TD&T128 Have your say - answer our contentious questions

This week it's a pod takeover from Amanda, Ciaran and Andy. They are launching the project (re)designing D&T inviting you to answer the 18 contentious questions.

Episode transcript

Mentioned in this episode

Project overview

Guidance for responding: 'Have Your Say'

18 questions 

How to respond to the questions:  use this link to upload your responses: https://ntupsychology.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e3uA5bBcRdmPD5s

Halliwell, A., Mason, A., Hardy, A., & Ellis, C. (2023). A DEVELOPING PROJECT: INVESTIGATING FUTURE FORMS OF DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION. The 40th International Pupils’ Attitudes Towards Technology Conference Proceedings 2023, 1(October). Retrieved from https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/PATT40/article/view/1627


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Ciaran Ellis posted a thought-provoking question on LinkedIn recently: Do design decisions involve value judgements?

What do you think? Join the conversation over on LinkedIn and let us know what you think. 

Transcript

Amanda 

And the
purpose of today's discussion is to try and explain the next steps for the
redesign and design and technology project. But before we get started, let's introduce our expert panel. And when I say expert, I'm simply meaning we are currently teaching design and
technology and we don't class ourselves as people who are experts and know it. So,
firstly, I'm Amanda Mason. I teach design and technology and secondary
school in the northeast of England. I'm lead practitioner teaching electronics and engineering and have
been working in schools for eight years. Although this is only my fifth year of
teaching, we also have Andrew. 

Andrew 

Hi, I'm Andrew. I'm a design and technology teacher in Oxford. I'm I'm also a part
time doctoral student at the University of Cambridge and this is
now my 7th year of teaching. 

Amanda 

And we also
have Ciaran. 

Ciaran 

Hi, I'm Ciaran. I'm a prick leader. Designed technology at school in
Manchester. I'm in. My 11th year a teacher. 

Amanda 

And before we
explain the next steps of the project. Let's give a little context as how we've got where we are at the moment. So in September 2022, last academic year, Allison Hardy set out to try and get
practice and teachers to share their experiences, opinions and perspectives on
the design and technology curriculum I'll stress. Now this is purely based on experience and
opinions, and there's no way trying to shape or form what people should be thinking of design and of design and
technology. So Allison started the project with Sharon, 24 questions,
questions that she felt were still being debated or still needed answering. And
in the first round of the project. Asked
those completing the questionnaire whether they felt these
questions were the right questions, they'd also give people the opportunity to add any other
questions. And following the Delphine technique and
also if at this phase or if they wanted to be interested. Or if
they wanted to be involved in the next phase of the project, this was the point
in which people expressed their interest. So to prepare for the second part of
the project, those who had expressed their interest in the first phase and were
able to look at the data and then from there determined which questions people
deemed as the right questions, which ones were discarded or should be discarded
and in some cases we we worded some of the questions which then led on to the next.
Is
where we put forward the refined list of questions and this time asked people
whether they agreed or disagreed as to whether these whether or not these questions still needed debating or still needed
answered. So at this time this date I came back into the panel. The panel which was gradually getting smaller and which then determined which questions people believed
still needed answering. And these 24 questions became 80. And then at this
point, Ciaran's going to explain what happened next. So with these 18 questions, what did we do, Kevin? 

Ciaran 

So we've put out feelers as many people as we can and we asked people to identify which of them 18 questions that they thought they were
passionate about and wanted to write about. So we had quite a few responses of people who got in touch with us and said, yeah, look, I understand. I'm really interested in question, whatever. And I'd like to
participate and actually write something. Along the lines of that question. So we've collated them over the past couple of weeks. And the next
stage is for us to contact those people, but others as well. It's still open. Everyone can get. Involved and to ask people to actually submit responses to
their meeting controversial questions. Now these
responses can be written. They can be a
presentation, they can be an audio recording, or they can be a drawing. And what we're really looking for is as many teachers as possible to get
involved and have their say. It really is about
getting as many people to give their opinions. So we can draw out an analysis. Of what? What? The the
contentious issues are and the debates. That I had around them. At the minute, we're really hoping to get as many primary school teachers
involved as we can as well, because at the minute that's where we're kind of lacking. So anyone who's interested in any of the questions I would like to respond
to them. There will be a form attached to the podcast notes. They'll also be sent out
to anyone who's previously replied. And please just. Fill in a couple of
responses up to four, and I think we've said about a 750
word Max limit. 

Amanda 

Yeah. Excellent. So from there, Andrew, what is it that we're wanting to
achieve, what we're hoping? To happen going forward. 

Andrew 

So we're hoping to
relay all of this information to a wider audience as much as possible, and the
first stage in starting to do that is by presenting what we've done so far at
the PAT. 40 Conference in Liverpool, which is not. Too far away. So we're going to discuss what we've done, explain to other people what the next stages are
going to be and it's important to emphasise at this point it's about teachers having a say there aren't any affiliations
with any exam boards. And we also appreciate that people may have differing
views. On some of the questions that we've had and that's part of the process, really, we want people
to express those views and get in touch and feedback to us about these
questions. The next stage as mentioned is getting responses to these questions,
and we're going to open
up this round of responses until the 1st of December. So if you are listening to this or you hear us at the pack
conference and it's something that you think you want to be involved in, then
do get in touch. Because as I said, we'll be closing that off at the 1st of December, moving forward past that, we want to
try and spread the word as much as possible. And who knows, maybe we'll end up writing a book in the. End
about this process. 

Amanda 

Yeah, that's
definitely the dream, isn't it? That's the whole clear in
all these. And them being published. And so we really need the opinions and perspectives from primary
schools, so this is our plea as well. Hopefully some primary
school teachers are listening. We need you. We need you to get in touch. We
want your
you to have your say. And for this project, there's only a focus on
key stage one to three. So anything beyond there is there for another time. And we'll just keep them within those confinements at the
moment. This will hopefully be published into a book, and the more
people we have involved, the more valuable this becomes. The
such a variety in schools, cultures and contexts is important.
That all of them are voiced, so that's that. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to add as much diversity to this as we can. It's really important that those that are involved are also
currently teaching. And are in a school setting, is, is. Is the value that
Alison wanted to add was that this was led by. Teachers
and and personally, I'm not the strongest writer, but if you are a little bit like
me and you're not not as confident when it comes to writing, like Kevin said, you
can present this. You can have an audio file, you can have sketches, you can do
a video or you can just any way in which we can document these
responses. But if you do want to put it in writing, we do offer some
kind of, uh, we're all going to offer some kind of workshop to help people. Uh, put the writing together, and maybe a kind of editing
service as well. And again, what Andrew was saying, we're hoping to collect these responses by the 1st of December,
but if you're not already part
of the project and you really want to be. You see, you can still get in touch. I think all of our emails are getting
attached to the notes as well. And any additional questions or anything that you want us to be involved with,
we can always try and help as much as we can. So I think we might have covered everything. Anyone think there's anything else to
add? Yeah, I think we'll leave it there then. Thanks very much. 

Andrew 

Over and out.