Walking in Another’s Shoes: Enhancing Experiential Learning Through Design Thinking

There exists an “innovation gap” where students are not prepared to meet the demands of an increasingly complex world. Skills such as creative confidence help close this gap and also foster innovation. To better prepare students, two concepts, design thinking and experiential learning, are integrated through the use of a modified writing exercise. This exercise is intended to be used following a learning experience such as hearing a guest speaker, touring a business, or engaging with professionals on a project as a means of fostering deeper learning and building skills needed to work creatively