![]()
Chapter 1
Why teach design and technology?
'Technological product' covers virtually any man-made item, since technology is the application of knowledge and skills to create processes and products that meet human needs. These products are not limited to artifacts but also include systems and environments and can be made of many materials, including textiles, constructional materials and food.
A system can be the arrangement of two or more artifacts or organisations of people to perform a task. A bicycle can be described as the combination of wheels, gears, braking mechanism, etc. to enable someone to travel more efficiently, and an orchestra is another system where both people and artifacts combine to produce a piece of music. A man-made environment may include the interior design of a home or school, a garden, layout of a farm, shopping complex or even the arrangement of a fish tank.
As recognised during the 1993 Technology National Curriculum consultation process, links with science are particularly important in creating structures and mechanical devices as well as controlling systems. However, in order to appreciate and understand technology fully, design and making activities need to be practiced in many curricular areas and contexts. The wide scope and possibilities of technology can be imaginative and exciting. However, they must be rather concerning to the primary teacher who is already working extremely hard to implement the requirements of the Core subjects in addition to the other foundation subjects.
It is important, therefore, that teachers see that design and technology has merit and potential not offered by other subjects and that it can be effectively integrated into the existing primary curriculum to the advantage of children's learning and development. In the long term design and technology has the potential to help create imaginative, thinking, tolerant and responsible adults better able to adapt and cope with day-to-day problems and aware of the effect of their actions. In the short term it can enhance other subjects in the primary curriculum by showing their relevance in actual situations and stimulating children's enthusiasm through its very practical nature.
At its basic level design and technology is about improving day-to-day survival in order to find effective ways of providing food, water, warmth, shelter, security, clothing, health and opportunities for interacting with others. As societies develop so these refinements are more related to enriching the quality of life. The process in each case is similar and is outlined in the Design and Technology National Curriculum. This includes observation and evaluation of existing situations to identify needs and opportunities for improvement. The way to achieve these are explored and planned, an approach is decided on and implemented. The success of action is evaluated in terms of costs which include financial, time involved and the effect on others. The problem to be solved may be fairly minor such as reducing friction on a toy car or more formidable as in creating a more efficient national transport network. In each case action will often create further needs or difficulties to be overcome and so the cycle continues.
A foundation for adulthood
Design and technology, therefore, provides a valuable foundation for effective problem solving in adult life as everyone is frequently involved in technological activities in their day-to-day lives, although they might not describe the process as technology. Finding ways to organise out-of-school care for children; deciding on whether and how to improve a home; coping with the need to have suitable clothes for a special event; and making appropriate meals for particular individuals could all be described as technological tasks. The process advocated by the National Curriculum enables children to learn to tackle such tasks in an effective manner considering a range of solutions, planning effectively, applying knowledge and skills to use a wide variety of materials and tools, and constantly reviewing and improving their approach.
In addition the design and technology curriculum also requires children to learn to evaluate manufactured products which should help them as adults to be aware of the significant criteria to be considered when buying or using new products and should discourage automatic acceptance of advertisements and other propaganda without critical consideration. Technological skills should also help children to become more informed about the implications and potential in developing or improving different enterprises and businesses.
In order to demonstrate the relevance of technological study to adult work, teachers could share instances when teaching can be seen as a technological activity with the children. Preparing a term's work requires that teachers identify what the class needs, teach the sessions and finally evaluate its success in terms of the children's learning in order to extend it in the following term. On a smaller scale the production of a classroom display is an artifact to meet the need of providing a stimulating classroom and to encourage the children, which involves planning within restrictions of finance, time, space, materials and children's abilities. Indeed almost every moment of the teacher's time involves evaluating and assessing each child's performance to identify their individual needs and then trying to find ways of responding to those needs in the most effective way possible, bearing in mind all the available facilities, support and limitations of staffing, finances and equipment.
Responding to rapid technological change
By developing the skills inherent in design and technology children should not only be better able to solve a wide variety of problems when they are adults, they should also become more aware of the way technology is affecting society by changing the home, work place, and lifestyles and be able to evaluate it. They should learn that technological change cannot easily be reversed. Ideally they will understand its great power and start to appreciate their responsibilities in its process. If children are able to understand the process of technological change they will not just unquestioningly accept it but feel that they can challenge and alter it.
Developing independence and responsibility
In order to develop the ability to identify needs and take appropriate action children should be involved in some of the decisions about what they do in the school. They might help to decide how to set up a central storage area for tools and materials, what to do for their class display or how to reduce litter in the grounds. This will involve them in listening to their peers, realising that others have different ideas and coming to compromises. The National Curriculum also requires that children evaluate the success of their products and how well they achieved their aim, which can involve thinking about the effect of their actions on others and whether the costs justified the results. There is no point in such an evaluation if the activity has been closely teacher directed. Therefore, once the children start to plan and carry out their project, they need the opportunity to decide what action to take, choose materials and select equipment to use. This will inevitably mean that they make mistakes and have to contend with them, albeit under the guidance of the teacher.
By encouraging children to take an increasing role in the decision making, technology provides the opportunity to help children to become independent, thinking adults who are more likely to cope with problems and failure, and who regard difficult tasks more as challenges than barriers. By discussing decisions and evaluating their results they should also increasingly appreciate that their actions affect others and that they need to look for solutions that take into account everyone's interests, not just their own.
Developing tolerance and understanding of others
Cooperation, and sensitivity of the needs of others, is further fostered because technology requires that children work in teams to create different products and design organisational systems. This can only be realised by discussing and teaching collaborative and leadership skills, including helping the children to identify rules for behaviour and methods for optimising problem solving.
