This pilot study investigates the way that young students and teachers of a Dutch Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) secondary school subject Research and Design (R&D) reason about the concept of 'model'. The core of the Dutch Technasium secondary school course Research and Design curriculum (R&D is in Dutch called…

Architectural forms, architectural knowledge, design process, and design thinking are all changing with the use of computer-aided design programmes, and even traditional university architecture departments now wish to teach these programmes. However, it can be difficult to implement courses on such computer programmes because these departments…

This study aims to investigate affordances of models and modelling in design projects in technology education. To learn more about affordances when working with models and modelling, four Swedish technology teachers were interviewed using a narrative approach. Despite a small number of informants data were rich, containing detailed descriptions of…

Empathy has been recognised as a key skill by practicing designers. With rapid changes to inclusivity and accessibility in the transport sector, student designers need to appreciate and understand the way in which people of differing abilities are able to engage with and interact with transport. They need to not only develop an understanding of…

As a consequence of fruitful discussions about joining theory and practice both in design research and educational design programmes, this article aims to explore phenomenological parameters in the framework of an exercise for Engineer-architecture students from the University of Leuven in Belgium. Relying upon the arguments of recognised…

The education of architectural designers begins by learning drawing and digital modelling following the notion that students learn these new modes as instruments of thinking in design process. Curricular arguments persist about which mode should follow the other. Difficulties occur when one mode replaces the other. Students uninitiated to design…

Co-invention projects in elementary school engage pupils in complex, open-ended design tasks in a practical, hands-on way. Physical materials are an intrinsic part of design, involving trasformation of conceptual ideas into material forms, such as prototypes. These tangible objects mediate embodied thinking and act as material-social mediators of…

Literature on the use of design tools in educational settings notes an uneasy relationship between student use of traditional hand sketching and digital modelling tools (CAD) during the industrial design process. This is often manifested in the transition from sketching to CAD and exacerbated by a preference of current students to use CAD. In this…

Can design education have a positive impact on primary school education beyond merely preparing designers? As designers, we know almost intuitively that design education is "good education", and most designers would affirm that it would be beneficial to expose children to design education, because of the benefits of the signature…

"Designing backwards" is presented here as a means to utilize human-centered processes in diverse educational settings to help teachers and students learn to formulate and operate design processes to achieve three sequential and interrelated goals. The first entails teaching them to effectively and empathetically identify, frame and…

This study responds to calls to further investigate ways to make feedback more effective for students in the context of higher education. More specifically it scrutinizes the feedback practice, adapted to the exceptional reality of a partly on Campus, partly online semester-long Product-Service System (PSS) design project for first Master students…

This paper presents findings from a research study investigating the relationship between "intended" learning and "actual" learning in Design and Technology lessons (Southall, 2015). The research focused upon the "pre active" phase of the teaching-learning process, that is the teacher's planning processes and…

How do ideas evolve in the context of collaborative design? This research explores the framing strategies and tools involved in the co-construction of a shared understanding in the early stages of a design project. We observed a team of four industrial design students working to design a pop-up shop. We found that, while the key design elements of…

This article discusses three years' research (2012-2014) on design education towards a 2016 undergraduate industrial design curriculum launch. It contributes a pathway for conservative courses towards design culture transformation and filling gaps between them and leading breakthrough education exemplars. The course proposes a collective knowledge…

This study is mainly about developing an approach for fostering creativity in design education through analyzing the interactions among creative dimensions resembling spatial and organizational pattern of folding as a technique and also by the help of cognitive action of designers: workshop participants. In order to make an assessment, a case…