Making as Pedagogy: Engaging Technology in Design Teaching

With the wide spread adaptation of digital technology in the design discipline, there is a need to understand the role of technology in design teaching. In this chapter, we will examine the role of technology as probes, prototype, and toolkits and ask how this facilitates a more holistic learning process. “Design problem” is by its nature multi-facetted and open ended. The difficulty faced by most educators in the design discipline is that of encouraging students to develop critical thinking and approach the open-ended nature of their subject. We will explore making as a critical investigation of the design problem with two projects taught in an architectural design studio environment, at both undergraduate and graduate levels as case studies. By reviewing experiential learning through making, we can develop a more integrated means of teaching technology within a broader trans-disciplinary design context

The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects

Riikonen, S., Kangas, K., Kokko, S., Korhonen, T., Hakkarainen, K. & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P. (2020). The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects, Design and Technology Education: an international Journal.The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders’ co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions. Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning.Peer reviewe

The development of pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of maker-centered learning projects

The purpose of the present investigation was to analyze the pedagogical infrastructures in three cycles of seventh graders’ co-invention projects that involved using traditional and digital fabrication technologies for inventing and creating complex artefacts. The aim of the projects was to create high-end multi-material makerspaces by expanding Finnish craft classrooms with instruments of digital fabrication, such as micro-processors, wearable computing (e-textiles), and 3D design and making, for enabling creation of student-designed multi-faceted inventions.  Through a qualitative meta-analysis of the three successive learning-by-making projects, we explored the kinds of pedagogical infrastructures required for fostering knowledge-creating practices of learning. Pedagogic infrastructures refer to the designed arrangements and underlying conditions of implementing an extensive study project in classroom practices needed for reaching the learning objectives. We analyzed the epistemological, scaffolding, social, and material-technological dimensions of the enacted pedagogic infrastructures. In accordance with design-based educational investigations, we collected a variety of data (classroom video recordings, teacher and tutor interviews, invention challenges, learning assignments, and working schedules) across three year-long developmental cycles. We discuss the limitations and opportunities of maker-centered learning settings as well as considerations for future development of makerspace as pedagogical innovations for integrating socio-digital and material-technical practices and spaces for learning

Framework for Technological Competence in Invention Projects

This chapter examines invention pedagogy from the perspective of technological competence that students appropriate through participating in invention processes. We present the theoretical background and propose a framework for technological competencies in invention projects with five, overlapping dimensions: (1) crafting, (2) designing, (3) engineering, (4) programming, and (5) reflecting, documenting, and sharing. Each dimension is elaborated through its central concepts, aims, examples of the technological tools and pedagogical practices associated with their use. We also discuss the dimensions, as a part of invention project planning, and the relevance of the framework for the future work of teachers and researchers. We argue that the conceptualization and operationalization of technology competence supports both teachers and students in reaching a broad and in-depth understanding of the surrounding socio-technological environment. Further, we claim that technological competence supports students in learning to create solutions and innovations that build a better future for them and for others.Peer reviewe

Invention Pedagogy – The Finnish Approach to Maker Education

This collection, edited and written by the leading scholars and experts of innovation and maker education in Finland, introduces invention pedagogy, a research-based Finnish approach for teaching and learning through multidisciplinary, creative design and making processes in formal school settings. The book outlines the background of, and need for, invention pedagogy, providing various perspectives for designing and orchestrating the invention process while discusses what can be learnt and how learning happens through inventing. In addition, the book introduces the transformative, school-level innovator agency needed for developing whole schools as innovative communities. Featuring informative case study examples, the volume explores the theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological implications for the research and practice of invention pedagogy in order to further the field and bring new perspectives, providing a new vision for schools for decades to come. Intermixing the results of cutting-edge research and best practice within STEAM-education and invention pedagogy, this book will be essential reading for researchers, students, and scholars of design and technology education, STEM education, teacher education, and learning sciences more broadly

