CQUniversity Unit Profile.

This is an INDIVIDUAL, WRITTEN assessment. You are required to design an A2-sized poster to demonstrate your visualisation, summarising, prioritising and synthesising skills (these are all key skills in Design Thinking!). An effective poster is a communication tool that utilises structure, graphics and text to clearly convey complex messages, while being visually appealing and engaging; text, albeit important, is used sparingly. It is the responsibility of the poster's designer to ensure that the poster is self-explanatory and does not require extensive interpretation from the audience.

In order to complete this assessment, you are required to design a poster, which clearly addresses the following question: What is Empathy and why is it so important for Design Thinking? To be successful in this assessment, you are required to research academic/scholarly (published in peer-reviewed journals) literature and make use of effective and suitable visualisation techniques in order to design a carefully constructed and logical poster, which clearly displays your answer to the above question.

More specifically, your poster should:

• clearly address the question;
• be logically structured and aesthetically pleasing;
• refer to correct material you have read in the literature (you should include a MINIMUM of 3 scholarly references - in-text references and a reference list in APA style must be included on the poster; please see Moodle for some examples of how this can be achieved in a visually pleasing manner);
• present a clear and concise message (in title and other content);
• contain sufficient detail that a layperson (without specific background in Design Thinking) can understand what you are trying to say;
• use relevant visualisation techniques* to visually display the message and content of your poster; and
• use text sparingly (a MAXIMUM of 300 words, excluding reference list, is permitted).

*NOTE: This may include graphics, but you need to remember that this does NOT mean cutting and pasting graphics from the internet or other sources - plagiarism of visual content will be treated in the same manner as plagiarism of text.

You must use ONE SINGLE PowerPoint slide as your poster (see template on Moodle). For this unit, you do not have to print the poster but it has to be clearly visible if projected in a classroom. Please see Moodle for further advice on how to create, structure and design effective posters. Supporting material and additional advice is available for both on-campus and distance students.

• Demonstrate understanding of Design Thinking by providing correct information on the poster (30%)
• Demonstrate synthesis and summarising skills by displaying a clear and concise message on the poster (30%)
• Ability to effectively use visualisation techniques, structure, aesthetics and layout on the poster (20%)
• Demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 3 academic sources (10%)
• Correct use of the APA referencing system (10%)

See Moodle for more detailed assessment rubric. Late submission and academic misconduct penalties apply as per the university regulations.

As Masters students you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice, and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in your course has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as Masters students, indicate a willingness to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. Students should insure that they understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if they meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE (a full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment).

At the start of term, you are required to join a team (3-5 students per team). Throughout the term, teams will undertake the following activities:

• identify a problem that could be addressed/improved through Design Thinking (the problem may be of a social, service, commercial or digital nature);
• use Design Thinking tools, techniques and mind-set to develop ideas for innovations that address/improve the problem you have identified;
• consider future steps to launch potential innovative solutions to your chosen problem;
• present the Design Thinking process that you have applied to identify the problem and reach potential innovative solutions; and
• develop a written report critically discussing what your group would do differently if you had to do Design Thinking again.

You will have the opportunity to experience and apply relevant tools and techniques throughout the term and you are STRONGLY encouraged to actively and creatively make use of opportunities provided in-class (on-campus students) and online (distance students) to practice and refine your Design Thinking skills.

This is a GROUP assessment that consists of two components:

1. Oral presentation of your group's Design Thinking process
2. Written report, critically discussing what you would do differently if you had to do Design Thinking again

Presentation:
The presentation reports on the Design Thinking activities your team has carried out to deeply understand the problem you have chosen and to achieve potential innovative solution(s) to said problem - there is no maximum of activities you should carry out as this depends upon how you progress with your problem finding and deep dive, and whether you have repeated some activities multiple times. However, as an absolute minimum, you are expected to report on 10 activities as per the prescribed textbook. Your presentation must cover the following:

1. What activities have you carried out and why?
2. What were the outcomes of each activity?
3. What outcome(s) did you choose to bring into the next activity and why?
4. Where - within the Design Thinking process - are you at the point of presenting?

You should ensure that you go beyond purely describing the activities and instead include some critical evaluation of the tools' merit to your particular Design Thinking process. The description of activities, tools and techniques requires references to relevant literature and evidence of your involvement with these activities. You can evidence this, for instance, by including photographs of your activities that you should be compiling for your blog in assessment 3 anyway, but please remember that this group report deals with your ACTIVITIES and their OUTCOMES, not with the REFLECTIONS on your personal learning - the latter is the content of assessment 3. An absolute minimum of 10 academic references is required. Further supporting material is available in Moodle.

