In this episode of Talking D&T, I explore the crucial distinction between using design strategies as pedagogy and explicitly teaching these strategies as curriculum content. Drawing from my recent research on blurred boundaries between pedagogy and curriculum intent, I consider how teachers can make their modelling more explicit to develop students' metacognitive awareness.
I examine how D&T teachers often implicitly model design strategies – like design fiction or the 635 method – without explicitly discussing the decision-making process behind choosing these approaches. Two particularly interesting insights emerge: firstly, the importance of 'thinking aloud' about our design decisions as teachers, and secondly, how we can make visible the reasoning behind material choices and project constraints.
Beyond simple demonstration of techniques, this approach involves sharing our thinking as designers and curriculum planners. I suggest practical ways teachers might implement this metacognitive modelling at different stages of a project, helping pupils understand not just how to use design strategies, but when and why they might select them.
For D&T practitioners, this perspective offers an opportunity to reflect on your own practice. How explicit are you about the design decisions you've made when planning projects? Do your pupils understand why certain materials or constraints have been selected? Consider how you might share more of your design thinking with learners to develop their capacity for independent decision-making.
What small change could you make in your next lesson to make your design decisions more visible to your pupils?
Acknowledgement:
Some of the supplementary content for this podcast episode was crafted with the assistance of Claude, an AI language model developed by Anthropic. While the core content is based on the actual conversation and my editorial direction, Claude helped in refining and structuring information to best serve listeners. This collaborative approach allows me to provide you with concise, informative, and engaging content to complement each episode.
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