Project-Based Education in COVID-19 Era. Disseminating Design Thinking in New Reality

Pulyavina N., Ritter A., Sedova N., Taratukhin V.

Abstract

This paper is devoted to Design Thinking as a method of project-based education in COVID-19 Era. COVID-19 has dramatically changed all spheres of our life, including education. Traditional teaching methods have been replaced by online and distance ones. The study analyses the advantages of Design Thinking in the New Reality, including in the online format, and some of its disadvantages. Real examples of remote project work formulated according to the principles of design thinking include participation of a team of students in the “Stanford Rebuild” global eight-week innovation sprint held by Stanford Graduate School of Business. In the course of that sprint they developed a comprehensive socially oriented online platform “COHELP-19”. Another example is the successful participation of Plekhanov University students in the first international research “Ideathon” organized by the University of Munster, “Higher School of Economics” National Research University and SAP that resulted in the development of a prototype application for people experiencing psychological, environmental, and physiological discomfort due to the coronavirus pandemic. Based on the conducted surveys, the authors have shown that the remote project work of students based on the Design Thinking method allowed them to get a useful experience of interaction in a team, taught them to think “outside the box”, brightened up their days spent at home, brought new emotions, and reduced the level of fatigue from video conferences.