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Experiences in pedagogy of Design : Design teachers frame of reference about the concept of \u27model”
No full textThe core of the Dutch Technasium secondary school course Research and Design curriculum (R&D is in Dutch called Onderzoeken en Ontwerpen O&O) is to involve students in real-life design (or research) problems with a problem owner at a company or organisation. Students explore the nature of the design problem, establish a design brief, explore possible solutions and work out one option into a design, a prototype or a product depending on the level of complexity. Students work and learn in teams coached by Technasium teachers. Some secondary school teachers are qualified to teach at Technasium if they obtain a certificate from the Technasium foundation through a number of short training courses. They are originally teachers in various subjects like mathematics, physics, physical exercise, language and so on. The other part of the teachers have a teaching degree in R&D next to a degree in engineering. Thanks to different backgrounds the teachers offer a variety of angles and know-how in different fields of expertise needed during a R&D activities. Such a composition is enriching and STEM supporting at the level of knowledge transfer. It is clear that some R&D teachers have no design pre-knowledge. A pilot survey of R&D students and teachers on the concept of model within design activities unexpectedly showed similar doses of confusion about the concept of model among students and teachers. Therefore when asked to teach a concept of model in design related activities teachers provided a different definition of concept. Often a physically built scale model or prototype is the form of model they recognize in designing. The danger of such an approach is that the students obtain very different, incomplete or incorrect knowledge about the concept of model in relation to design. Therefore the set of values and norms within the group of Technasium STEM teachers is needed, to establish a design related frame of reference.
Keywords; STEM, Subject Research and Design (R&D), Concept, Model, Pedagogy of Desig
Developing technology students’ hierarchical thinking during iterative processes of designing through sketching activities
Full text linkThe development of students\u27 hierarchical thinking during iterative processes of designing through sketching activities is a crucial part of design education as it supports the connection between students’ design intentions and its material embodiment. To this end, this paper discusses how different types of sketching activities can facilitate the development of hierarchical thinking in design activities. In this paper, we define hierarchical thinking as the ability to move between abstract and concrete representations through varying levels of specificity as well as the journey from global to specific representations. Doing this, we explore how using different sketching activities can allow students to explore a range of design intentions and physical embodiments at different levels of abstraction and detail. The paper also discusses how the idea of hierarchical thinking can support design educators to teach students to engage with their design processes more productively on a need-to-know basis. By teaching students to move between different levels of abstraction and detail effectively, teachers can support students to develop a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of their designerly processes. Overall, this article highlights the importance of modelling through sketching and hierarchical thinking in design education and practice
Preliminary study of how 21st-Century Skills are developed during a participatory user-centred curriculum intervention at Key Stage 3 in Design and Technology
Full text linkWhilst designing ‘for and with’ end-users has been commonplace in the professional design space since the 1970s, there is a lack of research evidence of empathic or human-centred design in primary and secondary education. This paper presents a preliminary study of the ‘Solving Genuine Problems for Authentic Users Project’ conducted to explore the effect that involving end-users throughout the design process has on students and their outcomes as part of their Key Stage 3 D&T education. Sixteen 12-13-year-old students at a secondary school in England worked in teams of four to with a member of the school catering staff to develop a prototype, aimed towards solving a problem that they identified together. The student researchers utilised agency in the research methods they employed to gain a better understanding of the design context. Data included a pre and post questionnaire to measure students’ creative potential which helped to improve an understanding of how empathy, a recognised 21st-Century Skill, was developed over the course of the study. Other data collected included photographs of student work and the students’ field notes. Data was thematically coded to offer a narrative of the findings. This study contributes to the growing understanding of 21st-Century Skill development in a D&T context, as well as the facilitation of face-to-face collaboration with end-users at an early stage of secondary design and technology education
The challenges of implementing a spatial ability intervention at secondary level
Full text linkSpatial skills development has been widely examined throughout the literature, with evidence suggesting many cognitive abilities are malleable and can be improved through targeted solutions. Some previous examples of intervention studies have been shown to reduce the gap between genders, and those of a lower socio-economic status where the training increased spatial ability, as well as in discipline-specific educational performance. These findings align with many national agendas for STEM diversity, which strive to increase participation and performance of such under-represented groups in STEM.
With a lot of research being conducted around spatial skill development within a university level setting, or outside of a formal educational context completely, the applicability of such training interventions in a secondary level school context is unclear. With secondary level education aiming to develop many cognitive abilities, including spatial ability as outlined in curriculum documents, the implementation of such an intervention could improve student outcomes and add value to the educational experience of the students. With the time-sensitive nature of secondary level schooling, there are many concerns around the amount of time and effort that needs to be invested to successfully implement such an intervention. Through the piloting of a spatial training intervention, this paper focusses on the development of spatial skills within an upper secondary level setting in Ireland with 358 students aged 14-16 enrolled in the Transition Year programme and their 10 teachers.
This paper examines the challenges of implementation of a specific spatial skills intervention, through a variety of lenses, including pedagogy based and performance based, and offers considerations for future research in the area. By looking from both teacher and student perspectives, we explore the issues encountered and offer suggestions to researchers conducting similar studies at secondary level
“If D&T wasn’t so easy, I wouldn’t be so good at it”: Nonverbal Ability and Confidence
Full text linkAt the heart of this paper is a belief that the English education system enacts systemic discrimination against nonverbally intelligent students by teaching and assessing non-academic subjects via academic means. This paper presents action research that focuses on students with a nonverbal bias, attempting to boost their self-efficacy (Bandura et al., 1999), self-concept (Bong & Clark, 1999), and discusses how these may be hurt by current D&T assessments. The study examines the comparative perception of intelligence levels needed to succeed in school subjects, alongside the types of intelligences assessed within English educational policy.
