Using game design to increase teachers’ familiarity with design thinking

Society needs creative problem solvers to work towards solutions of complex global issues such as climate change. Design thinking is a way to solve problems creatively. Unfortunately, in-service teachers are largely unfamiliar with design thinking and their students rarely engage in design thinking during class. To familiarize teachers with design thinking, this study provided three teacher cohorts with a game design experience. Utilizing a predefined game design document, participants designed an educational game. To experience a thorough design cycle, teachers worked through two iterations of their design. Using a pre- and post-survey, this exploratory study empirically examined whether teachers gained an understanding of design thinking. Results indicated that the game design experience worked well to improve overall design perceptions; the results showed a consistent, positive trend. Specifically, two of the three cohorts had statistically significant differences (p < .05) while the third cohort had a marginally significant difference (p < .10) from pre- to post-survey. More importantly, after the intervention, teachers from all three cohorts reported an increase in their familiarity with design thinking. Implications for the findings are discussed.