Speculative design is an emerging form of critical material engagement with possible futures. Designers working speculatively call attention to current and future sociotechnical dilemmas, and aim to provoke debate about the moral, political and ethical implications of sociotechnical innovation. Despite the popularity of speculative design and its…

This paper reflects upon the mechanisms that enable development of curricular approaches to multidisciplinary architecture/engineering higher education. Building upon recent calls for integrated multidisciplinary building design practice, academics at UCL, industry partners and respective professional bodies embarked upon developing a new course…

During the last 25 years, there have been many calls for new engineering competencies and a corresponding gradual change in both curriculum and pedagogy in engineering education. This has been a global trend, in the US, Europe, Australia and now emerging in the rest of the world. Basically, there have been two main types of societal challenges…

The study of architectural theory remains absent from many undergraduate design programs, or, if present, the structure of many curricula place "theory" as an autonomous, peripheral course. Theory, however, as it is in other disciplines, is the foundation of the discipline of architecture. To regain the importance and vitality of…

This paper describes pedagogic research to instigate, support and understand a significant change in the education of undergraduate industrial design students. Design educators at Loughborough University, UK, have proposed that it will be critical for future industrial designers to learn new knowledge and abilities which will enable them to…

The Pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource (PTTER) was developed as a cross-institutional resource to support the development of initial technology teacher education programmes in New Zealand. The PTTER was developed through collaboration involving representatives from each of the six New Zealand university teacher education providers,…

The history of technology can play an important role in illuminating the fundamentals of technological change, but it is important that technology teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and researchers can be provided with good analytical tools for this purpose. In this article, we propose a model of techno-historical interplay, as a…

Hong Kong's transformation from a manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy has prompted the local government to promote the city as a regional design center. The 2008 Policy Address delivered by Hong Kong's Chief Executive calls for the creation of a large pool of creative and knowledgeable talent. The government recognizes that, in addition to…

Mathematics courses are integral part of architectural education. The content and objectives of these courses were determined in the Age of Enlightenment. Although conditions have changed since then, they still exist without being subjected to a radical revision. This study aims to introduce the necessary information for upgrading the content of…

This study illustrates the use of the DEPTH model in the development of professional development for secondary teachers of Engineering. In the school context of Western Australia, Engineering is a new upper school subject which will be taught by Design and Technology teachers, the majority of whom have neither taught at this level before, nor…

The Finnish case contributing to the international DEPTH study was carried out within the Technology Education "NOW!" project at the University of Oulu. Nineteen project teachers participated in the study. The recent revision of the Finnish Basic Education Curriculum with the introduction of the cross-curricular theme "Humans and…

Nowadays the European Universities are worried about how to adapt higher education to the new European Higher Education Area, as proposed in the Bologna Magna Charta Universitatum of 1998, and signed by 32 European Education Ministers. One of the key points in this higher education reform was the introduction of new Master's level curricula. These…