Design and Technology Education (LJMU)
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Design Thinking in Elementary Students’ Collaborative Lamp Designing Process
Design and Technology education is potentially a rich environment for successful learning, if the management of the whole design process is emphasised, and students’ design thinking is promoted. The aim of the present study was to unfold the collaborative design process of one team of elementary students, in order to understand their multimodal ways of design thinking. The videotaped design episodes of the team constitute the data source of the study. CORDTRA diagrams were used for opening up the design process, providing means to analyse the complex and iterative process in a structured manner. The results indicate that the students’ design thinking was collaborative, materially mediated, and embodied in nature. Engaging in various concrete and material, as well as epistemic and conceptual activities provided the students with opportunities to learn the foundational design skills. Further, the multifaceted design process integrated skills needed for learning also something other than design
Curriculum Planning for the Development of Graphicacy
The paper describes the importance of graphicacy as a key communication tool in our everyday lives. The need to better understand the development of graphicacy and its use in the school curriculum is emphasised. The need for a new research tool is explained and the development of a new taxonomy of graphicacy is described. The use of this tool within a methodology researching the significance of graphicacy in the curriculum is introduced. An overview of prior research concerning how children deal with graphicacy is also provided. The paper then discusses the results reported in the context of this prior research. The paper illustrates how graphicacy can affect children’s learning; identifies cross-curricular links involving different areas of graphicacy and consequential transfer opportunities; illustrates how the implementation of a curriculum policy for graphicacy could influence students’ learning; demonstrates the magnitude of the research opportunities in relation to graphicacy within general education curricula and suggests the need for collaboration in order to effectively pursue these substantial research agendas
An Exploratory Study of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies in a Design Project by Students in Grades 9-12
This exploratory study evaluated self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies of 27 students in grades 9-12 during an engineering design project. The specific focus of the study was on student task interpretation and its relation to planning and cognitive strategies in design activities. Two research questions guided the study: (1) To what degree was students’ task interpretation reflected in their working plans and SRL strategies use across the design process?; and (2) How did relatively lower- and higher-achieving design-performing students differ in interpreting tasks and deploying SRL strategies? Survey instruments and Web-based design notebook writing were used to capture students’ reported use of SRL strategies. On the survey, students reported use of SRL strategies at the early, middle, and final stages of the design task, with a focus on task interpretation, planning, cognitive, monitoring/fix-up strategies, and performance criteria.
The findings suggested that students scored higher on task interpretation than on planning, cognitive, and monitoring/fix-up strategies. Students’ relatively high awareness of task interpretation-related-issues was also reflected in what they considered to be good design performance. Our findings were suggestive that higher performing students scored significantly higher than their lower-performing peer on cognitive and monitoring and fix-up strategies. On the other hand, lower-performing students reported greater use of planning strategies. Moreover, higher-performing students seemed to be able to convey more detailed and specific descriptions than did their relatively-lower performing peers. This article discusses potential implications for design instruction in grades 9-12
Managing Increasing Complexity in Undergraduate Digital Media Design Education: The impact and benefits of multidisciplinary collaboration
Increasing complexity is one of the most pertinent issues when discussing the role and future of design, designers and their education. The evolving nature of digital media technology has resulted in a profession in a state of flux with increasingly complex communication and design problems. The ability to collaborate and interact with other disciplines has recently been strongly articulated as an imperative skill for the future designer. How the education of such a designer is facilitated in practice is less well defined. The implementation of authentic problem-solving processes that introduce design students to workplace realities is often missing in design education. In order to manage the increasing complexities of design problems and technology a learning and teaching approach that facilitates the interaction of multiple disciplines was implemented and trialed over a period of two years in an undergraduate digital media design programme. This approach, known as the POOL model framework, is based on a ‘pool’ of resources and people to be applied as needed when responding to complex design problems. This paper focuses on the extent to which complex interactive design projects can be managed through multidisciplinary collaboration. Feedback from students and educators is presented and which reveals that the framework does provide an opportunity for students to resolve complex design and technological problems and contribute to project outcomes that could not be achieved when working individually
Designing and Developing Mobile Based Instruction: A designer’s perspective
Mobile devices are increasingly being used in classrooms and corporations as a means to deliver instructional content. Currently, there is limited research on how to best design and develop mobile based instruction. As a result, the purpose of this research study was to examine students’ perceptions of designing and developing mobile-based instruction by a) interviewing instructional design graduate students in a computer based instruction course who were given the opportunity to construct mobile-based instruction and b) surveying instructional design graduate students to uncover their perceptions of mobile instruction design, usability, and delivery. Results of the survey and qualitative data analysis indicated that usability was a key issue on the mobile device. Users enjoyed quick access, good organization, user control, single column layouts, and large links/buttons. These findings contribute to the literature base on the design and development of mobile based instruction