Culturally oriented product design relies on inspiration from the local cultural heritage in the creation of unique products with specific local features. An authentic experience of cultural design inspiration can facilitate novel design outcomes. However, only a few studies have investigated the acquisition of cultural inspiration from a…

This article presents a design-based research (DBR) methodology to develop a teacher professional development intervention that is aimed at helping teachers become designers of student-centred e-learning activities. The intervention was tested at Gulu University (GU) and Maseno University (MU), and a set of activities and tools, as well as six…

Spatial skills are crucial to STEM disciplines and involve a variety of cognitive processes and skills related to visualising, reasoning and communicating about spatial relations. Particularly in the primary school years, attaining 'spatial literacy' gives children a valuable set of skills and knowledge that can aid them in successful…

In collaborative design settings, designers communicate and explicate their ideas visually and verbally in order to reach a shared understanding. The verbal exchanges of group members engaged in a joint design task provide rich data regarding the design activities being undertaken by the group members. In addition, sketching and modelling are…

Biomimetic design is the process of creating innovative ideas inspired by nature. This approach adapts processes of natural organisms to solve design problems and guides design in interior architecture, similar to many other disciplines. This study aims to present the process of implementing the biomimetic approach to interior architectural design…

The study aims at professional development directed towards finding new pathways in education for and in sustainable development. In this study, we consider how primary teachers from two schools in Gothenburg, Sweden, experience the forest and the urban area as potential learning environments. This study focuses on teachers' perceptions…

Design Sprint is an intensive and innovation-focused framework based on Design Thinking principles. This study discusses the potential usage of the design sprint framework in industrial design education, and focuses on its strengths and weaknesses as an educational tool. Within this context, the study reports on a design sprint workshop involving…

This paper outlines the findings of a study focused on the impact an expert teacher's pedagogical and technical knowledge and skill may have on the pedagogical and technical development of pre-service technology education teachers. Specifically, this inquiry falls within the context of traditional wooden boat building in Newfoundland and Labrador,…

Based on observations of global design classes at different institutions, students selected technologies without justification for the suitability of the technology to support their collaborative design activities. To best support students in their collaborative endeavours, a short online course in computer-supported collaborative design was…

Humanity's entrance into the Anthropocene forces us to question the role of technology because of its impacts on the environment. The stake is the viability of the Earth system for humans. Engineers producing a large part of these impacting techniques are not trained in sustainable issues (environmental, social and economic ones - in a systemic…

The concept of play supports the experiential and creative aspects of the design field because it is a familiar and fun phenomenon and involves interaction. The use of game-based learning in design processes will increase participation by supporting the regulation of these processes and the problematic aspects of the design studio course, which is…

Despite being an established practice in Higher Education (HE), the collection of feedback from students, to improve their university experience, has yet to find a unified format. Literature shows that, besides enabling collection of data on aspects of the university journey, feedback collection should also be an engaging experience for students…

Teaching structure to architecture students is an important part of the architecture curriculum in faculties. Weak points of architecture students in using their knowledge and data in real environments has caused many problems in professional activities or withheld their essential skills. In this situation they cannot use their abilities and…

Materials are primary elements in the process of design and are gaining more and more attention in design education. The present work illustrates the practice of material tinkering, concentrating on its effects on design education, as regards the upcycling of waste into material demonstrators, deemed to assess their possibility to evolve into…

"Prototyping Puppets" combines craft and performance in a puppet making STEM workshop for informal learning. We report on its final evaluation in two events (n=10 and n=13) to show how the design addressed black boxing of technology through a craft-centric approach and successfully engaged different student populations through an…