Goldsmiths - University of London

Context

Growing concern over the confidence and competence of d&t teachers to teach designing skills and enable creative responses in learners had been expressed by the profession, including through Ofsted reports. To address this, the Design Museum initiated a project through which practicing designers led hand-on workshops with teachers, providing a real opportunity to get inside their company's creative practices and for teachers to discuss the curriculum and pedagogic issues the practices presented. Workshops were held with a range of companies including IDEO, Dyson and Paul Smith.

Focus

TERU's brief was to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the workshops in relation to their impact on the confidence and practical strategies of teachers to implement new creative approaches and to bridge the gap between education and the design industry. We examined four workshops from the standpoint of teachers, designers and the Design Museum staff themselves, and gathered data through:

• questionnaires completed pre and post workshop sessions;
• observation of workshops;
• structured interviews with teachers, designers and Design Museum personnel.

Outcomes

The hands-on approach of the workshops was very important in increasing teachers' confidence and practical strategies. The range of modelling techniques shared with the teachers was particularly powerful as were the various iterative design processes illustrated through the designers' professional practices. The risk-averse culture in schools, linked partly to assessment regimes, was identified as blocking more experimental approaches in d&t lessons.