Design Learning: Pedagogic Strategies That Enable Learners to Develop Their Design Capability

In this chapter we focus on the importance of the human capacity of design capability and how this can be fostered through design and technology education. Historic undervaluing of developing design capability in formal schooling is highlighted and counteracted by identifying recent recognition of embodied cognition and the role design education has to play in developing this. We forefront how learning that holistically links the head, hand and heart can be achieved by engaging learners in design contexts that are meaningful and have resonance with them and illustrate this through a case study of eleven year old learners designing for a public space. We provide background to how understandings of design processes have developed to enable more authentic approaches to design and technology education and how both summative and formative assessment can support these approaches. We place emphasis on pedagogic processes that maintain the authenticity of design processes whilst supporting and nurturing learning. This involves giving learners the skills of working with open and closed projects, how this many vary with the age and experience and how they can develop autonomy whilst also being collaborative and develop empathy. We highlight the importance of helping learners to draw on their own experiences and understand how they can utilise these when designing. Finally we explore how assessment is an important and integral part of pedagogic strategies when developing design capability. We provide a model for formative assessment that can be used directly within design projects based on a resource that actively uses formative assessment to Make Design Learning Visible.