Uncovering procedural knowledge in craft,design, and technology education: a case of hands-on activities in electronics

Different knowledge types have their own specific features and tasks in the learning process. Procedural knowledge is used in craft and technology education when students solve problems individually and share their working knowledge with others. This study presents a detailed analysis of a one student’s learning process in technology education and the procedural knowledge used during learning tasks. Thus, procedural knowledge is mainly produced when acting, and includes students’ goal-directed actions related to the craft, design and technology processes and their learning content. These knowledge practices also include multiple interactions with teachers and other students. The findings show six different knowledge practices: observing, checking and asking, revising, guided representative action, self-directed representative action, and comprehended action. These knowledge practices actively relate to each other, and, in concert, they constitute chains of actions that constitute two different types of procedural knowledge: proactive knowledge and executive knowledge. We conclude by discussing how these knowledge practices can be used to develop our understanding of the teaching and learning of craft, design and technology.     

Students’ interest and expectancy for success while engaged in analysis- and creative design activities

Inasmuch as design is a central activity in K-12 engineering education, understanding the students’ motivation during engaging in engineering design activities will help educators to develop and evaluate strategies for engineering design challenges, and improve curriculum. The objective of this study is to better understand the relationship between students’ interest and expectancy for success while engaged in two design activities in grades 9–12. The primary difference between the two activities was the strategy used to solve the design problems from a predictive analysis and a creative approach. Constructs of motivation for students’ interest include task value (TV) and intrinsic goal orientation (IGO) and extrinsic goal orientation (EGO). Expectancy for success includes control of learning beliefs and self-efficacy for learning and performance. In this study, students (n = 31) from three high schools that implement the Project Lead the Way curriculum in three states in the US participated in the study. Immediately after completing their design projects, each student was asked to complete a modified version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire survey instrument which evaluates their interest and expectancy for success. The results show that students were more intrinsically motivated to engage in a design activity that involves a predictive analysis than a creative approach. No significant correlation was found between students’ expectancy for success and EGO in design tasks that utilized either predictive analysis or creative approach. The study also found that TV and IGO were good predictors for students’ expectancy for success. Demographic information associated with students’ motivation in the design activities is also presented.     

The social agenda of education for sustainable development within design & technology: the case of the Sustainable Design Award

The paper explores the adoption of the social dimensions of sustainability in technological design tasks. It uses a lens which contrasts education for sustainability as ‘a frame of mind’ with an attempt to bridge a ‘value-action gap’. This lens is used to analyse the effectiveness of the Sustainable Design Award, an intervention in post-16 technology education in three countries to encourage students and teachers to strengthen design for sustainability in their work. In each country, the intervention project provided varying combinations of teacher professional development, provision of learning resources, in school student support, lobbying of key curriculum policy makers and a student Award. Three types of teacher are identified by reference to their motivation for introducing sustainability into their teaching of design. These teacher types are linked to a hierarchy of teachers’ understanding of the social dimension of sustainability. The consequences for continuous professional development are examined. The findings are then used to critique the value of the lens.     

Learning to think spatially in an undergraduate interdisciplinary computational design context: a case study

Spatial thinking skills are vital for success in everyday living and work, not to mention the centrality of spatial reasoning in scientific discoveries, design-based disciplines, medicine, geosciences and mathematics to name a few. This case study describes a course in spatial thinking and communicating designed and delivered by an interdisciplinary team over a three-year period to first-year university students. Four major elements provide a framework for the sequencing of instruction and acquisition of 2D and 3D spatial thinking and reasoning skills in a computational design context. We describe the process of introducing students to computational design environments beginning with a fun and familiar tool in preparation for a more complex, industry-standard system (SolidWorks). A design project provides diverse student teams an opportunity to integrate and apply foundational spatial concepts and skills including sketching, 2D and 3D representations, as well as digital and physical modeling. Samples of student work illustrate the scaffolding necessary for students to successfully draw upon the spatial thinking and communication skills required to complete their team projects beginning with applying sketching techniques; modeling individual 3D parts; creating digital assemblies; and finally building the equivalent 3D physical model. Key instructional principles provide a framework for the analysis of what worked and what didn’t in relation to spatial skills development in students. The lessons learned are identified along with potential future directions for teaching and learning scholarship in spatial thinking development within a computational design context.     

Social tie, social capital, and social behavior: Toward an integrative model of informal exchange

What is the unique nature of social capital that differentiates itself from other forms of capital? How should we conceptualize and operationalize social capital? What are the major drivers and outcomes of social capital? To address the three questions, I apply the duality lens—the perspective of regarding each entity as a paradox consisting of two contrasting yet interdependent components—to social capital for an integrative model of informal exchange. The focus of this paper is on the duality relationship between the content variables (social tie, social capital, social behavior along two basic dimensions: trust for tie strength and option for network structure) and the process variables (antecedent, content, process, and consequence) toward a geocentric framework of formal–informal exchange. I intend to make two contributions. First, the conceptualization and operationalization of social capital is developed from the duality lens of formal–informal exchange so as to identify the unique nature of social capital as an informal entity. Second, a holistic, dynamic, and dialectic model of social capital is provided to explore the causal links between various elements related to social capital.     

