Design Thinking Workshop at Kwun Tong Maryknoll College: Junior Form Students Solve Real Campus Problems

Imagine a group of F.2 and F.3 students sitting in a classroom — not memorising notes, not drilling exercises — but seriously researching: "Why are our school washrooms always in poor condition?" "Why do we have three exams in a single day during exam week?" "Why is the homework load completely unpredictable?"

This wasn't a complaints session. It wasn't a Liberal Studies debate. This was INSPIRE Education's Design Thinking workshop in partnership with Kwun Tong Maryknoll College — a challenge we had never attempted at this level before.

🎯 This Time, Something Different

Design Thinking typically appears in senior secondary STEM programmes, university innovation workshops, or corporate training rooms. Its framework demands critical thinking and a willingness to question what is taken for granted — challenging enough for adults, let alone junior secondary students.

But INSPIRE believes: with the right approach, age is never a barrier.

This workshop had no tech product development brief, no app design requirement. The challenge was simple and real — use Design Thinking to improve your own campus life. Six intensive sessions. Around 16 F.2 and F.3 students. Starting from zero with a university-level thinking framework — then applying it to the place they inhabit every day.

📚 What Did They Learn?

The workshop centred on INSPIRE's own Design Thinking methodology, built around three interlocking steps.

The first step was learning to truly listen. Not "I think everyone feels that..." — but gathering real, first-hand data through observation, surveys, and interviews. For many students, this was the first time they realised that what they assumed "everyone felt" was actually masking facts that had never been properly recorded.

The second step was learning to see everyone involved. A campus problem never affects just students. Teachers have their own pressures. School management has institutional considerations. Parents have expectations. Support staff have their daily realities. Students learned to map stakeholders, identify each group's core values, and face honestly the genuine conflicts between them — which is often the real reason many problems persist unsolved for years.

The third step was learning to keep asking why. Surface symptoms are never the root cause. By repeatedly asking "Why?" layer by layer, students peeled back the surface of each problem until they reached the core — something that could actually be changed. This process consistently surprised students: what they thought was an "individual attitude problem" often turned out to be a structural or systemic design issue.

Given the limited number of sessions, we focused on these three steps. But every student experienced the key insight: when you truly understand what the problem is, the direction of a solution often becomes naturally clear.

💡 Four Groups. Four Real Campus Problems.

The workshop culminated in a formal presentation. Four groups each selected a campus issue they had personally experienced, completed a full research and analysis process, then stood before a panel to present their findings.

The four topics — spanning the learning environment, campus hygiene, academic workload, and the exam schedule — were issues that happen every day in secondary schools but are rarely examined seriously. Each group went far beyond "sharing feelings" — they brought data, analysis, and stakeholder perspectives to present well-grounded improvement proposals.

Teachers in the room said they had not expected students to reach this level.

📩 Interested in bringing Design Thinking to your school? Contact INSPIRE Education at admin@coxana.com

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