To boost intelligences specific to design, this research took a two-pronged approach; verbally promoting high-attaining students and presenting their outstanding book work in the spirit of Gardner’s Multiple Intelligence theory (Gardner, 2006), and testing for “eductive” problem-solving intelligences (Raven et al., 1994) at the beginning of each class in a 6-week Scheme of Work with Raven’s Progressive Matrices (RPM), logged publicly on a leaderboard in the classroom. The results reveal a positive shift in whole-class perceptions of intelligence needed for D&T, and increased confidence levels among students on the leaderboards, alongside decreased confidence levels of those not on the leaderboards. The study acknowledges limitations in the methodology, particularly an overemphasis on RPM, which subjugated other aspects of intelligence in design, and my own inadvertent acculturation into the quantitative testing culture.
The conclusion acknowledges failures in the research, yet emphasises the need for a cultural shift in English state schools to recognise and respect the non-academic intelligences required to succeed in creative fields like D&T. It highlights the inadvertent discrimination against nonverbally intelligent students due to the dominance of academic culture and advocates for a more tailored approach to D&T assessment which better reflects abilities used in real-world design industries
Supporting Initial Teacher Education Students Assessment Literacy and Capability Development
Full text linkRecent curricular reform in Ireland has utilised classroom-based assessments as part of the national assessment strategy at the junior level in post-primary education. This calls for teachers to exercise their judgement in relation to their pupils\u27 capability which is recorded for the certified national award of the Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement (JCPA). Ensuring effective assessment in this regard requires the development of assessment literacy and capability in the teaching cohort which starts on the continuum of teacher development at the initial teacher education (ITE) phase. Teacher judgement in assessment is reliant on multiple factors that impact on the assessment outcome. It is therefore important to design components of ITE programmes that provide opportunity to strategically develop this capability for implementation in practice. The case study presented in this paper presents an initial analysis of the practices and experiences of (n=87) Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students as they engage in a peer assessment activity that is part of an assessment literacy and capability development strategy on a technology education ITE programme. This was facilitated through the use of Adaptive Comparative Judgement sessions (ACJ). In these sessions, the participants engaged in the establishment of assessment criteria and implemented them in the holistic assessment of peers\u27 work through the ACJ method along with providing formative feedback and making a summative judgement of the quality of the work. The findings present the usefulness of ACJ in providing pre-service teachers a space to develop assessment literacy and capability through the active and experiential learning approach taken
Implementing Engineering Based STEM Programs in High School Classrooms in the Republic of Korea
Full text linkIn 2022, South Korea announced new national curriculum that implement it from 2023. High school curriculum is about to fully implement the high school credit system, which allows students to choose subjects that suit their needs and career paths. In South Korea, technology education in middle school is a common compulsory subject, but high school technology education is a selective subject and has the name of technology and home-economics. High school technology education experiences difficulties that are not selected in many schools due to the confusion of identity of subject names and social negative perception of technology. The purpose of this is to develop an engineering education program that can be used in high school technology education and to verify its effect on students. To achieve the purpose of this study, an engineering education program was developed and students’ changes through the program were measured. This study was based on a single-group pre-post test design and was conducted with 96 10th grade students. As a result of this study, students’ engineering interest, engineering self-efficacy, and engineering career awareness were statistically significantly improved through the developed engineering education program. This study provides great implications for actively including and utilizing engineering in technology education. In addition, it will give great implication for the direction and program development of high school technology education
Social Emotional Learning and its framework for Technology Education
Full text linkSocial Emotional Learning (SEL) is a key construct for engagement in technology education learning at the undergraduate level. The sample population for this applied research study is two higher education institutions, one located in the Mississippi Delta with a predominately homogenous population of rural, African American students and the other in West Virginia, with a predominant population of rural Caucasian students. The students were enrolled in technology education-based courses and participated in the research study survey to assess their social emotional learning and their overall college success and engagement. The findings of this very limited sample size showed that undergraduate students failed to connect the importance of social emotional skills especially empathy and social awareness, with academic success. Students tended to rank themselves highly in academic based categories even when their academic GPA did not reflect that rigor. All students ranked themselves low in awareness of others’ emotions and especially awareness of their faculty’s perspectives
Primary school students’ perception of technology
Full text linkResearch on students’ perceptions and understanding of technology has shown that students have a narrow view of technology: for example, technology is often manifested in students’ descriptions as artefacts or objects. This paper aims at investigating how students develop understanding of how technology is manifested during classroom activities in technology. The study was conducted at a compulsory primary school with eight-year-old students.
The data (video and audio recordings) were collected in small-group interactions and whole-class discussions. In the interactions, the students utilised self-taken photographs to visualise their understanding and perception of technology. The analysing process is grounded in Mitcham’s (1994) manifestations of technology: object, activity, volition, and knowledge.
Based on the students’ prior knowledge, they perceived technology as contemporary electrical artefacts. The findings indicate that students achieve a more nuanced perception and understanding of technology as objects during classroom activities in technology
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PATT40 (LJMU)Biomolecular Research Reports (BRR) (LJM...Design and Technology Education (LJMU)BLResearchDay (LJMU)Journal of Living Labs (LJMU)Journal of Natural Products Discovery (L...Journal of Social Media for Learning (LJ...Student Law Journal (LJMU)PRISM (LJMU)Public Health Institute Journal (LJMU)SPARK (LJMU)Student Experience Proceedings (LJMU)Transformation in Education (LJMU)Innovations in Practice (LJMU)Links to Health and Social Care (LJMU)Access Repository Dashboard
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