The Design Process – a reflection to consider

Initial thoughts about starting the technology design challenge were not overly positive ones, I had preconceived ideas which were mostly negative. This is probably a common reaction from teachers who have not had the opportunity to really engage in the process and learn about the benefits for educating students today. We have an ever changing globalised world to educate children in and it’s important that their learning encompasses the best of this and teaches them how to deal with the everyday world they experience in a safe and exciting way. The technology design process does this! Immersing students in a project that excites them and educates them at the same time is powerful. The Design and Technologies and Digital Technologies curriculum focuses on creating students who are active and informed in sustainability, ethics, are socially responsible, can work collaboratively or individually, can critically analyse and think and have the ability to communicate on a number of different levels.

At the beginning of the process the planning phases can be a little arduous and drawn out if the students were to complete them all by themselves, however, it can be made fun and exciting and adapted to suit any age level. Simple planning sheets which are age appropriate could help to alleviate concerns that students may lose focus. I believe the whole design process whilst it has definite stages needs to be a very flexible and open ended process which can allow students to come up with a range of different solutions and ideas to address the initial challenge. Teachers need to make the design challenge age and experience appropriate and relevant to each classes context.

The design challenge process lends itself to both individual and collaborative learning and can easily foster both. Even though a challenge may be presented as individual work, using the peer feedback process involves students in a collaborative learning situation which can be beneficial on a number of levels. Peer feedback allows students to learn from each other, rather than just the teacher. Students will engage in meaningful discussions and provide each other with constructive comments about ways to improve a project whilst also finding the points that have been done well and celebrating successes. However, students still need to include constructive criticism in order to increase learning and engagement. Merely saying that everything is great does not extend learning and thinking and allow for growth in a project. It is important that this learning process is monitored closely to ensure students really understand its purpose and how to effectively and courteously take part in the process.

Taken from: http://technologygroup6.wikispaces.com/Rhiannan

Another critical component in the design process is being able to make informed and educated decision about the final project or solution. Educating students on how to do this gives them tools to be able to reason and justify their decisions, not only in their project but in their everyday decisions. The use of a decision making matrix is a great tool for students to have and use. In my design challenge I used an existing template and used it in a different way to suit my needs. However, throughout my readings and research I came across the following template which I feel provides a perfect example that could easily be incorporated into the classroom for student use.

Taken from: Teepee Consulting. (2011) Higher Order Thinking for Gifted and Talented Students. [Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved from https://moodle.cqu.edu.au/mod/page/view.php?id=13721.

Overall the technology design process provides students with immense benefits in their learning but does require teachers to adjust their teaching pedagogies. Teachers become more of a facilitator rather than dictator. Students need to be allowed to explore and investigate to create their own learning. Teachers will be required to carry out more forward planning to ensure the resources that students may need are available and depending on their imaginations and creativity this could be a lot or a little. Teachers will also have to adjust to the type of environment that students need in order to be creative, it may not always be an ordered, tidy classroom that facilitates creativity! For me this will be challenge in itself. It is important to allow students the freedom to explore and create their own understandings, and to experiment with this new found knowledge in order to learn how it is relevant to their world and can help them to create a better and more sustainable community. The answers will be in the solutions they uncover throughout their explorations.

How do children learn about technology..... let's twitter

How do children learn about technology... well here are some thoughts about it from twitter.....

#edcu12039 Tweets


Children learn about technology by getting in there are really investigating about it, using it and exploring what it can do in their world.

When planning activities around technology teachers should use real world situations that allow students to discuss and investigate their surrounding communities. Hands on, creative situations should be developed in order to allow students to assimilate this new knowledge with existing schemas. Investigation and exploration will develop students understanding of technology, what it is and what it can do for us.

Twitter is an example of an avenue that allows student to communicate their thoughts in a concise and practical manner. Tweets have a limited number of characters (140), can be tracked using the hashtags and collected just as I have done above. This could allow for a whole class discussion to occur when and where students are able to. It gives them time to reflect on learning, investigate and then put their thoughts down on paper. Could it be embedded into a homework program....students must provide a tweet at the end of the day/week about their learning on particular topic covered in class????

Decisions, decisions, decisions.....???????

Sometimes making a final decision can be very difficult, especially when involved in group work. So how can that be done. Using a decision making matrix is the answer. Initially I thought this would be a very arduous process but I was wrong. Using a template such as this one....

allows the users to comprehensively and accurately decide on the final choise for their projects in a matter of minutes.

It requries students to

• List in the columns the factors on which to base their decisions such as cost, size, purpose etc. 
• On the left each row is labelled with the designs/solutions they are choosing from. 
• Each factor must be given a raking from 1-5 (1= not important to 5=extremely important) and different factors can have the same value.
• Each of the designs must then be given a ranking as to how well it demonstrates/reaches the factors.
• Multiply each of the answers with the corresponding design and factors rankings to calculate an amount.
• Add all the amounts in each row to obtain a total on the right hand side.

Therefore, each row will calculate a score for each design and, in theory, the design/solution with the highest score is the best overall design and should be chosen to use. It is important to ensure that the factors are ranked properly acccording to the criteria you consider most and least important. If the design you thought should win, does not, maybe some of the criteria are ranked incorrectly.

I did modify my use of the table slightly to have designs listed on every second row to allow for totals of each design to be shown in the same table rather than create the table a second time which showed the totals rather than the rankings. Mine have all been combined into the one table. I feel that this gives a simpler overview of things rather than swapping between two tables if changes needed to be made.

Some of the benefits of using a decision making matrix include:

• Unbiased opinions
• Allows for matching comparisons of numerous design at the same time
• Numerous factors can be accounted for in one matrix

Design Process - the beginning.

I think the design process is really aimed at creating interesting and creative classrooms and we know from research that this is best done through a collaborative approach. Creating small groups based on similar interests will spark student curiosity and giving them a project that they can really relate to and delve into. Initially I had thought that this project would be done individually but going through the process I think small groups will allow students to be more creative with each other and "bounce" ideas off each other. It will also allow for the collection of more materials for the final project between group members if required. This change in though has quite surprised me as I thought individual works would be more appropriate before beginning and reading my peer feedback.

The peer feedback process has also surprised me! I began the process with a negative preconceived idea of how the process would fail...... My group members have open, honest and helpful. I think that working in groups online still generates a number of issues with reliability, completing tasks on time (I have failed at this over the last couple of weeks and know that feeling of letting my peers down) and sharing of work loads. However, in a classroom environment where all these facets can be monitored, managed and facilitated it should work well. Students will learn how to give constructive feedback. That is, being positive all the time is not going to help learning and negativity should also be left out. With the inclusion of ideas to support learning and praise for ideas which are well conceived.