Building on the ideas of Gammon and Lawrence (2006) I have decided to write this blog post to help reduce student anxiety and support future assessment activities. I am not sure I can make assessment totally enjoyable for my students, as these authors suggest, but I can most definitely give it a go!
Gammon and Lawrence talk about ‘flow’ from Csikszentmihalyi (1975), as a mechanism for designing assessments that allow learners to set self-goals based on feedback that feeds forward into the next assessment – or learning point. Assessment challenges learners which can lead to doubts about ability and result in stress about assessment completion. The use of feedback as a tool to improve learning is written about widely. But I like Gammon and Lawrence’s work here about the ‘flow’ of assessments and how the learning experience can be improved through engagement with feedback that setting of self-goals to develop greater confidence in their own learning abilities.
This blog post offers clear, supportive written feedback on a recent assignment to inform learners about what to identify as successes and areas for development in their own future learning.
To support future assignments:
Keep Doing!
Include a clear introduction that summarises the assignment to follow;
Use the conclusion to answer questions raised in the introduction about the topic of the assignment;
Use subheadings to guide the reader and give context to the story of the assignment;
Demonstrate your knowledge of the topic by identifying and evaluating relevant literature (this can be policy, professional practice articles and scholarly work in education) ;
Demonstrate your capacity for reflection by considering the topic of the assignment and how the literature on the topic relates to practice;
Using policy, literature and observations to justify arguements.
Start Doing!
Move beyond description, e.g. what happened, to analyse why it happened the way it did. What did you do (or not do) to get the result?
Use evidence from your classroom (observation of learners) to substantiate your claims;
Use a wider range of policy documents and literature to substantiate your claims about learners; and direct your actions within the classroom;
Expanding on the points above, consider using the pieces of literature on learning theory to justify your original actions and later analysis of pupil’s reactions to lesson content. How can theory help you to act on and unpick the way learners learn?
Reference
Gammon, S. and Lawrence, L., 2006. Chapter 11 Improving student experience through making assessments ‘flow’. In Bryan, C. and Clegg, K. eds., 2019. Innovative assessment in higher education: A handbook for academic practitioners. Routledge.
Representatives from the D&T ITE community have asked the Secretary of State for Education to reconsider the decisions to remove the D&T ITE bursary in England. Today we have sent this letter:
Dear Secretary of State,
We are writing to express our deep concern about the recent decision to remove the bursary for secondary design and technology (D&T) initial teacher training (ITT) students in England. Whilst we recognise that, as a country and nation, we are experiencing unprecedented times, we urge immediate action by the Department for Education to recognise the continuing under recruitment and resulting shortage of secondary teachers in D&T.
Despite the rise in recruitment to ITT in many secondary school subjects during COVID-19, a recent NfER report highlights that the ‘recruitment gaps in… design & technology are unlikely to fully close’. Similarly, the DfE’s own figures illustrate that D&T has consistently under-recruited for many years. Annually since 2012, this shortage has been documented in the Government’s ITT census, with D&T having lower numbers of entrants as a proportion of the teacher supply model (TSM) than any other subject. In light of these concerning reports, we were disappointed to learn that the new bursary regulations no longer allocate funding to train to teach D&T in 2021/22.
The removal of the bursary will further entrench the chronic shortage of trained teachers of D&T working in secondary schools. In some schools D&T has been removed from the curriculum due, in part, to failing to be able to attract suitably qualified and experienced specialist teachers, significantly reducing opportunities for young people.
D&T education develops our children and young peoples’ 21st Century Skills and the potential to be innovative and resilient, all of which will be vital in post-COVID and post-Brexit Britain. Developing pupils’s innovation and resilience have been a central tenet since the first National Curriculum in 1990 when D&T was established as a foundation subject under the then Conservative government. A lack of specialist trained D&T teachers could mean that young people are less prepared to respond to the challenges and opportunities we will face in post-COVID and post-Brexit Britain. Also, the OECD Education 2030 project highlights the need to educate young people to ‘think creatively, develop new products… processes and methods, new ways of thinking and living…’. As part of a balanced curriculum, D&T offers pupils and students the opportunity to think practically, develop autonomy and foster the ‘adaptability, creativity, curiosity and open-mindedness’ that OECD calls for.
