Design And Technology In Primary School Classrooms

Developing Teachers' Perspectives And Practices

Les Tickle

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9781850005827
• eBook ISBN: 9781135388300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Design and Technology in Primary School Classrooms presents a comprehensive account of the development and nature of design and technology in the primary classroom from the modest beginnings in the 1980s to detailed implementation within the National Curriculum.
It shows how the design/problem solving process and the knowledge, skills and understanding associated with design and technology can be developed by teachers who were previously unfamiliar with such activities. Case studies demonstrate the teaching strategies employed and illustrate in detail how children respond to design and technology in complex ways.
The book combines original classroom research data wuth extensive illustrations, resource information and summaries of what design and technology in the National Curriculum involves.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Les Tickle

We should find ways of introducing all primary pupils…of all abilities (male and female) to the activities of designing and making, in ways which will not be intimidating to primary school teachers but will build naturally on the strong tradition of practical work in primary schools. —Sir Keith Joseph (EM and YFA, 1985).

When Sir Keith Joseph made this observation he was acknowledging the value of the kinds of learning experiences represented in an exhibition of schools’ projects.The exhibition had the title Designing and Making and represented those activities which also become known as Craft, Design and Technology (EM and YFA, 1985) and now, Design and Technology (DES 1988b; 1989). In giving a seal of approval the then Secretary of State for Education and Science was joining a long line of support amongst educators and politicians for the use of practical, problem-solving activities as a mode of learning. He was also asserting the value of what had come to be seen in recent years as a different content in those activities, compared with conventional practical work in primary schools.

To claim that practice in primary school classrooms had been influenced by the development of practical activities to the extent that they had become a strong tradition, however, was a bold claim. Indeed it is curious, if such a tradition is widespread in practice, that it should be necessary to suggest that primary school teachers might be intimidated by designing and making activities. The evidence is, of course, that there is no such widespread, established strength in the primary school curriculum. That is not to say that practical work does not occur. But it is clear from a variety of evidence (which will be considered later in this book) that there is a clear need for it to be more widely developed. The range of skills, knowledge and attitudes which primary pupils experience is still dominated by the elementary school traditions of teaching the ‘basics’. Over-concentration on the practice of basic skills in literacy and numeracy was recently identified by the Department of Education and Science (DES, 1985). Not only the content but also the teaching methods of primary schools conform for the most part to ‘traditional’ approaches.

Yet these have not been the only approaches, as the variety of curriculum in some English primary schools shows. Support for a broad curriculum in a range of academic subjects has been considerable. The values of child-centred teaching have also taken hold to some extent. Thus there have been alignments among teachers and others to particular beliefs about primary education. Often a set of conflicting beliefs coexists side by side (Blyth, 1965; Berlak and Berlak, 1981). Usually within those beliefs the value of practical activities has sought recognition and legitimacy, either for their worth as a means of educating (Read, 1943) or as having intrinsic value in their own right (Ross, 1978).

Tensions and stresses in the primary school curriculum between the elementary tradition of teaching literacy and numeracy, the academic view of school subjects in preparation for secondary education, and approaches to learning characterized by first-hand, individualized, practical experiences (Blyth, 1965) continue to vie for ‘legitimate’ places. Amid these already existing tensions there has been a recent and rather sudden renewed recognition of the economic value to the nation of knowledge in the area of craft, design and technology. The developments of new high-technology industries and the importance placed on competitive, creative product renewal have spurred that recognition. Demands for a more ‘relevant’ curriculum linked directly to the industrial economy at all stages of formal education have thus grown. Expressions of this ‘utilitarian’ view of the curriculum are now being implanted in primary schools.Technology is part of the national curriculum.

