Design thinking is a learning approach that focuses on developing students' creative confidence. Design includes many elements such as thinking, developing empathy, promoting action-oriented prejudices, directing thinking, developing meta-cognitive awareness, being active, problem solving, and using one's imagination. Through design-oriented thinking, the pedagogical repertoire of teachers is expanded (AEÜSBED,2019).The design-oriented thinking process begins with the definition of a problem. It involves research and the ranking of priorities that often compete with each other. It tests the applicability of multiple solutions with prototypes and ends with the social evaluation of objects. (Davis, 1998).Considering that the most important factor in individuals' lives is creative problem solving, design thinking is a highly functional approach to finding creative solutions to complex problems. (Carroll, Goldman, Britos, Koh, Royalty and Hornstein, 2010; Vande Zande, Warnock, Nikoomanesh and Van Dexter, 2014).Design thinking supports students 'critical thinking, social development, team work skills, and students' academic performance. It increases students 'academic performance by contributing to students' understanding, identification and analysis process (Carroll et al., 2010; Vande Zande et al., 2014; Watson, 2015). According to the data obtained from European Commission, over %46 of youths are at risk of social exclusion since the education system has not been successful to prepare and maintain teachers and trainers with high-performance in order to provide their learners with practical and authentic skills. Correspondingly, the learners lack of guidance, applicable and life context skills which are creative thinking, problem solving and collaboration skills, so they are left with a few options like early school drop-out. Low academic success is one of the variables that can be the predictor of school dropout alone. Low academic success leading to school dropout damages the self-esteem of the individual and creates a sense of loss of control (Agnew, 1992).There are many studies that found that low academic level and low grades are strong predictors of school dropout (Alexander, Entwise and Kabbani, 2001; Goldschmidt and Wang, 1999; Rumberger, 1995). In line with all these requirements and the data (COE), it is clear that there is a gap in academic success of teachers to prevent early school leaving by providing their learners with applicable skills and guidance. This project will bridge this gap through the training modules based on design thinking skills. The project aims at increasing academic success of teachers, supporting professional development of educators, empowering teachers/trainers/educators with resources to teach design thinking skills, equipping teachers with a design thinking mindset, facilitating the adoption of design thinking educational practices, strengthening the capacity of educational authorities, policymakers and decision makers to promote and mainstream design-thinking educational practices, as well as decreasing early school drop-out through the following intellectual outputs: - Methodological Framework for Design Thinking Skills in Secondary Schools - Training Content for Teachers and Online Learning Platform - Instructional Guide and Practical Resources to Promote Design Thinking Skills - Recommendation Paper to promote Design Thinking Skills in Education The target groups are teachers, trainers, educators, decision-makers, policymakers, and educational authorities. The project will involve the following participants in different activities of the project; 60 teachers for analysis of the current situation in Design Thinking Skills education 15 teachers for testing the platform and contents 40 participants in national pilot trainings 145 participants of teachers, educators, policy makers, educational authorities and academics in multiplier events. This project will have a direct impact on improving the academic success with design thinking approach in multi-disciplinary areas in education and enhancing the instructional capacity of teaching staff. The envisaged impact will be increased social inclusion of European students through mainstream design thinking education at schools.
The project was devised to have a direct impact on improving the academic success with design thinking approach in multi-disciplinary areas in education and enhancing the instructional capacity of teaching staff. Also it was intended to enlarge the experience for partner countries to implement set of the innovative teaching methods and techniques which are in the ground of design thinking approach. One underlying intetion was providing of in-service teacher training courses in DT for in-service teacher trainings in all school levels and subjects, including DT topics in the university courses for pre-service teacher training. In this sense, they wanted to better understand the reasons and facts behind early school leaving. it was intriguing to understand why there was still a pervasive rate of demotivation and underachievement in some school disciplines and areas. It was also important to us to understand the level of integration of new methodologies and approaches in the school curricula, the knowledge and competences teachers held in order to do that successfully, and what could be the relation between those approaches and the reduction of school leaving and improvement of students’ motivation and engagement
The consortium members make it clear that they participated in this prject to enlarge their point of views and to achieve greater integration of Design Oriented Thinking Curriculum into their own system. Relatedly, countries such as Portugal, Italy determined the key factors which influence school dropout behaviour include school performance, early risk behaviours, psychopathological factors, lack of psycho-emotional support, and inappropriate beliefs. Family background, particularly parental education, emerges as a strong predictor of dropout and financial constraints. Emotional discomfort and negative feelings towards school contribute to dropout tendencies, especially during transitions. The project undertook to overcome these problems.