Facilitate Design Based Collaborative Learning
The module on Facilitate Design Based Collaborative Learning (DBCL) is highly relevant to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in water sports because it empowers participants to collaboratively address complex environmental and social challenges specific to aquatic contexts.
DBCL emphasizes a human-centered, iterative design thinking process that fosters empathy, creativity, and innovation, all essential for developing sustainable solutions that consider user needs and ecosystem health.
This approach supports water sport professionals and adult educators in co-creating practical, user-driven innovations—whether in equipment, training, or community engagement—that promote sustainability, safety, and environmental stewardship. By integrating collaborative learning with sustainability literacy, the module helps build competencies for reflective practice and real-world problem-solving. These skills are crucial in water sports, where environmental impact and community involvement are tightly intertwined.
Ultimately, this topic is vital as it cultivates responsible, innovative leaders and learners who can actively contribute to preserving aquatic environments while enhancing water sport experiences in a sustainable way.
The module “Facilitation of Design Based Collaborative Learning” focuses on equipping learners with a systematic, human-centered approach to solve complex problems through creativity, teamwork, and structured design methodology. It builds on the philosophy of design thinking, integrating collaborative learning to foster innovative, user-centered solutions that are especially relevant for sustainability and social innovation contexts.
To tackle these new challenges from the instructional point of view we need appropriate and specifically adapted approaches to teaching and learning in order to cope with the new societal (learning) environments. It will require a paradigm change from a formalised, structured, subject and supply-oriented training and qualification approach to a more informal, demand oriented, needs-driven and individualised learning design.
In a time of nearly unlimited access to information, knowledge, facts (and fakes) the main task of teachers and trainers is not merely the processing of knowledge anymore, but rather the facilitation and (self-)management of competences of their learners.
Key learning points include:
- Understanding the principles of Design Based Collaborative Learning (DBCL), which combines iterative design thinking phases with collaborative problem-solving to co-create concrete products, services, or prototypes.
- Mastering the six phases of design thinking: Understand, Empathize, Synthesize and Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test and Evaluate. Learners explore how each phase contributes to framing problems, generating ideas, building tangible solutions, and refining outcomes using continuous feedback.
- Applying specific facilitation tools and methods tailored to each phase—such as mind mapping, persona creation, the 5 Whys technique, “How Might We” statements, brain writing, role play, and user testing—to support collaboration and innovation.
- Developing competences to guide and facilitate groups in collaborative, interdisciplinary settings, emphasizing empathy, creativity, and reflective practice.
What is Design Based Collaborative Learning (DBCL)?
Design Based Collaborative Learning (DBCL) is a systematic, human-centered approach that supports innovative problem-solving by combining creativity, teamwork, and structured methodology. This approach is commonly applied across various fields, especially in idea development and innovation, where complex challenges require solutions that genuinely meet the needs of users and stakeholders.
DBCL operates through a multi-step, agile, and iterative process rooted in design thinking — a philosophy and set of tools that foster creative problem-solving.
DBCL prioritizes empathy, placing user needs and experiences at the core of the process to generate meaningful and applicable solutions. The approach encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, stakeholder engagement, and reflective practice, making it particularly effective for sustainability and social innovation projects.
The six key phases in the DBCL are explained in the next chapter.
What is Design Thinking?
Design thinking is a problem-solving approach that emphasizes empathy, creativity, and innovation. It involves a user-centered approach to problem-solving, where the needs and desires of the end-users are at the forefront of the process. In a sustainable context, design thinking can be a powerful tool for creating innovative and effective solutions to complex environmental challenges.
For trainers in a sustainable context, design thinking offers several potential benefits.
- It can help to create a more holistic understanding of sustainability challenges – By focusing on the needs and desires of the end-users, design thinking can help to identify underlying issues and potential solutions that may not have been apparent otherwise.
- It can help to foster creativity and innovation – By emphasizing empathy and user-centered design, design thinking can help to break down conventional thinking patterns and encourage new and innovative ideas.
- It can help to create solutions that are more effective and sustainable in the long term. By involving end-users in the design process, design thinking can help to ensure that the solutions are tailored to their needs and desires, and are more likely to be adopted and sustained over time.
Overall, design thinking is a powerful approach to problem-solving that can help trainers in a sustainable context to create innovative and effective solutions to complex environmental challenges. By focusing on empathy, creativity, and innovation, design thinking can help to foster a more holistic understanding of sustainability challenges and create solutions that are more effective, sustainable, and user-centered.
