Seminar: Hands-on, minds-on, and hearts-on: Impacts of a feedback strategy on developing students’ empathy and design creativity in design-based projects

Hands-on, minds-on, and hearts-on:
Impacts of a feedback strategy on developing students’ empathy and design creativity in design-based projects

Dr. Juanjuan Chen

Research Professor, College of Education
Zhejiang University

December 6, 2024 (Friday)

14:30 – 16:00

Room 204, Runme Shaw Building, HKU

Chair: Professor Maggie Wang

Abstract: 

Design-based projects emphasize the design of creative solutions. Creative thinking plays an important role in a design-based project. It emphasizes not only the creation of diverse ideas to solve a problem, but more importantly the development of new understandings of the problem from diverse perspectives. Building empathy, i.e., understanding the needs of the users for whom the design is intended, can help students or novice designers to develop a new understanding of the problem and design creative solutions. Our study explored the effects of a feedback strategy on developing students’ empathy, creative thinking, and product creativity. The findings show that the feedback stimulated students’ reflection and inspired them to think from diverse perspectives; students receiving feedback demonstrated higher levels of cognitive empathy, empathic motivation, and design creativity. 

About the speaker:

Dr. Juanjuan Chen is a research professor in the College of Education, Zhejiang University (ZJU 100 young professor), and the deputy director of Information Technology Center of Zhejiang University. Dr. Chen received her master’s degree in electronics and communication engineering from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include inquiry learning, design education, creativity, and AI-enhanced learning. Her work has focused on the development of higher-order thinking skills and the assessment of students’ thinking reflected in their learning artefacts. Her projects are funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Social Sciences and Humanities from the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, and Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences key project. The findings of her studies have been published in high-quality journals including Review of Educational Research, Educational Research Review, Internet and Higher Education, and Journal of Computer-Assisted Learning.

~ All are welcome ~