Chapter 2: Local Implementation: Design Thinking in a Singapore School

Over the years, there has been an increased interest in enhancing teaching and learning in helping students develop the 21st century skills they will need to cope with the challenges of a rapidly changing environment (Schoemaker, 2008; Voogt & Roblin, 2012; Woods-Groves et al., 2019). The trend is driven by the concern that traditional methods of teaching pedagogies fall short of fostering important skills, such as problem-solving, that would prepare students for the future workplace (MacDonald & Hursh, 2006); researchers concur that current pedagogies will not adequately enhance employability in terms of competencies and skills required in the diverse, globalized, and competitive work environments (Kivunja, 2014; Weick, 2007). Furthermore, educators generally want to improve their pedagogical practices for effective teaching and learning (Morris & Hiebert, 2011), in part since they realize that current curriculum and pedagogy have been premised on historical situations such as industrialization, standardization, and learning as reproducing knowledge (Collins & Halverson, 2010; MacDonald & Hursh, 2006). However, educators struggle to develop pedagogic content knowledge as it involves factors like context and people (Van Driel & Berry, 2012). According to several authors, design thinking has been a useful concept for curriculum and pedagogical improvements (Goldman, 2018; Wong, 2011). Similarly, other scholars consider design thinking as a way to promote creative thinking and other desirable skills and traits for the 21st century workplace (Davies et al., 2011; Voogt & Roblin, 2012). This implies that innovative pedagogies are important to develop our next generation of employees and leaders. Furthermore, some authors consider teaching as a “design profession” because there is a constant call for pedagogical improvements that require testing (Kali et al., 2015, p. 177). Viewed from this perspective, design thinking is a potentially suitable approach for teaching and learning. This research explores the role of a school principal in implementing a new initiative, design thinking, in a secondary school to develop leadership and pedagogy.