With the new demands, it seems, there is a need to build new traditions, or to strengthen elements of older ones which failed to establish a lasting place in classroom practice. In this instance, design and technology, that ‘tradition’ is to be built of a combination of scientific and technological understanding, coupled with the intellectual qualities, practical know-how, and aesthetic sensitivities of designing and making artefacts. Sir Keith Joseph recognized that the knowledge, skills and attitudes of primary school teachers are key factors in the process of establishing such a new tradition. Change of any kind may be threatening for many of these teachers. Design and technology seems particularly intimidating to some because it requires de-skilling from well-proven teaching methods. There are different classroom management techniques needed for its activities. It demands new learning of concepts as a basis for instruction. These have to be achieved while maintaining a firm grip on the successes of past practices, and against pressure for improvements in ‘standards’ of literacy and numeracy.

Sir Keith Joseph, I believe, was seeking a foundation on which to build new practices by turning to the art and craft work of primary schools. He might, in addition, have sought to build upon the foundation of professionalism which many teachers bring to those schools. That is a professionalism in which continuous, career-long learning takes place. There is a constant search to improve knowledge, skills and attitudes as a basis for successful and effective teaching.These changes in teachers’ knowledge enable curriculum change to occur. Those who adhere to such professionalism accept the intimidating, and live with the intrinsic uncertainties of learning.

That ‘tradition’, like the practical work to which Sir Keith Joseph referred, is not yet completely established either.There have been many advances in recent years in the movement towards openly examining and improving classroom practices. Those advances have been made by teachers concerned to improve practice through self-reflection and classroom research. Through such studies the development of perspectives and practice can advance beyond anything recognizable in Sir Keith Joseph’s appeal. Indeed the openness to learning which teacher-research demonstrates is a way of introducing all primary pupils to the activities of designing and making. What is needed first is a way to generate and spread that openness among teachers, coupled with a commitment by government, local education authorities, and governors of schools to adequately resource craft, design and technology.

In this book I have sought to bring together a summary of the state of design and technology in primary schools, in the context of the development of a national curriculum. I have tried to convey the uncertainties and debates about the nature of design and technology, which are reflected even in the changes of title—from CDT, to designing and making, to technology, and design and technology. In the light of the way the subject is commonly referred to in schools, I have used the shorthand term CDT in discussion. Like its label, its emergence is characterized by conflict, compromise and curriculum growing-pains. Those uncertainties may demonstrate to teachers who find the subject threatening that even the ‘experts’ are learning. This summary will provide a basis for under standing CDT in the primary school curriculum.The development of teachers’ perspectives is thus approached initially through a curriculum perspective, identifying the educational aims of CDT, and placing those aims within a broader picture of recent developments in education. At the same time, the book presents the central features of the subject’s content and associated teaching methods. The curriculum aims of CDT are combined with a subject perspective in which the essential features of knowledge content and learning process are outlined.The importance of that content, and the nature of the design process, for classroom management provide the need also for a teaching strategies perspective. That is provided partly through examples of projects undertaken by teachers themselves, showing how they developed their own knowledge, skills, understanding, and capacities for engaging in problem-solving. In addition, a proposal for a series of lessons devised by a teacher illustrates detailed teaching strategies. Those examples are followed by a series of studies of classroom events and accounts of teacher s’ thinking about them. These studies illustrate fur ther the kinds of teaching strategies adopted in CDT projects. They also offer a professional development perspective, showing how the study of events in classrooms can lead to improved understanding of teaching and learning, and to changes in practice where change is appropriate.

The curriculum perspective will enable teachers and student teachers to place recent developments in CDT in a national context, by illustrating how it has emerged and the forms it is taking. It also shows how those developments have occurred across the age phases of education, so that conceptions of primary school CDT can be related to what is happening in secondary schools. In both cases this perspective identifies how the curriculum is shaped by the values and actions of people and groups who are influential in its making. In schools, teachers are influential in that pr ocess of change, and the development of CDT in pr imary schools can be enhanced by a clear perspective of its place in the curriculum.