The government has a fundamental duty to address the shortage of design and technology teachers in order to provide coverage of all National Curriculum subjects to all secondary age pupils. Additionally, we believe that removing the bursary threatens the teaching the new GCSE Design and Technology and GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition specifications. Furthermore, we are concerned that the removal of the bursary will not promote diversity in the workforce, further disincentivising Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) – as well as male – entrants to the profession.
As Minister of Education, we urge you to take immediate action to:
Adopt an ITT bursary allocation policy that recognises the shortage of D&T teachers;
Allocate additional funding to promote diversity in the D&T teaching workforce and
Work with D&T ITT providers and the Design & Technology Association to address the issues with recruitment and secure the future of the subject.
We request that you take all necessary steps to ensure that all children in England enjoy the right to a full National Curriculum without discrimination.
Thank you very much for your consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Alison Hardy, Nottingham Trent University
Sarah Davies, Nottingham Trent University
Matt McLain, Liverpool John Moores University
Rose Sinclair, Goldsmiths University of London
Torben Steeg, Manchester Metropolitan University
Julie Buckland, University of the West of England
Alan Bright, Goldsmiths University of London
Suzanne Lawson, University of Worcester
Dr Dawne Irving-Bell, Edge Hill University
Tracey Goodyere, Birmingham City University
Sue Parker-Morris, University of Worcester
Professor Stephanie Atkinson, University of Sunderland
Professor Kay Stables, Goldsmiths University of London
Tony Cowell, Sheffield Hallam University
Andy Mitchell, Retired (Sheffield Hallam University)
Nick Givens, University of Exeter
Karen Fuller, Manchester Metropolitan University
Bill Nicholl, University of Cambridge
Ruth Seabrook, University of Roehampton
Dr Marion Rutland, University of Roehampton
Mark Norris, University of Sussex
Bhavna Prajapat, University of Brighton
Please note: the views expressed are the signatories’ personal views and not necessarily our employers’ policies.
I’m delighted to be working with Matt McLain and Alison Hardy on a free webinar called ‘A Conversation About Teaching D&T’. The webinar is based on our chapters in the recently published fourth edition of ‘Learning to Teach Design and Technology in the Secondary School’ (Hardy, 2021). The event will be on Tuesday 1st of December, timed to come as student teachers are getting to grips with planning lessons. One video will be released each week for the four weeks leading up to the webinar, focusing on the key themes from our chapters.
Matt, Alison and I will be talking about planning lessons for progression in design and technology, based on our chapters in the teaching D&T section:
The event is aimed at beginning teachers (student teachers and NQTs) and you can register for one of the limited places at https://bit.ly/3lgWn6U.
Reference
Hardy, A. (ed) (2021). Learning to teach design and technology in the secondary school: a companion to school experience (4th Edition). Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN: 9780367336813.
It’s great to be able to report that my chapter – Planning Lessons in Design and Technology in the 4th edition of Learning to teach design and technology in the secondary school edited by Alison Hardy, has just arrived in bookshops.
Changes to the curriculum for design and technology place a greater emphasis on pupils’ learning about electronics and computer programming. They also highlight the need to learn within fashion contexts.
But teachers can find this move to non-traditional integrated materials and technologies daunting. As a design and technology teacher educator, who was originally trained in textiles, I appreciate those challenges but I also find the move exciting.
Part of my challenge is how to make teaching electronics concepts like current flow; component functionality and positive/negative energy, concrete for my learners.
When I first started teaching trainee teachers about electronic systems, I got them to follow ‘step-by-step’ instruction sheets, which protected me, the teacher, against questions like “what do I do next?”, but ‘step-by-step’ instructions don’t help trainee teachers to answer questions about why the components function in different ways, depending on where they are placed in the circuit and what to do if things go wrong.
At times, this led to frustration and fear from both myself and my student teachers.
