PRE-SERVICE SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHERS’ VIEWS ON DESIGN THINKING APPROACH

Abstract

Design thinking approach, which focuses on both needs and problems, has been used in the field of education as well as business and management in recent years. Within the scope of this study, design thinking approach was applied to pre-service social studies teachers and then their opinions on the approach were obtained. The study group is composed of pre-service teachers studying in the social studies teacher program at Artvin Çoruh University, Faculty of Education. In the study, where qualitative research method was used, focus group interviews were conducted with semi-structured interviews with pre-service teachers after the implementation. The data were analyzed in descriptive and content analysis. The data were divided into categories and codes and visualized in different ways. As a result of the study, the participants considered design thinking as a method, process and approach, indicated the benefits of the process as to gain experience in design processes, to determine the needs in educational environments, to make practical materials, stated the difficulties as unable to focus on the process and creating content, focused on the skills such as criticizing, multi-dimensional thinking, manual skills while explaining the approach, and explained the difference from other design approach processes as in design thinking the product is designed at the end of the process and mostly need-focused design is created.