Designing Capacity: Broadening and Deepening Design Capacity through Design Education

Author(s):

Deirdre Helen BarronMargaret Zeegers

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 07D, Teacher Education (and Children’s Services) in Higher Education (3)

Paper Session

Time:

2008-09-11

15:30-17:00

Room:

B1 136

Chair:

Christine Teelken

Contribution

This paper canvasses a shift in professional practice for teachers and teaching and learning as it focuses on design education. It acknowledges that changes in formal educational settings result from the scope and rapidity of changes in emerging technologies and understandings of pedagogical influences on teaching and learning. In canvassing the changes, this paper takes issue with the emergence of a number of proposed solutions in dealing with gaps in teacher education, suggesting that these same solutions draw on traditional disciplines which ignore the possibilities of design to engage 21st Century problems in teaching and learning. It draws attention to a neglect in current teacher education programs in relation to teachers of design and what this may imply for classrooms, teachers, and their work. The literature emphasises the importance of rich sensory and physical experiences for the development of design education. The current lack of design in teacher education programs means that the potential benefits of linking industrial and cross-disciplinary educational expertise and experience in design education is not explored, which further means that the potential of teachers with an interest in developing expertise in design is impaired. Potential teachers of design can at present develop compensatory strategies, drawing on existing Art, Science and Technology scholarship and practice, but not in any systematic and effective manner. The dearth of theorists in the field of design education leaves unquestioned the relevance for teachers of design of conventional practices of design education. Current practice is premised on only tangentially relevant Art, Science and Technology models. Little work has given consideration to different design education requirements, ignoring ways that industry and educational facilities are configured. Potential teachers of design, in particular, often do not have the opportunity to work and interact with other design workers and practitioners. Hence their interaction is primarily with like-minded teachers or industry workers and they will often lack a strong basis of theory and practical skills. Lack of these skills may impair their efforts in producing appropriate strategies for implementation of their design-oriented programs in schools. The current practice is to call upon Art teachers to design and implement school programs in design, which results in a bias towards creativity in design, certainly, but tends to neglect the role of innovation and technical expertise in such programs. It is in effect a state of making do with what is available; it is not a case of making best practice happen. The identification of such a gap in teacher education programs is an “appropriate and stimulating starting point for thinking creatively about both research and education in a wider context of societal change”. It is beyond the scope of this paper to address issues emerging from a need for teachers to become educated in teaching design. Neither does this paper deal with issues concerned with the understanding of the physical setting or of the technology and instruction in the design of classrooms as enhancing desired learning outcomes in those classrooms. What it does do is identify gaps in current teacher education programs which, when addressed, will serve to create new demands for teachers who not only are seen to need to "develop new learning environments and approaches to teaching" but who also need "a high degree of professionalism".

Method

Case studies of a number of schools in Victoria, Australia (see Anderson, L. & Barron, D. et al 2004) and analysis of the data generated by these case studies Document analyses of the wider educational context in Australia and elsewhere

Expected Outcomes

The paper proposes that the development and delivery of appropriate design education may be achieved through transdisciplinary approaches that draw upon resources and expertise of university offerings in education and design, which would exploit synergies within the collaboration between the two. No teacher education program in design currently exists in either name or remit. The establishment of such a program or programs therefore has significance beyond Australia. It has the potential to be a focal point for coursework and pathways to research in postgraduate design education around the world