Resnick and Rosenbaum (2013) write about e-textile teaching in the States. They urge teachers to consider problem-solving activities that rely on tangible objects, which allow learners to ‘tinker’ with electronic components and construct their own understanding of the concepts that govern how various components function, within a soft (textile) or traditional (resistant materials) circuit.
Teachers, however, must be given the confidence to let pupils ‘loose’ with tinkering. That is why myself and my colleague, Alison Hardy collaborated with a local small manufacturing enterprise (SME) – Kitronic – to create smart fashion resources that would support teachers in school.
Using the ideas from Resnick and Rosenbaum, we developed a short scheme of work that exploited the use of teacher prepared ‘tinkering kits’, to introduce Year 7 learners to the concept of smart fashion and electronic circuits.
The project, supported by European Regional Development funding, allowed us to create and test a Year 7 unit of learning that detailed, resources; learning objectives; teaching activities; and teacher notes, to support key stage three learners with electronic textile concepts.
The first lesson encourages learners to play with a ‘tinkering kit’ that is comprised of a 3V battery (coin cell), an LED (regular or e-textile compatible), a piece of conductive fabric (300mm x 3000mm) and two crocodile clips.
In groups of three, pupils are challenged, to light up the LED, using the items in the ‘tinkering kit’. The activity allows learners to handle electronic components and crocodile clips whilst solving the answer to the challenge. The tricky abstract concepts, like polarity and current flow, become real as learners explore the function of the components, through trial and error.
Other lessons in the scheme, develop knowledge of the components within a system that control the function and behaviour of various inputs and outputs, e.g. battery holders, lights and sensors. Pupils create individual soft (textile) versions of electronic components, like battery holders and switches.
The lesson supports pupils in developing their textile construction skills using pre-cut fabric with etched guidelines (to guide the stitching line).
Teachers who have trialled these kits said “these would be very helpful for developing the construction skills required to make smart fashion objects, back in the classroom”, they also found that the group challenge, supported them in “sharing ideas and working together as a team” whilst building “confidence up straight away”.
The tangible nature of the activity came through when a teacher noted that “it is easy to see if you are doing it right or wrong because the end objective, the goal, to get the LED to light up [is or] isn’t working”.
Teaching electronic circuits through textiles makes learning about electronics joyful and transparent. By this, I mean fun for the learner as they get to explore the materials and technologies themselves and transparent because the inner workings of the circuit components are exposed.
This type of activity can provide a way to get all pupils learning the principles of electronic systems in a non-traditional way. Non-traditional teaching within design and technology can help to bring the different material areas closer together.
Electronic circuits and computation are important areas of design and technological knowledge that can often be assigned to masculine areas of the curriculum, like robotics and computer gaming.
I believe that one of the most exciting things about the new specifications for the GCSE is the non-traditional stance on single material areas of study. The opportunity for young people to experience a gender-neutral version of D&T is a brave and important step for future design curriculum.
It is therefore important that teachers are given the tools they require to teach this new area with confidence.
You can access some of the resources discussed here, and read a copy of Sarah’s research paper: How to teach ‘Smart Fashion’within the D&T curriculum: have we got it right?here.
Sarah Davies is a senior lecturer in secondary design and technology education within the Nottingham Institute of Education at Nottingham Trent University
Last October (2015) I started my EdD at University of Nottingham. The Programme Leader, Professor Jeremy Hodgen suggested that we practices writing 500 words a day (three days a week, due to part time status). He promoted this, as a way to support our writing and develop academic voice.
Initially I started to write 500 words a day. But my outputs tended to consist of free writing texts that dumped my ideas out and didn’t finesse my opinions or position in the argument. Because my writing didn’t move beyond the ‘free writing’ stage, I then rushed to meet the first assignment deadline.
Dr Inger Mewburn discusses the difficulty with moving on to the final edit in The ‘Out The Door’ rant. She uses this post to talk about the need for academics to share their writing or else it has no purpose – I am simplifying an enjoyable and informative blog post (recommended reading).
Anyway, the haste to complete and hand in my assignment before the deadline has taught me that I need to practice an ‘out the door’ policy with my ideas. Using this blog is the starting point.
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