Magic and Design Thinking
Tong Li · 2025
Magic, as a performing art, aims to create a sense of wonder and a magical experience for the audience. The way magicians design and create such experiences aligns closely with design processes in other fields. This paper introduces magic as a pedagogical method for facilitating design thinking. The proposed activates were presented in a workshop at AECT 2025. Through this workshop, attendees learned about the foundation of magic performance and how various aspects of magic (watching, learning, and performing magic) can actively engage students in learning various stages of the design-thinking process and related concepts. Attendees also participated in those hands-on, magic-based activities to help them incorporate magic into their own design teaching practices. Reflections on the workshop are discussed in the conclusion of this paper.