Presentations should be between 13 and 15 minutes in duration - presenters will be stopped if they go over the 15 minute mark. Each team member should contribute roughly equally. Presentations should make use of PowerPoint slides, which have to be submitted via Moodle by the given deadline. You are STRONGLY encouraged to utilise other visual aids (printed diagrams, prototypes, etc.) to support your presentation.

On-campus students: You will present live in class during the workshop in week 10 or 11. Students who do not attend their timetabled workshop class or are late for their presentation will receive a mark of 0 (zero) for the entire presentation component; if unforeseen emergency situations occur, clearly evidence thereof is required to avoid this penalty.

Distance students: You may choose to deliver your presentation live to the unit co-coordinator via video conference in week 10 or 11 or record your presentation and submit the video file via Moodle or YouTube. If you select the latter option, you should record each team member presenting their part of the presentation and then combine the recordings into one single video file. Please note that it is important that you are visible in the presentation video - hence, submitting slides with voice-over is not sufficient for this assessment. It is recommended you use software such as Camtasia or zoom, which allows you to be in the video, while also giving you the opportunity to share your PowerPoint slides with the audience. It is your responsibility to ensure appropriate video and audio quality.

Report:

This is a GROUP report, which should be 1,500 to 2,000 words, excluding preliminaries, tables, figures, references and appendices. To successfully complete this part of the assessment, you must critically evaluate your experience of carrying out Design Thinking, research the literature about Design Thinking, and then answer this question: What would you do differently if you did another Design Thinking project, and why? Groups are not required to list all possible aspects they would do differently, but to outline only 2-4 key aspects. An absolute MINIMUM of 10 academic references is required.

****Submission: One group member must submit the report AND the presentation slides via Moodle by the given deadline. Irrespective of when you carry out your presentation, you will be presenting the slides you have submitted by the deadline. Changes to the slides between submission and presentation are NOT permitted.
****Self- and Peer-Assessment (SPA): At the end of term, you are required to complete an SPA questionnaire, in which you are evaluating yourself and your team members; your personal SPA result will be part of assessment 3 (see assessment 3 for more details).

Assessment criteria - Presentation:

• Ability to describe and critically evaluate a minimum of 10 suitable Design Thinking tools/techniques that your group has utilised, alongside their outcomes (15%)
• Presentation of evidence that your group has utilised these tools/techniques (15%)
• Ability to identify how far your group has progressed in their Design Thinking process (5%)
• Demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 10 academic sources (5%)
• Correct use of the APA referencing system (5%)
• Ability to work cooperatively in a work-based team to prepare a professional presentation (appropriate personal professional standards in terms of dress, verbal and non-verbal communication consistent with standards expected of professional leaders and managers in the work context) in the nominated format (5%)

Assessment criteria - Report:

• Ability to critically evaluate own Design Thinking experience (15%)
• Demonstrate wider understanding of Design Thinking by outlining alternative actions and reasons for their suitability (20%)
• Ability to construct a complete and professional report in the nominated format consistent with standards expected of professional leaders and managers in the work context (5%)
• Demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 10 high-quality academic sources (5%)
• Correct use of the APA referencing system (5%)

See Moodle for more detailed assessment rubric. Late submission and academic misconduct penalties apply as per the university regulations.

As Masters students you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice, and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in the Postgraduate course has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals  and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as Masters students, indicate a willingness to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. Students should insure that they understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if they meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE (a full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment).

This is an INDIVIDUAL assessment that consists of three components:

1. Blog detailing your weekly activities and learning (multi-media)
2. Reflective report, which details your learning journey and explicitly cross-references the blog (written)
3. Self- and Peer-Assessment of groups from assessment 2 (online questionnaire)

Weekly blog:

Blogs are a useful tool for yourself to keep track of activities you have carried out, as well as to nurture your writing and reflection skills. When published, blogs can also become powerful communication tools that enable you to share your experiences and learning with your stakeholders and the wider community. This assessment enables you to practice your practical blogging skills.