Understanding and belief in teachers’ practical knowledge often stem from a commitment to subject knowledge. In primary education that is usually combined with a view of how children learn through a particular activity or subject. The subject perspective in the case of CDT is based first and foremost upon the nature of the activity of designing and making. That is combined with specific content—a marriage of know-how and know-what. While the curriculum perspective opens the way for subject knowledge, the development of specific processes and content is illustrated in examples of work done by Mike Lancaster and Mark Devereux, as part of their introduction to both learning and teaching CDT. These are far from exhaustive of the content of CDT. Rather, they indicate how, through practical projects which are adaptable for school use, ‘manageable’ elements of subject knowledge can be built. In these examples the problem-solving process combines with knowledge of materials and use of tools, which are enhanced by knowledge of mechanisms and of energy.

Teaching strategies appropriate to the character and quality of CDT also need to be developed.These require a combination of instruction, guided discovery and problem-solving, used appropriately for different purposes. In Eric Marshall’s example, a project on structures and forces, the effective transmission of knowledge, skills and attitudes is determined by considerable teacher direction and guidance. The work also incorporates guided discovery and problem-solving activities, illustrating how a range of strategies can be adopted for specific purposes.

The studies of classroom events made by teachers provide detailed illustrations of how practices have been implemented and evaluated. They bring together, each in a different way, the curriculum, subject, teaching strategies and professional perspectives associated with the introduction and development of CDT in primary school classrooms.

Adrian Scargill describes the tentative beginning of CDT in a small ill-equipped rural school.The initiative of the headteacher, stemming from her own evaluation of the curriculum, together with the influence of television, the support of an advisory teacher, and cooperation with other schools in the same rural locality, got problem-solving activities off the ground. This was followed by extending opportunities to other children in the school.The limits of that extension are clear and severe. Yet they were tackled with a v iew of the importance of progression and continuity in the curriculum planning of the school. The place of CDT within ‘integrated’ topic-based study was also an issue in the school, highlighting a tension between the need for flexibility and an equitable sharing of limited practical facilities. The study also shows how the introduction of CDT, after a short time, raised issues among the teachers about the classroom experiences of the children. Those experiences are evaluated in the study, which asks many questions. It is in the search for evidence which may substantiate or refute the implied, speculative judgments which follow from those questions that a better perspective on CDT and its associated teaching methods will be found.

A more detailed and focused view of one aspect of classroom experience—the nature of independent learning—and a group of twelve 10- to-11-year-old pupils’ responses to it, is written by Sally Frost. The situation is one where designing and making and technological activities are a well-established part of the curriculum. Some of the values which underlie the work are set out in ‘principles of procedure’ which help to establish a ‘process’ approach to curriculum practice, and to achieve the aim of independent learning— or so it was believed. However, this group study shows that while four children respond favourably, in the teacher s’ terms, to the conditions estab lished to achieve that aim, eight do not. In par ticular the nature of r isks involved in problem-solving were disconcerting, raising anxieties amongst these pupils. They preferred to be told what to do. What is more, this chapter shows how risk-taking and decision-making are avoided by some children, sometimes by ‘latching on’ to pupils who they deem to be good and conducting menial tasks for them. The part played by some pupils in determining the kinds of experiences of others are an important highlight of this study. From the teacher’s immediate perspective, however, it is the dilemmas inherent in teaching which are illuminated here—showing that the central aims of CDT carry with them considerable potential for uncertainty and anxiety on the part of teachers. Opening up these dilemmas will need to be a feature of the developing perspective on primary school CDT.

Elisabeth Thompson’s study into individuality and originality in the conduct of 7- year-old pupils’ designing helps to display her dilemmas as she ‘thinks through’ the events observed and her own contrived and preferred responses to the children. Contrasting and competing values in educational thought set the context for the elaboration of tensions as they affect the author directly, in both her ‘usual’ and her research stances. These values, about the ownership of knowledge and the relationships between teachers and pupils, and the issues of curriculum transmission which they underlie, are an intrinsic element of CDT. Questions of choice, decision-making, initiative, independence, and power are central to these issues. This study concludes with clear judgments about teaching methods. For this teacher what seemed like competing beliefs about the best way to encourage pupils’ learning became complementary. The nature, place, and value of instruction was ‘redeemed’ through careful analysis of events, to coexist in teaching strategies with ‘freer’, problem-posing ones.