References

Ader, Jean (1975). Building Implications of the Multi-Option School, OECD Programme on Educational Building, Paris Alexander, C. (1977). A Pattern Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, L., Barron, D., Jackson, S., Baulch, K., Ginters, L., Glover, J., (2004). Design Provision in Victorian Senior Secondary Schools: Final Report prepared for the Department of Education and Training Victoria. Melbourne. Barron, D., Anderson, L., Jackson., S (2005) "Designing by Practice: A New Professional Doctorate in Design" in T. W. Maxwell,C. Hickey & T. Evans (Eds) Working doctorates: the impact of Professional Doctorates in the workplace and professions. revised papers from the fifth Professional Doctorates conference Deakin University December 2004, Research Institute for Professional & Vocational Education & Training, Deakin University, Geelong Barron, D., Jackson, S., & Anderson, L. (2005). Ignorance, Environmental Education Research and Design Education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education. Vol 21, 2005 Barron and Zeegers (2006) ‘Subjects of Western Education: Discursive Practices in Western Postgraduate Studies and the Construction of International Student Subjectivities’, Australian Educational Researcher. Vol 33, Number 2, August 2006 Ceppi, G. Zini, M. (1998). Children, Spaces and Relations: Metaproject for an environment for young children. Municipality of Reggio Emilia & Italian Ministry of Education. Reggio Emilia. Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training (DEST). (2003). Backing Australia's Ability - Building Our Future Through Science and Innovation. Canberra: Australian Government. Darling, J., & Nordenbo, S. E. (2003). Progressivism. In N. Blake, P. Smeyers, R. Smith & P. Standish (Eds.), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy of education (pp. 288-308). Oxford and other places: Blackwell. Department of Education Employment and Training. (2001). Guidelines for managing cultural and linguistic diversity in schools. Melbourne: Department of Education Employment and Training. Department of Education Employment and Training. (2005) Research on Human Learning. Background Paper No.1. Melbourne: Department of Education Employment and Training. Department of Education & Training. (2006) Building Futures: Policy and Process for Victorian Government Schools. School Resources Division Melbourne: Department of Education Employment and Training. Department of Education Employment and Training. (2006). Primary ideas: Projects to enhance primary schools environments. London: DES Retrieved from Department of Education and Training. (2003). Blueprint for government schools. Retrieved 28.03, 2006, from http://www.sofweb.vic.edu.au/blueprint/ Gee, J. (2006). Literacy, learning and video games. EQ Australia, winter( the ICT agenda), 4-5. Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2003). Teaching: Challenges and dilemmas (2nd ed.). Southbank, Vic: Thomson. Hargreaves, D. (2005). About Learning. Report of the Working Group, Demos Foundation James, H. (1999). The information-literate school: Not just a pretty face. In H. James & K. Bonanno (Eds.), The information literate school community: Best practice (pp. 1-10). Wagga Wagga, NSW: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. Jonassen, D. H., & Howland, J. (2003). Learning to solve problems with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, Ohio: Merrill Prentice Hall. Krause, K.-L. (2006). Dimensions of Student Engagement: New Opportunities for Learning and Teaching: Keynote Paper at the University of Ballarat Learning and Teaching Conference. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. Lackney, J. A., & Jacobs, P. J. (2006). Teachers as placemakers: Investigating teachers' use of the physical learning environment in instructional design, from http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/placemakers.html Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (1975). Ader, J. Building Implications of the Multi-Option School. OECD Programme on Educational Building. Paris. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2006) 21st Century Learning Environments. OECD Programme on Educational Building. Paris. Project Zero, Reggio Children. (2001). Making Learning Visible: children as individual and group learners. Harvard University. Thackara, J. (2006). In the bubble: Designing in a complex world. Massachusetts, MIT Press. van Manen, M. (1990). Researching Lived Experience: Human Science for an Action-Sensitive Pedagogy. New York: State University of New York Press. Upitis, R. (2006). "School Architecture and Complexity". Complicity: An International Journal of Complexity and Education. vol 1. no 1 (pp.) Vick, M. (2001). More than just classroom teaching: Teachers and teachers' work in a changing society. In J. Allen (Ed.), Sociology of education: Possibilities and practice (pp. 65-87). Katoomba, Qld: Social Science Press. Washor, E. (2003). Translating Innovative Pedagogical Designs Into School Facilities Designs. Unpublished Doctor of Education, Johnson & Wales University, Providence. Wolff, S. (2002). Design Features for Project-Based Learning. Unpublished Condensed version of PhD thesis [Electronic Version], Oregon State University, Corvallis. Zeegers, M., & Barron, D. (2000). More than an apprentice model: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP) and the research conference for postgraduate students. In M. Kiley & G. Mullins (Eds.), Quality in Postgraduate Research: Making Ends Meet (pp. 179-190). Adelaide: The Advisory Centre for University Education, University of Adelaide. Zeegers, M., & Barron, D. (2006). Generic skills training. In C. Denholm & T. Evans (Eds.), Doctorates Downunder: Successful doctoral study in Australia and New Zealand (pp. 88-94). Camberwell, Vic: ACER Press.

Author Information

Deirdre Helen Barron

Swinburne University of Technology

Faculty of Design

Prahran

Margaret Zeegers

University of Ballarat

School of Education

Mt Helen,

Search the ECER Programme

Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
Search for authors and in the respective field.
For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.