In the field of design, empathy, which is often addressed in design research and practice, has also become an essential aspect of design education. It is both one of the core components of learning processes and a foundation for teaching activities. This paper aims to explore and discuss the impacts of empathy on learning and teaching in the…

The common purpose of models is to provide simplified representations of other phenomena. Depending on type, they are suitable for communication, documentation, prognostication, problem solving, and more. Various types of models, such as drawings, mock-ups, flow charts, and mathematical formulae, are important tools in engineering work. An…

In this article, I examine the changing perception of craft activity since the Industrial Revolution and explore how the social values imposed on craft processes have impacted their effectiveness as tools for learning and self-transformation. Situated within a social constructivist framework, this article suggests that learning occurs as the…

This article explores the wide-ranging impact of inviting architecture students to increase conscious somatic awareness of their body and function, and the effects on their design process. This paper analyses the results of a Movement Awareness Intervention conducted prior to students undertaking their usual architectural design studio at the…

Since first conceived, the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has attracted much attention. Despite being lauded by educationalists as the unique knowledge base of teachers, research on the concept over the past 30 years has yet to result in a universally accepted definition being presented. Much of the contentions surrounding the lack…

Learners today need more than the core subjects offered at school to be successful in the twenty-first-century. By involving technology student teachers in activities that are authentic to technological practice, as teachers, they should be able to provide stimulating and relevant learning for learners ("Turnbull in Int J Technol Des…

Cultivating students' design abilities can be highly beneficial for the learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) concepts, and development of higher-order thinking capabilities (National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council in STEM integration in k-12 education: status, prospects, and an agenda for…

This paper reports on findings related to the Nature of Technology from Stage Two of the "Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology: Implications for teaching and learning" ("TKNoT: Imps") research project undertaken in 2009. A key focus in Stage Two was the trialing of different teaching strategies to determine how…

We review articles published between 1995 and 2008 in four journals that are the primary scholarly resources for Technology Education middle school teaching. This descriptive study identified four main issues that scholars addressed: what should be taught in middle school, the structure and content of curriculum transformation, integrating…

In a contest featuring hands-on projects, college students were required to design a simple crawling worm using planning, self-monitoring and self-evaluation processes to solve contradictive problems. To enhance the efficiency of problem solving, one needs to practice meta-cognition based on an application of related scientific concepts. The…

This paper explores the issue of how students might learn about sustainability in technology--education classrooms and the relevance of problem-solving in that learning. One of the emerging issues in technology education research is the nature of problem-solving specified in curriculum documents and the kinds of learning activities undertaken by…

The purpose of the present article is to examine the knowledge-practice based approach to technology-enhanced learning. Toward that end, the article reports the efforts of an elementary-school teacher and researchers in promoting genuine inquiry at the 4th and 5th grade of a Finnish elementary school. We will describe implementation and social…

The purpose of the study reported here was to investigate the use of a design-without-make unit as part of the design and technology curriculum with pupils aged 14. Three research questions drove the study: (a) What sort of designing do pupils do when they work collaboratively to design without having to make what they have designed? (b) What is…

The study aimed to examine the relationship between alternative approaches towards problem solving/design teaching (structural or functional), students' mental modeling of the design process, and the quality of their solutions to design tasks. The "structural" approach emphasizes the need for an ordered and systematic learning of the design…

This paper is based on work carried out as part of a research study into the professional practices of secondary design and technology teachers in England. It focused on fostering creativity or teaching for creativity as defined by the Robinson Report (1999, All our futures: creativity, culture and education. London: Department for Education and…