In this conceptual paper, we present a contribution to game-based learning and design thinking, which translates to teaching and learning practices. We have designed a pedagogical intervention based on a
board game to engage learners and mediate the design thinking learning process in entrepreneurship education. We draw upon the idea that entrepreneurial activity is intrinsically related to designers’ work. The idea of entrepreneurs as designers requires a change in the way business schools handle design thinking, and in particular, its cognitive aspect. Our intervention will allow us to examine learners’ rationality in design thinking by taking 3 distinctive roles. In the first role, students as gamers will employ their cognition to design and execute their strategy to overcome their opponents, considering a general approach and emergent strategies that will arise from changes in the economic scenario and his/her competitors’ decisions. Then, after students have played the game, they will role-play as designers, working in groups to redesign the played game. In the last role, students as potential entrepreneurs, we will see how learners design a business model that encompasses the product (the game), the technology applied to it, and the customers’ desire. By combining the 3 roles, it is possible to analyze the design thinking development and cognition involved and the impact of the intervention on students’ comprehension of entrepreneurship. Our pedagogical intervention can be positioned as a mediational artifact that supports reflection and analysis with expected positive outcomes for both deep learning and engagement.
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