Design and Technology Education (LJMU)
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Designing Technology: An exploration of the relationship between technological literacy and design capability
Get PDFThe aim of this article is to contribute to the debate on the nature of technology education. This is especially pertinent at times of curriculum change and uncertainty, such as currently exist in relation to the Primary school curriculum in England and Wales. Two phrases (‘technological literacy’ and ‘design capability’) have been used by previous theorists and curriculum writers to encapsulate core understandings of what our subject is about. Are these helpful in the present context? Or do we need to move into a new way of seeing, more fitted, perhaps, to the world order of the 21st century?The following issues are converted into ‘core questions’ within this article:
The words ‘literacy’ and ‘being literate’ are usually interpreted as the ability to read and write. Widening the application of these terms to other fields (such as technology) implies understanding and communication of abstract but culturally determined symbolism (analogous to interpreting graphemes, phonemes and so on). If the term ‘literacy’ is applied to the processes of ‘doing technology’; what is being ‘read’ and what is being communicated?
The distinction between ‘technicity’ and ‘technology’. ‘Technicity’ is taken to mean the ability to carry out a range of actions that result in a product whereas ‘technology’ implies a higher level of functioning, including an understanding of systems, with implications for learning technology and for developing design capability.
What balance should exist between teaching ‘about technology’ (which might be analogous to ‘reading’) or ‘through’ designing technology (which might be analogous to ‘writing’) as a personal or creative endeavour? Examples within the text are taken from the Primary phase of education, although application to Secondary and Tertiary phases may be extrapolated
Getting the Most from Working with Higher Education: A review of methods used within a participatory design activity involving KS3 special school pupils and undergraduate and post-graduate industrial design students
Get PDFThis paper provides education-based researchers and practitioners with the preferred research and design methods used by Higher Education Institute (HEI) students and Key Stage 3 (KS3) pupils applied within a participatory approach to a design activity. The outcomes were that both pupils and students found informal (unstructured) interview to be effective in creating dialogue alongside meeting in person. Students commented on the friendly environment created by staff within which the pupils felt safe to express themselves. They found the co-design activity in some cases difficult due to communication issues. Recommendations are that the HEI students would benefit from a thorough literature review of the medical conditions associated with the pupils and their school activities; an initial informal meeting or group activity involving students and pupils would reduce shyness and perform an icebreaking role prior to the initial interview; the use of drawing templates or low resolution sketch models for pupils to draw on or handle and modify to help define a product specification; and, role playing alongside other visual prompts that enable the pupils to visualise the function of the student-proposed designs. Pupils benefited through seeing professional techniques of visual communication and design practices being applied during the collaboration
Exploring Students’ Creativity and Design Skills through a Multimedia Project: A Constructivist approach in a Malaysian classroom
Get PDFResearch has shown that students have graduated from institutions of higher learning with a lack of creativity and critical-thinking thinking skills. This mismatch in skills has resulted in a nationwide initiative in using technology in the classroom to create a learning environment that would stimulate students’ creative and problem-solving process, and to cultivate an engaging and media-rich designlearning process. In this paper, we explored the use of constructivist learning principles within a multimedia design course on students’ creative and critical-thinking skills, via the design of a multimedia project. The project design and development required group collaboration and the enabling of students to document their design process throughout the trimester in webpages and project reports. The results of the study showed that student teams were able to create innovative and engaging applications and were able to document critical-thinking processes throughout their project development. Motivation, teamwork and collaboration, and increased understanding, were key components of this learning environment and multimedia technology was an enabler for them to become creative and critical in their thinking, thus increasing their engagement in the classroom. The constructivist learning principles used in the study also showed positive results as a pedagogical framework for creating engaging learning environments for students
Understanding the Processes Behind Student Designing: Cases from Singapore
Get PDFA common perception of designing is that it represents a highly complex activity that is manageable by only a few. However it has also been argued that all individuals are innately capable of designing. Taking up this latter view, we explored the processes behind student designing in the context of Design and Technology (D&T), a subject taught at the Secondary school level in Singapore. We examinedthe design journey undertaken by two students to understand what designing is like at their level. Case study methodology was adopted to develop a rich data set emerging from the students’ design journals, maps of the students’ design process, and interviews with the students and supervising teachers. The findings revealed that these students had innate capacities to design. Although the approach taken by each student differed, as reflected in visual representations reflecting the design process as well as their commentary, each displayed similar forms of design thinking. That is, both students proposed a novel and innovative solution to their design problem and were able to articulate sound reasoning of their design decisions throughout the entire design process. The supervising teachers enacted a more facilitative pedagogy that supported each student’s design process; this approach differs from traditional pedagogical practices in Singaporean D&T that can be characterised as modelfocused and ‘top down’ in nature
Applying Laser Cutting Techniques Through Horology for Teaching Effective STEM in Design and Technology
Get PDFThis paper explores the pedagogy underpinning the use of laser manufacturing methods for the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at key stage 3 design and technology. Clock making (horology) has been a popular project in design and technology (D&T) found in many schools, typically it focuses on aesthetical design elements. This paper describes a new project, which has been developed to enhance the STEM content of a horology project through advanced utilisation of laser cutting machinery. It allows pupils to produce their own products from self-made mechanical timing mechanisms. The central aim is to strengthen the application of the underlying technology of mechanisms and the manufacturing capability of laser cutting technology in D&T.
Trials with schools have shown success in gaining pupils’ interest in STEM and provided feedback to improve the project. It has highlighted limits when delivering the engineering and maths content with teachers from nontechnology backgrounds. The paper discusses this limitation through subject pedagogy, categorisation of teacher knowledge, and teaching effectiveness through experiential and problem-based learning approaches
Investigating Indian Elementary and Middle School Students\u27 Images of Designers
Get PDFThis paper presents an investigation into Indian elementary and middle school students’ images of designers. A ‘Draw a designer at work’ test was used with 511 students from Classes 5 to 9 from a school located in Mumbai. Findings from the study indicate that Indian elementary and middle school students, who had no experience in design and technology education (D&T), perceived designers mostly as fashion/ dress designers or artists and designing was associated less with engineering and technology. These results are consistent with an earlier study on Indian middle school students’ ideas about design and designers using written responses,where students demonstrated an incomplete understanding of design and what designers do and associated design with art (Authors, 2011). In the present study students, mostly older ones depicted gender and professional stereotypes. Design as engineering, making or building were mostly associated with male designers and depicted more often by boys. Insights from the study have implications for curriculum development at the school level in India
Social Issues: Making them relevant and appropriate to undergraduate student designers
Get PDFSustainable design education is now considered a core issue for industrial/product design courses, however research has shown that the predominant focus tends to be on environmental issues, as social issues are much harder to tackle. Similarly, social issues are rarely considered in industrial practice. If student designers are to become responsible practitioners, they need to be made aware of social issues that they are in the position to effect. In order to do this it is critical that students are encouraged to consider issues which are relevant to their skill sets and within their sphere of influence. A review of the literature did not reveal a definitive list of social issues for designers to consider. In addition to this the majority of well-known tools used to support sustainable design teaching in UK/Europe, tend to have an ecodesign rather than a sustainable design focus. The few which do exist have their limitations.
The paper reports on the findings of an ADM-HEA1 sponsored project. It presents the latest thinking with regards to social issues student designers should be considering. Drawing on a tools analysis and theory review, a set of Social Issues cards are developed and tested to determine their suitability for disseminating social issues to design students. The paper concludes that the tool offers a design oriented perspective of social issues (which has not been provided before) and is a valuable resource for raising awareness about social sustainability in undergraduate design students
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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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