Keksivä oppiminen : Teoreettiset perusteet

This chapter introduces a knowledge-creating learning framework that provides the theoretical foundation of invention pedagogy. Invention projects involve the deliberate pursuit of open-ended invention challenges through complex, iterative, and emergent processes. Because the envisioned epistemic objects, specific process stages, relevant knowledge, and final productions are not known at the beginning but are gradually determined through self-organized personal and collaborative efforts, the invention process tends to be nonlinear in nature. Pedagogic guidance, scaffolding, and orchestration of invention pedagogy require that both students and teachers learn to cope productively with uncertainty, improvise to solve open-ended problems, develop novel skills and competencies, and end up with objects and artifacts that may not have been foreseen—or even foreseeable—in the beginning. Teachers and their teams must learn to design and orchestrate invention processes, guide nonlinear pedagogic processes, and cultivate associated professional practices. The chapter examines theoretical background, epistemic objects, epistemic practices, and orchestration processes involved in invention processes.Peer reviewe

Break, Make, Retake: Interrogating the Social and Historical Dimensions of Making as a Design Practice

Making and digital fabrication technologies are the focus of bold promises. Among the most tempting are that these activities and processes require little initial skill, knowledge, and expertise. Instead, they enable their acquisition, opening them up to everyone. Makerspaces and fab labs would blur the identities between professional and amateur, designer and engineer, maker and hacker, ushering in a broad-based de-professionalization. Prototyping and digital fabrication would unite design and manufacturing in ways that resemble and revive traditional craftwork. These activities and processes promise the reindustrialization of places where manufacturing has disappeared. These promises deploy historical categories and conditionsexpertise, design, craft production, manufacturing, post- industrial urbanismwhile claiming to transform them. This dissertation demonstrates how these proposals and narratives rely on imaginaries in which countercultural practices become mainstream by presenting a threefold argument. First, making and digital fabrication sustain supportive environments that reconfigure contemporary design practice. Second, making and digital fabrication simultaneously reshape the categories of professional, amateur, work, leisure, and expertise; but not always in the ways its proponents suggest. Third, as making and digital fabrication propagate, they reproduce traditional practices and values, negating much of their countercultural and alternative capacities. The dissertation supports these claims through a multi-sited and multinational ethnographic investigation of the historical and social effects of making and digital fabrication on design practice and the people and places enacting. The study lies at the intersection of science and technology studies, human-computer interaction, and design research. In addressing the argument throughout this scholarship, it explores three central themes: (1) the idea that making and digital fabrication lead to instant materialization of design while re-uniting design with manufacturing; (2) the amount of skill and expertise expected for participation in these practices and how these are encoded in rhetoric and in practice; and (3) the material and social infrastructures that configure making as a design practice. The dissertation demonstrates that that the perceived marginality of making, maker cultures, digital fabrication allows for its bolder promises to thrive invisibly by concealing other social issues, while the societal contributions of this technoculture say something different on the surface

Introduction : Roots and Key Elements of Invention Pedagogy

In this chapter, we embark on a journey to invention pedagogy. The chapter describes the origins and key elements of invention pedagogy along with how and why it was developed over the course of several years of joint efforts of researchers and practitioners. It discusses invention pedagogy in the context of Finnish education and in relation to similar international concepts, such as maker education and the science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) approach.Peer reviewe

After the Solar Decathlon: Creating a New Design-Build Program

In Fall 2011, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas School of Architecture’s David G. Howryla Design Build Studio began development of UNLV’s entry into the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013, an international, university-based competition to design and build solar-powered housing prototypes. As a competition that requires collaboration between engineering, architecture, interior design, marketing, and communications, the Solar Decathlon is an effective tool for simulating teamwork on real projects. The School of Architecture’s intent was to use the Solar Decathlon as a catalyst for creating UNLV’s Design Build program. The project allowed the School to use support for the project to acquire tools & equipment essential to creating the house, and for upgrading the school’s shop facilities. The projects completed immediately following the Solar Decathlon utilized both digital fabrication and prefabrication. This is significant because the School intends to leverage both of these competencies, developed during the Solar Decathlon, in order to further the School’s craft-based pedagogy. Due to the Design Build Studio’s success in developing the Solar Decathlon house, there has been significant interest from multiple parties in using the program’s offsite construction experience to create projects that will benefit from these lessons