Design Thinking Fundamentals A

Academic unit or major

Graduate major in Engineering Sciences and Design

Instructor(s)

Shigeki Saito / Hiraku Sakamoto / Kazuaki Inaba / Yuki Taoka / Yuval Kahlon / Ryo Terui

Class Format

Lecture/Exercise

Media-enhanced courses

-

Day of week/Period
(Classrooms)

5-8 Mon (Ishikawadai Bldg.5 , Desaign Factory and S323)

Class

A

Course Code

ESD.A402

Number of credits

110

Course offered

2021

Offered quarter

1Q

Syllabus updated

Jul 10, 2025

Language

English

Syllabus

Course overview and goals

This class provides students an opportunity to learn the knowledge and the capability needed in "Design Thinking" approach through intensive lectures and practices of a long-term project. The class starts with the question, "What is Design Thinking?". The students are requested to understand and master the way of thinking in "Design Thinking" approach about how to find and solve the problem from the fundamental level. The knowledge and skill obtained in this class is highly related to the following projects related to engineering design. When engineers faces various problems, they must know how to solve them with strong viewpoint of key issues in problems. Therefore, students learn fundamental five steps; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, and understand how to use the steps through basic exercises. They also experience the iterating processes from "finding potential user needs" to "ideating as making solutions to problems".

Course description and aims

The goal is to understand fundamental five steps of "Design Thinking" approach; Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test, through lectures and practices of a long-term project.

Keywords

Design Thinking, Project-Based-Learning (PBL)

Competencies

• Specialist skills
• Intercultural skills
• Communication skills
• Critical thinking skills
• Practical and/or problem-solving skills

Class flow

DTF-A (held on Monday in English at Design Factory, Ishikawadai 5th bldg., 3rd floor)
Students are supposed to have a group work under instructors' supervision. The class style is Project-Based-Learning (PBL).
In the Design Thinking Fundamentals A, lectures are given mainly in English.
In the Design Thinking Fundamentals B, lectures are given mainly in Japanese.

Course schedule/Objectives

Study advice (preparation and review)

To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.

Textbook(s)

Each instructor specifies textbooks.

Reference books, course materials, etc.

Each instructor specifies materials.

Evaluation methods and criteria

Each instructor specifies criterion and methods for assessment.

Related courses

• ESD.A501 ： Engineering Design Project A
• ESD.A502 ： Engineering Design Project B
• ESD.A503 ： Engineering Design Project C
• ESD.B401 ： Engineering Design Advanced
• ESD.B402 ： Engineering Design Project

Prerequisites

Each instructor specifies requirements for her/his class.

Other

There are DTF-A and B. DTF-A will be taught in English (on Monday) and DTF-B in Japanese (on Saturday). Since S323 will not be used, please come to Ishikawadai Bldg. No. 5 3rd Floor Design Factory. Ishikawadai Bldg. No. 5 cannot be entered without registration, so TA will be on standby at the entrance. Please be careful not to be late. (Please note the announcement from the university as it is possible that the course will be offered online by Zoom depending on the situation of COVID-19.)