Alan Rosenberg’s account of the degree of choice and cooperation which existed during a group activity among 7-year-old pupils addresses two other issues which are central to CDT teaching. He shows how the pupils reconcile the demands which he, as teacher, makes upon them with the opportunity he offers for them to make decisions for themselves. The study also demonstrates the considerable sophistication of young children in the organization of a cooperative venture. In respect of both choice and cooperation, Alan Rosenberg reveals how his own ideals were constrained by his actions as a teacher.

In curriculum perspectives on primary education questions of choice, freedom, childcentredness, independence, cooperation, discovery-learning, and so on, abound. The relationships between content and learning process, between teacher and pupils, are in perpetual debate. In the work which follows those themes recur. While defining them as issues which are brought to the surface by CDT, it will be clear that they are not confined to it. By developing perspectives on CDT and appropriate teaching methods which would represent its essential qualities and characteristics, it will certainly be possible to consider and to understand the nature of the primary curriculum into which CDT is expected to fit.

References

BERLAK, A., and BERLAK, H. (1981) Dilemmas of Schooling, London, Methuen.

BLYTH, W.A.L. (1965) English Primary Education: ASociological Description, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul.

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (1985) Better Schools, London, HMSO.

EM AND YFA (East Midlands and Yorkshire Forum of Advisers in CDT) (1985) Designing and Making: Learning Through Craft Design and Technology, Wetherby, EM and YFA.

READ, H. (1943) Education Through Art, London, Faber.

ROSS, M. (1978) The Creative Arts, London, Heinemann.

Chapter 2
The Primary School Curriculum and Design and Technology

Les Tickle

Government policy and legislation for the implementation of a national curriculum for state primary schools in England and Wales is now well known. Among other things, the Education Reform Act is intended to ensure that for pupils between the ages of 5 and 11 all schools will provide the same breadth and balance of curriculum subjects. Centred on the core subjects of English, mathematics and science, there will also be foundation subjects of technology, art, history, geography, music, and physical education. Religious education will also be required by law. It is expected that time will also be available for ‘other popular subjects’ and that curriculum content such as health education and information technology will be developed within the core and foundation subjects.

Defining the content of each of the core and foundation subjects is the responsibility of the National Curriculum Council (NCC). The detailed work is done by subject groups established for the specific purpose of deciding programmes of study, attainment targets, and assessment arrangements for pupils at different stages of schooling. These stages are defined as Key Stages 1 (5-to-7-year-olds), 2 (7-to-11-year-olds), 3 (11-to-14-year-olds) and 4 (14- to-16-year-olds). In the case of primary school technology, recommendations have come from two NCC subject working groups—Science, and Design and Technology.Their proposals amount to the implementation of new activities in most primary schools. There are no traditions or conventional practices associated with the ‘new’ subject of technology. Yet under the alternative title of craft, design and technology there had emerged some new activities in some schools. That happened very recently, and at a rapid pace. As we shall see in the next chapter, the nature of technology as a primary school subject defined by the NCC corresponds closely to curriculum practices which emerged within the more comprehensive (and more representative) title of craft, design and technology.

The place of CDT in policy relating to the primary curriculum was first evident from its inclusion in The curriculum from 5 to 16 (DES, 1985b, para. 33). It had not previously been included in documents of curriculum policy. Now, we were advised, the curriculum of all schools should involve pupils in areas of learning which include aes...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Contributors
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Primary School Curriculum and Design and Technology
• Chapter 3: Perspectives on Design and Technology
• Chapter 4: Developing Practical Knowledge for Teaching Design and Technology
• Chapter 5: A Major Breakthrough: The ‘Impact’ of Design and Technology in a Rural Primary School
• Chapter 6: Children Solving Problems?
• Chapter 7: Promoting Individuality and Originality
• Chapter 8: Children and Choice: Making Decisions in Design
• Appendix 1: Technology 5 to 11
• Appendix 2: Design and Technology: Key Stages 1 and 2