can be used to complete the course, teachers are encouraged to use a computer with a standard desktop operating system such as a PC or Mac (or laptop version of these) when engaging with the activities to enable a more accessible and user-friendly learning experience. 

Expected participants: Primary, secondary, further and higher education teachers or tutors

Course Link: www.open.edu/openlearncreate/ExtenDT2

Time required for course completion: 12 hours 

What you will achieve upon completion:

• A certificate of completion 
• A digital badge 
• Knowledge on and skills in integrating design thinking activity assisted by emerging technologies in pedagogy
• Knowledge on and skills in using some emerging technologies such as a survey tool, a tool to develop online games to tackle socio-scientific issues, create and print 3D models and design virtual robotics. 

Cost: We offer this course at no cost.  

Assessment model: 

There is no formal assessment; however, to be eligible to earn a certificate of completion, you need to achieve a score of 80% or higher on an end quiz. The quiz comprises a set of questions that tests your knowledge and understanding on teaching design thinking with emerging digital technologies. Also, there are some inline reflective questions on the course that trigger you to reflect on the course materials.

How to enrol on the course

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Impacts in figure since 18 March, 2025 (updating weekly)

What our course participants say...

Gobinda Puri, Nepal

"I recently had the opportunity to participate in the "Teaching Design
Thinking with Digital Technologies" course, which enhanced my ability
to solve classroom challenges creatively. The baking cake analogy for
the design thinking model particularly intrigued me, motivating me to
complete the course successfully. This asynchronous, user-centric and
innovative course emphasised experiential learning through a
five-stage process: empathise, define, ideate, prototype, and test
with the integration of digital technologies like nQuire, ChoiCo,
SorBET, MaLT2, and GearsBot, all new to me. I’m deeply grateful to the
Open University, UK for this enriching experience."