Loughborough University Library: Open Journals
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Developing Novel Explanatory Models For Electronics Education
Get PDFThis paper explores how representations of technologicalconcepts may be designed to help students with visuallearning styles achieve successful comprehension in thefield of electronics. The work accepts a wide definition ofwhat is understood by the visualisation of a model in thatit can take different external forms, but also include aninternal representation in a person’s mind. We are of theopinion that to acquire scientific or technologicalknowledge there is a requirement for abstract models toexhibit particular features that complement the nature oftheir fields, and that their effectiveness is dependent onthe context in question. This work reports on thedevelopment of experimental materials which are novelteaching aids in the context of electronics education. Itproposes design principles based on congruent,schematised, symmetrical spatial metaphors of circuitsincorporating interactivity by the use of gesture,scaffolding, learning by topological, analogical andconceptual resemblances. We conclude that qualitativemethods may be employed with a significant measure ofsuccess even for a field such as electronics that is oftenconsidered to be difficult due to the necessity of abstractexplanations
Models of Change: The future of design education
Get PDFThis paper discusses design and design education in the context of four major social and environmental concerns identified by Bruce Archer in 1973: overpopulation; pollution; depletion of natural resources; control. It argues for the social and economic importance of design
education in primary and secondary schools. It identifies ‘designerly thinking’ as an aspect of cognitive modelling directed towards imagining viable alternative futures. The paper then reviews the otential of design educational activity, focusing on seven themes:
• The aims of design education.
• The significance of practical education.
• Encouraging the imagination.
• The creative value of aesthetic awareness.
• The value of learning through making.
• The creative relationships between designing and
making.
• The educational purpose of doing design projects.
Research agenda are identified in key areas: the nature of imaginative activity and its significance in education; graphicacy and cognitive modelling in design
Designerly Learning: Workshops for schools at the Design Museum
Get PDFThis paper presents qualitative research recently undertaken by the Head of Learning at the Design Museum. The research explores how learning in the museum’s workshop programme for schools is conceptualised by the museum educators who devise and teach on the programme. The study is framed by an epistemological stance of social constructionism, in view of its relevance to respondents’ accounts of the social, intersubjective nature of learning within the workshops. Based on findings from five semi-structured interviews, the localised nature of the case study considers the distinctive characteristics of learning within a typologically specific museum amidst debate in the cultural sector over the role and status of museum learning more generally. A brief literature review summarises features of professional
design practice and of ‘design thinking’ salient to the study, in particular the proactive engagement of design in its realworld context, and a systemised account of designers’ cognitive processes. The interview data is then presented across three themes. These themes are: shared perspectives on the content of learning; on the environment for learning; on the processes of learning. Key findings from the interviews are synthesised into an outline of an ‘ideal-type’ workshop which sets out the core phases and behaviours therein. The term ‘designerly learning’ is coined as a concept that can be adopted to
‘organise the experience of learning’ in the school workshops at the Design Museum (Pring, 2000:10).
Notably, designerly learning seeks to model characteristics of design thinking and practice to the learner through the experience of a workshop using the museum’s handling collections. Arguably, it is a concept particular to this institution, rooted in its distinctive disciplinary context of design. In conclusion a note of caution is sounded regarding the theoretical abstraction of the concept of designerly learning, notwithstanding its educational and professional value as an “adequate, simplifying paradigm” of learning (Cross, 1992)
A Paradigm for Promoting Visual Synthesis through Freehand Sketching
Get PDFResearch (Fish, 2004) suggests that everybody should be taught how to freehand sketch and utilise it as a tool for supporting the visualising instinct. A fundamental shift in philosophy of the technology education system in Ireland towards design driven subjects brought with it a need to
develop practising teacher’s technological capabilities. This paper is concerned with the exploration and development of freehand sketching as a support tool for visual synthesis and creative discovery during design driven activities
The citation behaviour of Civil Engineering students
Get PDFThe New Review project investigated how to improve students' information searching skills and the resulting reference lists through a new approach to teaching the literature review. This paper reports on one element of this study, which analysed reference lists from 47 final-year projects written by Civil & Building Engineering undergraduate students (BEng and MSc). It finds a strong positive correlation between the literature review mark and overall mark for each project, as well as a slightly weaker correlation between the number of references cited and the mark received. An analysis of the number, age, and type of references cited is performed in addition to an investigation into the quality of the bibliographic citations themselves. Finally, this paper makes recommendations as to how Information Literacy (IL) teaching relating to the literature review may be improved
The awareness and use of electronic information sources among livestock researchers in Tanzania
Get PDFThis paper is the result of a study that was conducted to investigate the accessibility and use of electronic information resources by the livestock researchers in Tanzania. One of the main objectives of the study was to assess the information literacy skills of livestock researchers. The study was conducted in three livestock research institutes in Tanzania with an overall sample size of fifty respondents consisting of livestock researchers and information professionals. Detailed questionnaires, interviews and observations were the methods used for data collection while data was analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and content analysis. One of the findings of the study was the lack of information literacy skills among most of the researchers and this was found to be limiting their access and use of e-resources. This paper discusses the level of information literacy that livestock researchers possess and its impact on these researchers’ awareness and use of e-resources
Mapping Student Information Literacy Activity against Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Skills
Get PDFThis paper introduces a model of information literacy which maps the activities that students undertake against Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive skills. Firstly, the paper summarises the authors’ underpinning research in this area. Secondly the paper proposes a model of information literacy and compares this with existing models of information literacy. Thirdly, each stage in the proposed model is articulated in more detail and the required cognitive skills for each stage are identified. Finally, the paper examines the implications of the model on how, and by whom, information literacy is delivered and supported in an academic context
System Design As A Three-Phase Dual-loop (TPDL) Process: Typesof knowledge-applied sources of feedback, and studentdevelopment as independent learners
Get PDFThis study aimed at exploring how high school studentsdeal with designing an information system, for example,for a small business or a medical clinic, the extent towhich students develop as independent learners whileworking on their projects, and the factors that help orhinder fostering students’ design skills. The three-phasedual-loop (TPDL) model for system design is proposed,according to which design consists of conceptual design,structural designand detailed design, and includes ahuman-drivenfeedback loop and an instrumentation-drivenfeedback loop. It was found that the design of areal-life system is a complicated task for high schoolstudents because it requires the integration of conceptualknowledge, primarily in the phase of defining a system’sobjectives and planning its general structure, andprocedural knowledge, for example, in the phase ofhandling the detailed design, implementation and testing.The common situation in schools is that students learnand practice using procedural knowledge, whereasachieving conceptual knowledge is a long-term process.Therefore, it is essential to engage students in design tasksof increasing complexity from early stages in school inorder to enable them to accumulate experience andconstruct their own knowledge about all phases of systemdesign