Doctoral study page now active

In the menu you will see that there is now a link to the doctoral page. This has a new presentation about ways of thinking and working when undertaking doctoral study. Enjoy…

A future for Technology education

The paper Rebuilding D&T by David Barlex and Torben Steeg is an essential read for those involved in the subject. You can find it here:

https://dandtfordandt.wordpress.com/resources/re-building-dt/

What is written below are my personal reflections on the subject as it stands at the moment, particularly considering the value of the subject as a part of the general education of young people .

Valuing procedural knowledge
Procedural knowledge is at the heart of good Technology education but is also it’s Achilles heel.

Some of the discussion prompted by David and Torben, in relation to epistemology, needs to be around how knowledge is conceived and the status that different forms of knowledge have. I would argue that whilst knowledge is conceived in narrow factual terms, Design and Technology will remain more of an activity than a subject. Only when procedural, tacit, practical, strategic and other non-factual forms of knowledge are recognised as having the same status as ‘facts’ will Design and Technology be recognised as a subject alongside Science and Maths. Until then it’s position in the curriculum is not sustainable in the current socio-political climate that we have in England. Work therefore needs to be done on raising the status of different forms of knowledge – something easier said than done of course.

Another issues related to epistemology is that knowledge is school dependent and therefore variable. The procedural knowledge that is developed when undertaking design and technological activity varies from school to school. This is as a result of the nature of the resources that schools have and the different experiences of the staff who work there. To have a more coherent body of knowledge for the subject would mean compliance from school departments to follow what is laid down. Given the history of the subject and the different experiences of individuals becoming teachers, this presents quite a barrier to overcome.

D&T activity or subject?
Design and Technology is more something that we do rather than something that we know. It develops skills of using knowledge in context and enables pupils to draw on a range of disciplines and mine useful content knowledge from them. With a focus on real world products for real world people, design and technological activity could never have a fixed knowledge base. The more the subject is tied down in terms of the content knowledge covered, the less active and creative it becomes. One extreme of this would be Technology Studies where design and technological activity is studied but not carried out in a practical way. Another route would be Craft Technology where pupils focus entirely on making by hand and with machines including CAD. Products would be fixed, or tightly constrained, to make sure that the content knowledge of the subject was covered.

A poisonous STEM?
STEM activities in schools develop pupils procedural knowledge so D&T activities are not needed. In a hostile environment biological organisms adapt over time and so must D&T. Being reborn as Technology will at least get the subject properly in sTem – even if only getting the correct initial. This seemingly simple (but of course difficult) change could affect how the subject is seem by those advocating STEM.

A future for Technology Education
My conclusion from reflecting on our area of work is that I believe that there is a future for Technology education but not for Design and Technology education. Back in the day (1990) the National Curriculum subject was called Technology and included Information Technology. Now with the development of Computing as a subject in the curriculum, the time is right to create a new subject of Technology in line with the subject heading used in other countries. I can see nothing but advantages of developing a new subject Technology in the same way as Computing. What would be important, however, would be to create a subject focused on its contribution to general education and not just a rebranding of the failing subject that we have at the moment. This could be seen as a way of repositioning the area in which we work and perhaps seeing ourselves as more internationally connected. In this future, an Association of Technology Education (ATE?) could be formed that rivalled the ASE. There are, of course, plenty of models for Technology education across the world to work with and technological literacy could be at the heart of what may provide a more sustainable future for those working in our domain.

Learning new things…

Preparing to travel in our ‘beastie’ has been a learning experience! I have found myself drawing on my existing pool of skills and knowledge and researching to develop new knowledge for specific tasks. Now we are on the road the learning continues to develop and changes dynamically day by day.

 

The end of an era :(

It is with a heavy heart that I took these pictures of what was the workshop at LJMU.

 

At our peak we had 45 PGCE students and a 3 year KS2/3 course with 18 to 20 on each year. With more than 100 D&T students on campus the workshop was a well-used resource. Now with the closure of the undergraduate route, and only 7 to 14 PGDE students each year, the workshop became an easy target for ‘redevelopment’. What’s left are the memories of ambitious and highly creative project work, laughter and tears along with the faces of many individuals who developed the potential to make a difference to the school life of hundreds of pupils

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Design and Technology will still continue as a subject at LJMU but the national climate, local context and personal motivations have all changed. Let’s hope that in the future pupils will still get some opportunity to see in 3 dimensions the result of their own decision making and develop at least some critical faculties to face our technological world.

The internet of distraction

Forget the Internet of things, consider the Internet of distraction. How much more can we do without the very presence of the web whilst we are working. Have we developed a culture of connectedness where it is impossible to work on one thing for any length of time? I think so! On Saturday I wrote 3000 words for the PATT paper between the hours of 9 and 5 so why is it so hard to write during the working week? Yes there are other things that we need to do but they can be scheduled. It is the ominous big brother of the Internet that reminds us of what we need to do and distracts us from the task we are trying to focus on. So if you want to write, unplug from the Internet and take your ‘wireless off’ laptop to an empty room and don’t come out for at least an hour – go on, you might surprise yourself!

P.S. This post was written on the train between Leicester and Birmingham – internet free.

PATT2016 website

The website for the PATT conference this year can be found here: PATT 2016

Papers are due on 15 May 2016.

A link to the PATT conference proceedings can currently be found on the Conferences page of the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association website. Note that ITEEA is International in name only – the website is focused on what happens in the USA.

Links for Primary Design and Technology

There’s a new page of links for Primary D&T. For now it’s good for connecting with all of the Nuffield Primary resources  and the D&T Association but more will come…

SPEP

Society for phenomenological and existential philosophy

In their own words…
SPEP is the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, a professional organization devoted to supporting philosophy inspired by continental European traditions.

With a membership of over 2500 people, it is one of the largest American philosophical societies, and strives to encourage work not only in the philosophical traditions of phenomenology and existentialism, but also in all those areas commonly associated with ‘continental philosophy,’ such as animal studies, critical theory, cultural studies, deconstruction, environmental philosophy, feminism, German idealism, hermeneutics, philosophy of the Americas, post-colonialism, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, philosophy of race and queer theory.

We foster discussion on all philosophical topics, from art and nature to politics and science, and in the classic philosophical disciplines of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. SPEP is actively committed to philosophical pluralism and to the support of historically under-represented groups in the philosophical profession.

EThOS for online theses

Head to http://ethos.bl.uk to get access to thousands of online theses and see what others are doing – handy for my exploration of phenomenology – need all the help I can get!

Sabbatical time coming up…

I have been offered (and have accepted) 8 weeks of sabbatical time to focus on my EdD! Given what has happened, this comes as a surprise and for the next few weeks there will need to be a shift in focus and a dropping of pretty much anything else work related.

One of the decisions to make is whether to Blog or not to Blog? To what extent would blogging be good for capturing the journey and keeping others up to date with targets? The literature surrounding this is generally positive – particularly in providing a contact with the outside world for the ‘isolated’ researcher and for capturing the ephemeral, tacit, anecdotal things that might be useful later.