This case study is part of the University’ Social Responsibility project “World Heritage Potential Field School”, an interdisciplinary university course program. This study developed an innovative “community construction” curriculum module using hands-on model of urban design workshop. The curriculum is designed based on the design thinking process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. This study examined how students developed design thinking through the learning process of fieldwork, problem definition, and project proposal with teamwork in real-life communities and neighborhoods. In this study, “Religious Culture and Historic District Regeneration” was selected as the theme of the workshop course, based on the real issues in context, and the religious culture experience of the intangible cultural heritage was used as the topic of the proposal. Data were collected from classroom sessions, group discussions, neighborhood and community visits, student interviews, and learning reflective journals to analyze the conceptualization and design process that stimulate the possibility of rejuvenating the historic Tamsui district. The research findings revealed that, through participatory design, students’ learning to accomplish the proposed tasks was a sense making process through their communication with the “people” and “surroundings” of the place as well as their own experiential understanding. The study also found that bringing the curriculum to the real-life world for task-based learning initiated novel learning experiences while students were exposed to traditional culture. The architectural knowledge built by research through design and the visibility function that promotes design thinking are further discussed in this research. In addition, the curriculum module on innovative participatory design “community construction” developed in this study will help optimize the practice of design thinking learning model in university curriculum reform.