Table 1 Design Thinking Block Outline and Assessment (2019/2020; 2020/2021classes) Master of Public Health, Division of Public Health, School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Sciences, University College Dublin

DT seminar and Lectures (6 h in total)

• Aims: To describe the design thinking method and provide an overview of each of the recommended steps

• Two-hour seminar dictated by a facilitator from the UCD innovation academy

• Facilitator: non-healthcare background with experience facilitating design hackathons for diverse students’ cohorts

• Students to complete the “Carbon footprint” challenge

• Four hours of asynchronous lectures on leadership, design thinking in healthcare and empathy tools

Learning Outcomes

• To apply the DT method to a public health challenge or health service challenge of their choice

Specific learning outcomes by DT stage:

✓ Empathy:

◦ The team identified and used a range of tools to conduct the empathy stage. Range of tools: a) literature review b) interviews c) observation d) surveys e) social media comments f) reports g) pictures/experience e) extreme users’ interviews

✓ Problem statement:

◦ The problem has been redefined or defined considering the empathy stage

◦ The problem statement addressed the main obstacle -as identified by the empathy stage- to achieve the desirable outcome-

✓ Ideation:

◦ How many divergent ideas proposed the team to address the problem?

✓ Overall assessment:

◦ The solution aligns with the problem, the problem statement, the empathy stage, and the ideation

✓ Communication:

◦ The team communicated the idea in a memorable way

Assignment

• Step 1: Identify one public health or healthcare management challenge of choice

• Step 2: Self-group in teams of four to five

• Step 3: Conduct an empathy stage – literature review, ethnography, semi-structured interviews, observations

• Step 4: Define the problem in light of the empathy stage process

• Step 5: Ideation: propose as many as divergent ideas as possible

Students were given 3 weeks to complete the assignment with 1–2 feedback sessions as required

Pitch

• Students pitch their assignments and submit a short report on the process and lessons learnt

Module assessment based on Kirkpatrick Model

• Level 1 – Reaction: Overall satisfaction with the activity

• Level 2 – Learning Outcomes: Achievement of learning outcomes during the course by the students and by two independent assessors

• Level 3 – Behaviour: Intention to use the learning outcome in the workplace

• Level 4 – Action