Primary children should not only consider their own needs and those of their peers, but should evaluate and create products for people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures. In order to devise appropriate products for parents, old age pensioners, individuals with disabilities and people of different cultures it is important to try to empathise with their requirements. When the children study homes, clothes, methods of food preparation, diets and religious buildings, if they understand that each product is a logical response to factors such as available materials, climate and social requirements they may be less inclined to criticise or dismiss the lifestyle of others as strange, and by doing so hopefully become more tolerant and understanding.
Awareness of conflicts of interest
Not only are junior-aged children expected to recognise the points of view of others and consider what it is like to be in another person's situation, they also need to appreciate that the range of criteria which must be used to make judgements about what is worth doing may be conflicting. On a mundane level it may not be possible to satisfy both the need to have a long-lasting pair of shoes and the requirement to spend very little money. More significantly there is the conflict between industries that produce many worthwhile products but may use irreplaceable resources or pollute the environment in some way.
Older junior children should have the opportunity to discuss a range of such conflicts between individuals or groups of people; between long-term and short-term interests; and between economic progress and the need to protect the Earth's limited resources. For example, children designing a zoo may have to choose between satisfying the demands of the public to see the animals clearly and the requirements of the animals for a suitable environment; between taking animals from their natural environment and the need to educate people to look after animals; and between conserving the ecological balance in natural environments and collecting rare animal species for breeding in zoos. Such technological activities can help children to identify such conflicts and sometimes accept that it may be impossible to find the ideal solution.
Throughout these activities children should become increasingly aware that their actions affect others, possibly detrimentally, and that every individual has a responsibility to look for creative compromises that protect and care for others in society and their environment.
Developing creativity and logic
Children need to develop creativity and skills of analysis and problem solving in all areas of the curriculum but the opportunity for their development is more obvious in design and technology, particularly as primary teachers are under considerable pressure to focus the children's attention on specific areas of knowledge and concepts in other subject areas in order to respond to all the requirements of the National Curriculum.
Designers have to be analytical, investigative and objective in order to clarify problems, to plan how to carry out a chosen solution and to calculate the possible future effects of their action. They need to have a good understanding of scientific physical relationships and how things work; be concerned with how people think and feel; and operate in an efficient organised way, communicating effectively in order to deliver a satisfactory product on time. However they also need to be imaginative: thinking of many solutions or methods; seeing connections between apparently unrelated things; being open to new ideas, attitudes and unconventional methods; experimenting with ideas and materials; and taking risks within sensible limits. Therefore design and technology gives opportunities to develop all these skills in a focused way and most importantly in a safe, guided environment.
In addition to these wider aims, design and technology links with and complements virtually every other discipline in the primary curriculum to the benefit of all subjects by showing how the children's studies are relevant and can be applied in 'real' situations.
Further Reading
National Curriculum Council (1990) Technology in the National Curriculum London: DES and Welsh Office/HMSO,
Shepard, T. (1990) Education by Design: Α Guide to Technology Across the Curriculum Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.
![]()
Chapter 2
Planning to develop skills and concepts
Design and technology describes a way of working in which pupils investigate a need or respond to an opportunity to make or modify something. They use their knowledge and understanding to devise a method or solution, carry it out practically and evaluate the end product and decisions taken during the process. These basic skills of identifying need, planning, making and evaluation should be progressively developed through the primary school.
Identifying Needs and Opportunities
Wherever there are people there will be problems requiring solutions. This may be helping an individual to cope better, such as enabling an arthritic person turn a tap, or making groups' or even societies' lives easier in some way. In order to see needs for themselves children should be involved in the day-to-day process of identifying problems and setting out to solve them. This may be achieved by the teacher sharing some of the classroom decisions and by enabling children to tackle open-ended tasks where problems will arise naturally. Alongside this involvement children also need to be helped to observe and evaluate their surroundings and manufactured products so that they can judge how successful they have been in achieving their purpose and by doing so will see further opportunities for designing improvements.
At present primary-school children have limited opportunities for learning to identify needs for themselves as many teachers usually decide what the children will do or make. However design and technology is less successful when teachers identify the problem and prescribe the route to a particular solution or end product, giving the pupils little scope to think and plan for themselves.1
Involving children in classroom decisions
If the children participate in some of the decisions about their undertakings they are more likely to develop an awareness and imagination for seeing needs and opportunities. Initially some teachers are very apprehensive about giving such freedom to the children, but those who do usually discover that the response is sensible, enthusiastic and frequently prompts far more excellent ideas than a single teacher can think of. Of course responsibility for the learning process is not handed over to the children, as a relevant context and guidance are essential to prompt the children's ideas and to ensure an appropriately balanced curriculum is provided. These contexts may arise from the day-to-day classroom management, a theme or project, survey or interview, visit, or talk from an outside speaker. For example, instead of the teacher deciding and setting up different role-play areas alone, the children could discuss and plan one of their own choice. They could be involved in thinking of ways to acquire different fabrics and how they can be effectively stored in the classroom in preparation for a science project on materials. Arrangements for a trip, a puppet play, a class or school party, or a class assembly can be shared with the children. In the last case, for example, the children could be involved in choosing or writing the material; planning and arranging the music; and collecting, designing and making the costumes.
Once the task has been decided, whether by the teacher or in conjunction with the children, an open-ended element where the method or detail of the end product is not too prescribed will provide other opportunities for identifying needs. In the past teachers have tended to protect children by providing only the materials they need and detailed instructions so that they are guaranteed a good end product, but this will restrict their opportunities to learn to choose appropriate tools and materials and solve further problems as they arise. The teacher's role is to focus and clarify the children's thinking, advise on the feasibility of suggestions, make resources available and provide guidance during the making process. Inevitably the children will sometimes suggest ideas that are inappropriate and the teacher should help the children to recognise this, as taking into account limitations and adjusting plans accordingly is a part of all design and technology projects. Children will also make mistakes which they will probably be able to correct th...
