Core Competencies and the Design & Make Brief

It was another thinky day.  Sarah had asked us to write something down explaining the purpose of D&T.  On sharing with the group, I think my piece was a bit general and not specifically related to teaching D&T, so on my ideas page you'll find a summary of what other people contributed, my notes from picking apart the National Curriculum on a previous occasion, and my general ideas about “things”.

We took it in turns to introduce ourselves, showing some of our previous work and experiences, then noting together which Core Competencies they illustrate.

A question came up for me to ponder, but I don't have a good answer so far: evidencing of process/methodology does not occur in the same way in the professional world.  Is it always essential in D&T teaching and learning?

We had a look at an excerpt from Sarah and Alison's chapter in Teaching Design and Technology, called “Teaching for design and technology capability”, and pulled out  few key thoughts.  (I've copied the article in my ideas page because I think it will be useful to go back to.)

Finally, Sarah introduced the Design and Make (Day 1) project that will run throughout the SKE course – Wearable Technology and eTextiles.  We used tinkering kits to work out simple circuits, then did some hand-sewn circuits using conductive thread.

At lunch time we looked around the University's degree show to explore the idea of Contextual Challenges.