For this assessment, you are required to regularly record your weekly activities in the form of a blog. Blog entries need to be time stamped and demonstrate regular engagement with the Moodle blogging tool THROUGHOUT the term. Students who do not engage with the regular blogging activity and attempt to retrospectively write up their thoughts in one go at the end of term will lose out on important marks. Blog entries MUST NOT BE EDITED - if you wish to add or change something you wrote earlier, please write another entry instead of editing and outline what you would change.

You should make sure your blog entries are reflective in nature, rather than merely describing the activities you have carried out – a template will be provided in Moodle to help you with this and on-campus students will be encouraged to use some of the class time to record their reflections. The fact that you are recording your activities and learning on a weekly basis helps you develop your group report (assessment 2), as well as the reflective report (assessment 3).

You are strongly encouraged to add photographs, images, videos or other supporting material that may help you reflect. There is no prescribed maximum of entries or words per entry as experience showed that many students find this a useful learning exercise that they want to utilise to its full potential. However, the absolute minimum is 8 time-stamped entries spread across the term. It is best to write at least one entry per week and each entry should be no shorter than 150 words. The blog component of assessment 3 is part of the assessment requirements and markers will check it for completeness, suitability as a communication tool, and reference material for your reflective report. However, please note that you will not receive detailed written feedback about the blog content.

Reflective report:

While the blog is built throughout the term, the reflective report is to be developed towards the end of the term, as it requires you to present a critical self-analysis and reflection of your learning as a result of experiencing Design Thinking activity within this unit. The self-analysis and reflection must consider your personal development, as well as the development of your knowledge of Design Thinking topics. As a conclusion, students are to develop an action plan of key events and activities that they can undertake over the next 6 months to acquire any knowledge, skills and behaviours identified as requiring development. The reflective report should be submitted as a Word document with a length of 2,500 words (+/- 10%), excluding preliminaries, tables, figures and references. Your reflective report must make reference to appropriate academic literature and theory in a critical way. Moreover, the report MUST explicitly reference appropriate evidence in your blog using a clear cross-reference system. The reflective report must make use of at least 10 high-quality academic references (APA style).

Self- and Peer-Assessment (SPA):

You are required to fill in an online questionnaire, evaluating yourself and the peers you worked with for assessment 2 according to various team working criteria. This SPA questionnaire will be open for two weeks at the end of term and you will receive email communication about it. You are required to provide candid and fair evaluations of yourself and your group mates and – in controversial cases – you may be required to provide additional evidence to back up your evaluations. Please note that there is NO extension to the cut-off point for this SPA questionnaire and late completion is NOT possible – students who fail to fill in the SPA by the given deadline will receive a mark of 0 (zero) for this component of assessment 3.

• Demonstrate regular use of the weekly blog by providing clear cross-referencing between report and at least 8 time-stamped meaningful blog entries THROUGHOUT the term (20%)
• Demonstration of candid and critical self-analysis, including reflection on knowledge AND personal development directly linked to examples of own behaviour to identify personal strengths and weaknesses (30%)
• Ability to devise an action plan, supported by literature, that addresses key development needs and identifies specific activities and appropriate timeframes for implementation (20%)
• Demonstrate a breadth and quality of research by using a minimum of 10 high-quality sources (10%)
• Correct use of the APA referencing system (10%)
• Contribution to the group in assessment 2 as evaluated by yourself and your group members (Self- and Peer-Assessment) (10%)

See Moodle for more detailed assessment rubric. Late submission and academic misconduct penalties apply as per the university regulations.

As Masters students you are required to engage in research as per the Australia Quality Framework (AQF) guidelines. Two specific requirements need to be considered. Students need to demonstrate “a body of knowledge that includes the understanding of recent developments in a discipline and/or area of professional practice, and demonstrate "knowledge of research principles and methods applicable to a field of work and/or learning”. Each unit in the Postgraduate course has a number of required weekly readings in terms of academic texts, journals and business publications that represent the appropriate body of knowledge and recent developments referred to by the AQF. In order to demonstrate the ability to engage in appropriate research, students should read and utilise these texts and journals and publications, and as Masters students, indicate a willingness to research beyond this minimum standard through additional texts, journals and studies that demonstrate an ability to engage in independent research. Students should insure that they understand the specific research that is required for each assessment piece and recognise that if they meet this minimum requirement, you will receive the minimum grade for demonstrated research. Your attention is drawn to the University’s stated position on plagiarism. THE WORK OF OTHERS, WHICH IS INCLUDED IN THE ASSIGNMENT MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO ITS SOURCE (a full list of references must be submitted as part of the assessment).