Illinois Researchers Stimulate Learning, Create Tools & Disrupt Education

By Tom Hanlon

The College of Education and the Siebel Center for Design have been collaborating on disrupting education since 2018.

Human-centered design is a problem-solving approach that uses design thinking to identify the unmet needs of a population to develop solutions collaboratively and iteratively.

“We made an early connection with the College in order to properly evaluate and assess how design thinking can disrupt education,” says Rachel Switzky, Siebel Center for Design (SCD) director.

Design thinking, “relies heavily on empathy and iteration,” explains Saad Shehab, SCD’s associate director of assessment and research. Shehab earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from Education at Illinois before stepping into his post at SCD.

“Empathy stresses that idea of the need to connect with others, the need to be kind, honest, transparent, and to form the trust to collaborate with others in order to start learning from failure, to learn from taking one step after another until you arrive at a satisfactory solution to the problem.”

Curtis Mason, associate dean for undergraduate programs and teaching associate professor in the College, worked with Shehab and teaching assistants to co-design a booklet that provides students with a systematic way to approach their community placement assignment through a human-centered design lens.

Another key figure within the College’s work with SCD is Mike Tissenbaum, associate professor in C&I. Tissenbaum was brought in, Shehab says, so SCD could build on his expertise in the learning sciences—a relationship that has continued to this day.

“Mike is one of our key advisors at the Center,” Shehab notes. “He attends monthly meetings with us, and many of our SCD scholars go to him for advice. He’s helped us promote the Center, and he has helped make connections through his network. That mentorship is one of the key collaborations between the center and the College.”

Another important collaboration, Shehab says, is through grants focused on humancentered design in K-12 and higher education settings.

“I’m working right now with Gloriana González, professor in Curriculum & Instruction, on a grant to create professional development opportunities for teachers to learn about human-centered design and create math lessons that integrate human-centered design with geometry and social justice,” he says.

A third link between SCD and the College of Education is in incorporating humancentered design in education courses.

It gets down to disrupting how education has been traditionally approached, says Switzky. “For example, many people find STEM topics unengaging because they’re often presented in a dry manner,” she says. “Using a human-centered design approach is one way to make STEM careers more exciting and accessible.”

Education at Illinois Active in SCD’s Affiliate Program

Faculty focus on collaborative research, development, and innovation that brings human-centered design to the affiliates’ disciplinary focus.

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