Design thinking is a methodology that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems. It’s extremely useful when used to tackle complex problems that are ill-defined or unknown—because it serves to understand the human needs involved, reframe the problem in human-centric ways, create numerous ideas in brainstorming sessions and adopt a hands-on approach to prototyping and testing.
Overview of the six-phases of design thinking:
- Understand (Research and Explore): In this phase, designers delve into the problem by conducting research, interviews, and observations to gain a broad understanding of the context and the user’s world.
- Empathise (Understand User Needs): Building on the understanding phase, designers seek to empathise with users, developing a deep appreciation of their needs, emotions, and motivations.
- Synthesis and Define (Frame the Problem): With insights from the empathise phase, designers define the problem statement, synthesising data and the user needs to form a clear, actionable problem statement.
- Ideate (Generate Ideas): Next, designers brainstorm and ideate, generating a multitude of creative solutions without judgment to address the defined problem.
- Prototype (Build Tangible Solutions): Designers create low-fidelity prototypes or representations of their ideas, allowing them to quickly test and refine concepts based on user feedback.
- Test and Evaluate (Gather Feedback): Prototypes are presented to users for feedback and evaluation, leading to further refinements and insights to inform the final solution.
Design thinking is a non-linear, iterative process meaning that design and development teams can refine their product based on the user testing and evaluation they do, and keep refining it continually. In this approach, designers create a prototype, test it with users and analyse the results before they make improvements according to what they found. This cycle of feedback loops is one that continues until the teams get the design to meet user needs in the best way possible.
This chapter provides activities and tools for the six-phase design thinking process. Each phase includes methods and tools tailored to foster sustainability literacy, innovation, and collaborative competence.
1. Understand
- Mind Map: a special form of presenting ideas and information to visualize relationships between them. A mind map is created by the team, either on paper or digitally.
- The six w-questions method helps to get a basic understanding of any situation. The clarification of the questions Who? Why? What? When? Where? and How? support the team in generating a common basis of understanding of the context of the challenge.
2. Empathise
- 5-Whys: a simple and quick questioning technique for a root-cause analysis that tries to get to the “pain point” of a challenge or problem. It helps to deeply analyse a situation, because often the obvious construction sites are not the cause but only a symptom of a chain of problems.
- Emotional Journey Map: The map shows the emotional journey of the user when using a product or service. The focus is on the interaction with the product and on what gets stuck with the users: Does the product satisfy them or not?
3. Synthesis and Define
- How Might We Statements: is a technique that turns insights and observations into actionable problem statements. It helps reframe challenges in a positive, open-ended way that sparks creative thinking. After synthesising your research and empathy work, identify a key user need or pain point. Then ask: How might we… [solve this problem or meet this need]?
- Personas: Personas are useful when the context or users are not sufficiently known. They are representations of fictional people who represent potential types of users of your idea, product, or service. The creation of personas helps the DT team to gain a greater understanding and empathy for the users and to be able to further develop the project according to the needs and preferences of users.
4. Ideate
- Brain Writing: can be used as an alternative or as preparation for classic brainstorming. In contrast to brainstorming, in which an open discussion arises from the start, the participants initially collect their ideas in silence just for themselves. Then each person can present the points they have collected to the group.
- Wow-How-Now: method is suitable when the process of collecting ideas is largely completed and you need to set priorities. The ideas collected are evaluated according to their originality or innovative strength as well as on the basis of their feasibility and entered into a matrix. In this way, the team can decide which ideas to select to continue the process.
5. Prototype
- Paper prototypes: simple prototypes made of paper, for example, are used to represent the essential characteristics of a product or service in a simplified manner.
- Role Play: For the role play method, one or more (ideally) uninvolved persons simulate a situation with the developed idea. Through the role play, on the one hand, the uninvolved people should have a realistic user experience with the prototype, and, on the other hand, they should provide the DT team with a gain in knowledge.
6. Test and Evaluate
- User Test: User tests are used to have prototypes tested by selected users. All or only part of the functionality can be made available.
- Testing Card: The preparation of a testing card helps you to prepare an optimal test scenario for your prototype. Specific questions are collected on the card that relate to the prototyping object and its application in the test. In this way, the goal is kept in view when interacting with the potential users. Ask yourself what kind of feedback you need for the next steps.