合作创新网络结构特征对企业创新绩效的影响研究——以新能源汽车产业为例

本文在合作创新和社会网络理论基础上,以创新网络的结构特征为视角,将节点度、中介中心度和结构洞作为3个维度,提出了创新网络的结构特征对企业经济、社会和生态绩效影响的假设,并对新能源汽车企业的168份调查问卷结果运用多元回归分析进行验证。结果显示：合作创新网络的节点度对企业经济和社会创新绩效有一定的正向促进作用;中介中心度对企业经济创新绩效有正向影响;结构洞对企业经济和生态创新绩效有正向促进作用。实证结果对企业、中介机构和政府在发展新能源产业方面都有一定的启发意义。     

Embedded creativity: teaching design thinking via distance education

This paper shows how the design thinking skills of students learning at a distance can be consciously developed, and deliberately applied outside of the creative industries in what are termed ‘embedded’ contexts. The distance learning model of education pioneered by The Open University is briefly described before the technological innovations—which feature a fully integrated web 2.0 learning environment and design studio—and concepts behind a new course in Design Thinking are explained in detail. In teaching the more generic skills of design and developing experiential knowledge in students, the paper also explores the changing role of designers in becoming less problem-focussed and more socially engaged through the construction of design process. The paper ends by presenting the results of an extensive student and tutor survey as part of an ongoing longitudinal study which indicate that this new approach to teaching design has been successful.     

Implementing an exemplar-based approach in an interaction design subject: enhancing students’ awareness of the need to be creative

In higher education effective teaching includes making learning goals and standards clear to students. In architecture and design education in particular, goals and standards around assessment are often not well articulated. There is good evidence that when teachers engage students before an assessment in marking exemplars, and explain why the exemplars received the grades they did, students’ performance in their written assessment is consequently enhanced. However some teachers are concerned that exemplars may discourage students from being creative; this concern is particularly important in design education. In this small-scale mixed methods study we explore interaction design students’ perceptions of the effect of an exemplar-based teaching approach on their work in a design task. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that students developed their understanding of task criteria and standards; far from discouraging their creativity, most students perceived that their experience of the approach enhanced their awareness of the need to produce an original design. The exemplar-based approach used in this study complements the studio-based teaching approach in design education, and helps to make clear the design goals and standards that teachers expect their students to strive for.     

Design knowledge and teacher–student interactions in an inventive construction task

The teacher plays an important role in the Technology and Design (T&D) classroom in terms of guiding students in their design process. By using concepts developed within engineering philosophy along with a framework for teacher–student interactions the design process in a T&D classroom is classified. The material shows that four of six predefined categories of design knowledge and three of seven predefined classes of activity are present in the material. Findings suggest that two categories of design knowledge, fundamental design concepts and practical considerations, are particularly significant in the students’ work. The teacher’s influence with respect to particularly the first of these categories is crucial for the students’ design process. Direct trial is found as the students’ dominating activity for solving the technological challenges. The results indicate that it is beneficial for students to be introduced to an operational principle before they can be innovative and develop their own design configuration when they establish their fundamental design concept. Curriculum developers, designers of teaching materials as well as teachers should take into account the students’ need of sufficient time to explore their design configuration.     

Using creative problem solving to promote students’ performance of concept mapping

The purpose of the study was to explore that using creative problem solving can promote students’ performance of concept mapping (CMPING). Students were encouraged to use creative problem solving (CPS) in constructing nanometer knowledge structure, and then to promote the performance of CMPING. The knowledge structure was visualized through CMPING which helps students to improve their performance. The participants were 42 college juniors who selected the course “Nano-environmental Engineering Technology”. Four instruments were used to classify student learning performance (meaningful learning, rote learning and non-learning). This study included three main issues: (1) Student learning quality was determined by the change in concept map construction. (2) In-depth interviews were applied to understand student’s CPS process. (3) Student interaction quality in a discussion board on a web-platform was evaluated. The results showed that meaningful high-level learners successfully applied CPS in constructing concept maps and they presented better performance of CMPING. Rote learners’ results were in the second place, and non-learners achieved the worse outcomes. It is suggested that a future teaching study can use creative problem solving to promote students’ performance of CMPING in other courses.     

Innovation learning in comprehensive education?

