Addressing Cognitive Challenges in Applying Design Thinking for Opportunity Discovery: Reflections from a Design Thinking Teaching Team

Abstract

In this commentary on Michael Lissack’s two-part article “Understanding is a Design Problem: Cognizing from a Designerly Thinking Perspective,” we reflect on our experiences leading postgraduate entrepreneurship education. We discuss our design thinking teaching experience in relation to a number of cognitive challenges that Lissack identifies, outline how our teaching and learning process addresses these challenges, and illustrate how activities supported by key principles of design thinking can support alleviating them. Keywords: Design Thinking, entrepreneurship education, innovation, teaching and learning