Adult Education Sectors
Adult educators benefit from DBCL as a facilitation framework that fosters learner-centered, experiential learning with a strong emphasis on collaboration, critical thinking, and sustainability literacy. The structured phases of DBCL support the design, implementation, and evaluation of educational interventions addressing real-world sustainability challenges.
Potential Applications with practical examples
First, it can help to create a more holistic understanding of sustainability challenges. By focusing on the needs and desires of the end-users, design thinking can help to identify underlying issues and potential solutions that may not have been apparent otherwise.
Second, design thinking can help to foster creativity and innovation. By emphasising empathy and user-centered design, design thinking can help to break down conventional thinking patterns and encourage new and innovative ideas.
Third, design thinking can help to create solutions that are more effective and sustainable in the long term. By involving end-users in the design process, design thinking can help to ensure that the solutions are tailored to their needs and desires, and are more likely to be adopted and sustained over time.
Overall, design thinking is a powerful approach to problem-solving that can help trainers in a sustainable context to create innovative and effective solutions to complex environmental challenges. By focusing on empathy, creativity, and innovation, design thinking can help to foster a more holistic understanding of sustainability challenges and create solutions that are more effective, sustainable, and user-centered.
Water Sports Sector
For water sport professionals, the core relevance of DBCL lies in applying human-centered, sustainability-focused design thinking to enhance water sports experiences and foster environmental stewardship. DBCL can help innovate services, training, equipment, and community engagement with a focus on water conservation, user safety, and experiential quality.
Potential Applications with practical examples
- Sustainable Water Sports Experience Design: Using some design principles and interactive technology to create immersive, eco-conscious water activities encouraging mindful interaction with water bodies.
- Innovation in Training & Safety Protocols: Applying the iterative phases of DBCL to co-create training programs or safety protocols that address changing environmental conditions and user needs, such as adaptive safety drills or eco-sensitive coaching techniques.
- Community Engagement Projects: Facilitating workshops with local stakeholders (athletes, environment groups, tourists) to co-develop solutions addressing water pollution or habitat disruption near popular water sport sites, leveraging collaborative ideation and prototyping tools.
- Product Development for Water Equipment: Engaging clients and athletes through empathising and prototyping phases to develop innovative, sustainable equipment like biodegradable boards or IoT-enabled aquatic gear that reduce environmental impact
Sustainable Solutions Sprint
For whom: Water Sport Proffesionals
Description:
Participants are divided into cross-functional teams (mixing trainers, athletes, and staff if possible). Each team is presented with a real sustainability challenge relevant to their local water sport context (e.g., single-use plastics at a surf school, safety concerns with changing climate conditions, or water usage at a marina).
Steps:
- Understand & Empathize: Teams create mind maps and interview each other or invited guests to map the needs of all stakeholders affected by the challenge.
- Define & Ideate: Using “How Might We” statements, each team frames the challenge and brainstorms solutions, incorporating both athlete perspectives and environmental considerations.
- Prototype: Teams sketch or build simple mock-ups (with paper, modeling clay, or digital tools) of their preferred solution—a new process, product, or community campaign.
- Share: Rapid presentations are delivered, and participants provide constructive feedback—focusing on feasibility, innovation, and sustainability impact.
Outcome:
Participants practice collaborative, design-driven problem-solving while addressing pressing, authentic sustainability issues in their field. Solutions can be refined and piloted post-session.
Empathy Mapping for Impactful Learning
For whom: AE Trainers
Description:
AE trainers work in pairs or small groups to apply empathy mapping as a tool for designing sustainability learning modules or workshops that genuinely connect with adult learners’ backgrounds and motivations.
Steps:
- Empathy Mapping: Each trainer selects a representative adult learner group (e.g., working parents, community volunteers). They map out what these learners say, think, feel, and do regarding sustainability both in life and learning contexts.
- Needs Identification: Participants discuss key barriers and motivators for these learners related to engaging in sustainability actions or learning modules.
- Idea Exchange: Trainers generate at least three instructional strategies or learning experiences, specifically tailored to support learners’ real needs—such as storytelling, hands-on stewardship projects, or peer mentoring models.
- Plan Sharing: Strategies are shared in plenary for feedback and enrichment.
Outcome:
Educators deepen their capacity for learner-centered, design-based facilitation, likely resulting in more engaging, impactful sustainability education experiences.
Coming soon