The goal of this article is to clarify the concept of innovation and by presenting a research on the basic education outcome assessment data from an innovation learning perspective, answer to a question: Do students learn innovation in comprehensive education? The empirical information in this research is based on data collected in the national assessment of the subject craft, design and technology education (CDT) in Finland in 2010. The comprehensive education in Finland, the basic education, means grades 1–9 in comprehensive schools from age 7 to 16. This assessment included a design task, a test of knowledge and skills and an attitude test in CDT. This research focuses on two central concepts: (1) innovation is defined as a novel, inventive and usable solution, in either material or immaterial space: an end-product, process or method related to people’s practical needs and purposes and (2) innovation learning is defined as a problem based and creative process of using and implementing knowledge and skills in iterative and critical manner in designing and making a novel and practical solution with high usability. The assessment data was marked off to tasks which indicated the innovation learning (n = 661 out of the sample n = 4792). Brim quartiles were used as a methodological solution; the brim quartiles of usability formed the sample of this research. The statistical differences were tested using the Kruskal–Wallis test and the Pearson Chi Square test. Innovation learning includes the process of designing, planning, making and the practical solution itself. The national data allow general conclusions according to the level of innovation learning in comprehensive education. The central observation is that students learn innovation in comprehensive education varying from good to moderate levels. However, if students have not studied design and technology since 7th grade, they are twice as likely to be negative underachievers as to be either positive achievers or positive underachievers. This is useful for governments to know when trying to increase innovation on a national level, as well as when considering the well-being of people and society.     

Attitudes towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in a project-based learning (PjBL) environment

Many scholars claimed the integration of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is beneficial to the national economy and teachers and institutes have been working to develop integrated education programs. This study examined a project-based learning (PjBL) activity that integrated STEM using survey and interview methods. The participants were 30 freshmen with engineering related backgrounds from five institutes of technology in Taiwan. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to examine student attitudes towards STEM before and after the PjBL activity. The results of the survey showed that students’ attitudes to the subject of engineering changed significantly. Most of the students recognized the importance of STEM in the science and engineering disciplines; they mentioned in interview that the possession of professional science knowledge is useful to their future career and that technology may improve our lives and society, making the world a more convenient and efficient place. In conclusion, combining PjBL with STEM can increase effectiveness, generate meaningful learning and influence student attitudes in future career pursuit. Students are positive towards combining PjBL with STEM.     

When mind, heart, and hands meet: communication design and designers

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 disciplinary knowledge and skills, the high-quality workforce demanded by the economic transition requires creativity and broader competences. The University Grants Committee of Hong Kong considers outcome-based education (OBE) the best approach to developing a workforce qualified to meet the demands of the professional marketplace and, accordingly, is strongly encouraging its deployment in all higher education institutions. This article investigates the effects of the OBE approach on the curriculum revision, implementation, and evaluation of a two-semester undergraduate-level communication design course that was selected for an OBE pilot study at the author’s university. To establish stronger linkage between the academic and professional contexts, it was deemed necessary to seek the opinions of experienced design practitioners about the attributes they expect of graduates and the methods they employ in training junior designers. The author conducted in-depth interviews with 13 art/creative directors from 11 design agencies in Hong Kong in 2007. Their opinions were incorporated into the formulation of intended learning outcomes (ILOs), teaching and learning activities (TLAs), and assessment tasks (ATs) for the revised outcome-based course curriculum, which was then implemented in the 2008–2009 academic year. This article reports the findings of the aforementioned interviews and discusses the design of the revised curriculum with illustration from samples of students’ creative projects. It also provides a preliminary evaluation of the effectiveness of the course design and student learning, as revealed in quantitative and qualitative feedback from students and in the course designer’s self-reflection.     

Robotics and STEM learning: students’ achievements in assignments according to the P3 Task Taxonomy—practice,problem solving,and projects

This study presents the case of development and evaluation of a STEM-oriented 30-h robotics course for junior high school students (n = 32). Class activities were designed according to the P3 Task Taxonomy, which included: (1) practice—basic closed-ended tasks and exercises; (2) problem solving—small-scale open-ended assignments in which the learner can choose the solution method or arrive at different answers; and (3) project-based learning—open-ended challenging tasks. The research aimed at exploring students’ working patterns, achievements in learning the course, and the impact of this experience on students’ motivation to learn STEM subjects. Evaluation tools included a final exam on factual, procedural and conceptual knowledge in the STEM subject learned in the course, class observations, interviews with the students, and administrating an attitude questionnaire before and after the course. Since the experimental class was quite heterogenic in regard to students’ prior learning achievements and motivation to learn, some of the students completed just the basic exercises, others coped well with the problem-solving tasks, and only a few took it upon themselves to carry out a complex project. However, all students showed high motivation to learn robotics and STEM subjects. In summary, robotics provides a very rich and attractive learning environment for STEM education. Yet, the realization of this potential depends largely on careful design of the course methodology and especially the students’ assignments in the class. One should recognize that often only some students are capable of learning a new subject on their own through project work, and these students also need to gain additional knowledge and skills before dealing with complex projects.     

