Nowadays, an increasing number of Higher Education Institutions continue to recommend the greater inclusion of active learning methods in curricula, mainly those traditionally associated with formal scientific areas. Since the beginning of the 21st century, collaborative and co-creative practices have been introduced into organizations and businesses.

In this sense, academia requires experience within this continuous transformation and transition to an increasingly digital and collaborative world. Some essential competencies are also mandatory, such as thinking about problems and opportunities critically and creatively and working collaboratively towards common goals to guarantee an axis of innovation and entrepreneurship.

The main purpose of the present article is to describe the opportunity to apply Design Thinking (DT) tools in the Service Marketing Curricular Unit in the Marketing Bachelor Curse (at the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança-EsACT, Portugal). Some specific goals are defined such as:
(i) Transfer appropriate skills and content to students to be in line with the needs of the job market;
(ii) Identify new approaches to teaching/learning to demonstrate how active learning techniques can be used to teach both contents of Service Design and skills in a services marketing unit;
(iii) Provide specific exercises designed to address brands and organizations in services marketing, involving them during the process e.g. human experiences design, mind maps, stakeholder maps, service blueprints, storyboards, feedback maps.

Through the DT methodology, students were able to get involved in a more active process (during the classes and outside the classes). Firstly, they selected a concrete service (already existing); then, they applied the tools (DT phases) to better understand the service (brands/companies, stakeholders and users); and finally, suggested improvements to it. Thus, through this activity, they could recognize the interactions that users/customers have with such a service, evaluating problem areas and/or opportunities through a customer journey map. Using the blueprint technique, they understood the most important moments to design/redesign. Some individual and group skills were developed, such as critical thinking, motivation, teamwork, innovation, design communication, and oral and written competencies.

Keywords: Design Thinking, Active learning, collaborative practices, Creativity, Service Marketing.