Subject leadership and design and technology

The Centre for Design and Technology Education at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) supported by The Design and Technology Association (DATA) has developed a Postgraduate Certificate in Managing School Design and Technology as part of a three-year part-time MA in Design and Technology Education. This has been run successfully for three years in five locations in England. This paper seeks to explore the development of specific leadership skills required by secondary school subject leaders of design and technology as defined by DATA’s Exemplification of National Standards for Subject Leaders. It describes a specific research project designed to investigate teaching and learning methodology. A virtual learning environment (VLE) was made available to teachers through Sheffield Hallam University’s Intranet site. The project compared the teaching and learning issues arising from teachers completing a core activity as part of the Managing School Design and Technology course. The work of two groups of teachers was observed, one being taught using traditional ‘face-to-face’ teaching methods and the other working remotely in a VLE. The research findings are discussed with a view to informing development of continuing professional development (CPD)

Electronic portfoilios for design and technology

This paper concentrates on the work of students studying design and technology education (DTE) in initial teacher education (ITE) at Sheffield Hallam University. As an early part of their course they study a module that develops their ability to design and manufacture products using a range of skills and processes. This involves the origination, collation and presentation of a portfolio of evidence to support a number of physical product outcomes design and manufactured during the semester. The submission requirements associated with this course component raise a number of teaching and learning issues relating to the generation and use of portfolios of evidence, commonly associated with the assessment of design and technology activity. These issues include: • the use of reflective processes by students in the evaluation of their own outcomes and learning is underdeveloped both specifically within DTE • submissions do not necessarily encourage active student reflection or the articulation of thought processes • the contents tend to be entirely two dimensional and do not encourage recording of three dimensional development work undertaken • they are bulky and do not easily lend themselves to display, storage and handling • maintaining the order of contents is difficult and liable to change when accessed • for security reasons, general availability and access to their contents is restricted to a few (usually only tutors) and does not easily facilitate peer scrutiny • presentation can often incur unnecessary cost for students. Electronic portfolios are becoming common in the commercial world and in some areas of education. This project examines the potential enhancement of the teaching and learning opportunities brought about by the use of elearning in ITE as an instrument for developing student capability. This small-scale study attempts to evaluate the experiences of a group of 41 students in their first year of a two year route into teaching. They were required to submit for assessment an electronic record of their design work. This made use of commonly available software uploaded to their Blackboard e-learning ‘site’. Minimum support was given to students in the use of the technology for e-portfolio production. Subsequently the project seeks to examine the contribution to the learning process of students completing this module. The methodology used by the researcher to collect data includes the use of observation, semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire. Evidence is examined to identify occurrence and use of the following: • simple annotation of media to improve clarity and emphasis thus enabling reflection • generation of critical dialogue recording the iterative process between thinking and doing associated with designing and making • distillation of thinking and its affect on refining decision making • inclusion of animation techniques • opportunity taken by students to view the work of others made available through the associated Blackboard course • streamlining of submissions alleviating the need for the generation and storage of paper based portfolios

Developing the research infrastructure for design and technology education in England (and beyond)

This paper summarises initiatives taken by a partnership of Loughborough University and the Design and Technology Association in order to support action research by teachers in England. The theoretical and international contexts surrounding these initiatives as well as the initiatives themselves are described. These included an open access online journal, conference, archive and hub (www.dater.org.uk), specialist publications, a poster and conferences/workshops for tutors in Initial Teacher Education. Data is presented from Google Analytics monitoring of the online resources from July 2008 to July 2009, from a pilot questionnaire (N=33) and follow-up interviews. Research into this infrastructure continues, but the initial findings reported suggest the need for improved marketing and internet linking and the redesign of the IDATER Online home page. The online journal in particular has found much international use, having been accessed from 112 countries during the year. The on-going research will consider the quality of the resources themselves, as well as the infrastructure and its further development, of which they are part

Approaches to teaching pupils with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties in design and technology

The DfES defines pupils with Behavioural, Emotional and Social Difficulties (BESDs) as people who are: ‘Withdrawn or isolated, disruptive and disturbing, hyperactive and lack concentration; those with immature social skills; and those presenting challenging behaviours arising from other complex special needs.’ (DfES 2001: 58). This definition encompasses a very broad range of children with diverse needs. However, there are common approaches that can be used to meet the needs of these children in design and technology (D&T). Traditionally design and technology has been a particularly popular subject for pupils displaying BESDs. There has been little research as to why this should be. This paper explores practice in D&T by making reference to case study material collected from four schools. The case studies were commissioned by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) for dissemination via the NCaction website (a searchable resource for schools that illustrates how the National Curriculum works in practice). The case studies considered activity undertaken by pupils working in resistant materials, food technology and CAD/CAM. The case studies highlighted the use, by teachers of pupils with BESDs, of common approaches including group work, raising self esteem, the use of rewards and challenge, relevance and using IC

London Schools Excellence Fund: Final Report: Enhancing the teaching of STEM through Design and Technology

London Schools Excellence Fund: Final Report: Enhancing the teaching of STEM through Design and Technolog

Characteristics of included areas from proactive trial regions of first cull of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial.

<p>* Areas defined by bounding box of breakdown locations plus 5% buffer zone</p><p>^† Confirmed cattle herd breakdowns in one year prior to start of initial cull (excluding one outlying breakdown in area E3)</p><p>^‡ Infected sett, a sett at which at least one TB-infected badger was captured</p><p>Characteristics of included areas from proactive trial regions of first cull of the Randomised Badger Culling Trial.</p

Badger culling strategies used in the current bovine tuberculosis policy in England, the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, and hypothetical spatially targeted culling strategies used in this study.

<p>Badger culling strategies used in the current bovine tuberculosis policy in England, the Randomised Badger Culling Trial, and hypothetical spatially targeted culling strategies used in this study.</p

Locations of proactive trial areas of Randomised Badger Culling trial.

<p>Only the areas in which the initial cull was carried out before the trial was suspended due to the 2001 foot and mouth disease epidemic, and therefore included in this analysis, are shown.</p

Kaplan-Meier curves comparing search areas for setts housing TB-infected badgers by ring cull and geographic profile methods for all trial regions; region B2 and region E3.

<p>Kaplan-Meier curves comparing search areas for setts housing TB-infected badgers by ring cull and geographic profile methods for all trial regions; region B2 and region E3.</p

Kaplan-Meier curves comparing sizes of search areas for setts housing TB-infected and uninfected badgers, by ring cull and geographic profile methods.

<p><b>A</b>: Numbers of TB-infected and uninfected setts; <b>B</b>: Proportions of TB-infected and uninfected setts.</p