Merits of Task Advice during New Product Development: Network Centrality Antecedents and New Product Outcomes of Knowledge Richness and Knowledge Quality

Utilizing new product development (NPD) teams to accomplish complex tasks in firms has been an emergent issue in many industries throughout the last couple of decades. Despite numerous studies, formation and efficient management of NPD teams is still a developing research domain. Using the knowledge‐based view of the firm and social network theories complementarily, this paper contributes to literature by examining the intrafirm social relational structures of NPD teams. Focusing specifically on the network centrality of the NPD teams, this paper argues that network centrality types of closeness, betweenness, and degree centralities influence the quality and richness characteristics of knowledge received through task advice seeking. Subsequently, the knowledge gained with these characteristics enhances product innovativeness and new product success. Consequently, the second contribution of this paper is to conceptualize the effect of the task advice‐seeking activities of NPD teams on NPD outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the empirical testing of the proposed model, including suggestions for focal construct operationalizations as well as other future research directions.     

The use of an online learning and teaching system for monitoring computer aided design student participation and predicting student success

In this paper we report on the use of a purpose built Computer Support Collaborative learning environment designed to support lab-based CAD teaching through the monitoring of student participation and identified predictors of success. This was carried out by analysing data from the interactive learning system and correlating student behaviour with summative learning outcomes. A total of 331 undergraduate students, from eight independent groups at the University of Surrey took part in this study. The data collected included: time spent on task, class attendance; seating location; and group association. The application of ANOVA and Pearson correlation to quantized data demonstrated that certain student behaviours enhanced their learning performance. The results indicated that student achievement was positively correlated with attendance, social stability in terms of peer grouping, and time spent on task. A negative relationship was shown in student seating distance relative to the lecturer position. Linear regression was used in the final part of this study to explore the potential for embedding predictive analytics within the system to identify students at-risk of failure. The results were encouraging. They suggest that learning analytics can be used to predict student outcomes and can ensure that timely and appropriate teaching interventions can be incorporated by tutors to improve class performance.     

Emerging Assessment Practices in an Emergent Curriculum: Implications for Technology

This paper reports on detailed case studies into emerging assessment practices in technology in two New Zealand primary schools (Years 1–6) with nine teachers. This research is part of the two year Research in Assessment of Primary Technology (RAPT) project and formed the basis for the one year New Zealand Ministry of Education funded Learning in Technology Education (Assessment) project.Emerging classroom assessment practices in technology, a new subject area in the national curriculum, are discussed. It was found that the existing subcultures in schools, teachers' subject expertise and the school wide policies impacted on the teachers' assessment practices. Assessment was often seen in terms of social and managerial aspects such as team work, turn taking and information skills, rather than procedural and conceptual aspects. Therefore teachers' formative interactions with students distorted the learning away from procedural and conceptual aspects of the subject, and the learning and the formative assessment interactions focused on generic skills rather than student technological understanding.The importance of developing teacher expertise in three dimensions of knowledge about the subject, knowledge in the subject and general pedagogical knowledge is highlighted. Thus the findings from this research have implications for thinking about teaching, learning and assessment in technology.     

Sustainability awareness in engineering curriculum through a proposed teaching and assessment framework

Engineers play a vital role in enabling the sustainable development of their societies. Thus, it is necessary to teach sustainability in universities, especially for engineering students, for a more sustainable future. The present work aims to measure and enhance engineering students’ awareness of sustainability by monitoring and evaluating learning and student outcomes during the last stages of an engineering curriculum and its culminating major design experience. A questionnaire to assess students’ awareness of sustainability and its tools is implemented. From this empirical study, obstacles to the awareness of sustainability through engineering education are discussed. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire implies the modification of the structure of senior projects and other capstone design courses in order to include a proposed teaching and assessment framework. This framework emphasizes students’ ability to understand and use effective sustainability tools, within the environment of their major design experience. The framework is composed of two paths. The first path concerns course design through which sustainability concepts and methods are included in several course elements. The second path addresses the assessment of the attainment of sustainability objectives by the students.

     

Clusters,networks, and firm innovativeness

This paper extends current knowledge of industry clusters by disentangling the effects of networks from cluster (i.e., distinctly geographic) mechanisms on firm performance as well as by studying the influence of these different mechanisms on firms located inside and outside the industry cluster. It also highlights the importance of simultaneously modeling multiple networks which may differentially influence important firm outcomes. In the paper, I model the innovativeness of Canadian mutual fund companies as a function of their geographic location—inside or outside the industry cluster of Toronto—and of their centrality in networks of managerial and institutional ties. I find that locating in the industry cluster as well as centrality in the managerial tie network enhances firm innovation, while centrality in the institutional tie network does not. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.