Bridging the Gap: Insights on D&T Education from School to University

In this episode of Talking D&T, I interview Milly Kearns, a final year Product Design student at Nottingham Trent University. Milly shares her experiences studying Design and Technology (D&T) in school and how that led her to pursue product design at university. We discuss the differences and similarities between D&T at school versus university, including the focus on collaboration, presentation skills, and the application of theoretical knowledge.

Milly offers insightful advice for D&T teachers, suggesting they continue encouraging students to explore multiple ideas rather than fixating on their first concept. She also recommends moving away from the practice of cramming process documents with unnecessary information and instead focus on the quality and relevance of the content. Additionally, Milly advocates for more collaborative studio-style learning in D&T classrooms to better prepare students for real-world design practices.

We also touch upon Milly's dissertation research on creative education and her final project, which involves designing a system to support people diagnosed with arthritis through clay classes and holistic therapies. As the episode concludes, Milly shares her aspirations to become a D&T teacher and help shape the next generation of designers.

(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)

Mentioned in the podcast - detailed links are only available to subscribers

Nottingham Trent University's Product Design programme

Chapters

• 0:06 Student's Journey in Product Design
• 10:56 Challenges and Skills in Design Education
• 21:33 Design Education

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:06

you're listening to the talking dnt podcast. I'm Dr Alison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news and opinions about dnt. This week I'm with a student from nottingham trent university who's just coming to the end of her degree um in product design.

Alison Hardy: 0:31

Milly contacted me a while back and asked if I would be willing to be interviewed. Yep, so it's, the boot was on the other foot. Somebody was interviewing me rather than me interviewing them for one of her assignments for a final year. So I then turned it around and said okay, so come on the podcast and talk about what you do. So this is part of the Shaping Design and Technology series that is looking at what different people think needs to be done, could be done and should be done around design and technology. So Milly here to kind of come and share some of her experiences about being a student in school doing D&T and how that's led on to her own product design and kind of from her perspective about maybe what could be different and what should be kept. So, Milly, would you like to first of all introduce yourself, say who you are, where you are and what you do.

Milly Kearns: 1:17

Yeah, of course I'm Milly Cairns. I go to Nottingham Trent University and I study BA Product Design. I'm in my final year, so I'm just finishing off my last project and then I'm off to the big wide world.

Alison Hardy: 1:31

And I'll come on and ask you about that later on. So you're in your third year, Product Design. So what were you doing beforehand? What did you do at school in terms of design and technology?

Milly Kearns: 1:43

So GCSE I did DT and I did art and all the other subjects and then at A level I did DT, geography and psychology.

Alison Hardy: 1:54

So that was an interesting combination of A levels. So how did? How did you pick those three? What brought those three together?

Milly Kearns: 2:01

I remember the main advice from my parents was just to do things I enjoyed, and those were the. I've never done psychology before, um, so it was something I wanted to try, something a bit new, and I've always been interested in how people um think and work and stuff. Um, I loved product design. That was my favorite GCSE um, so I knew that that was something I was very interested in and quite passionate about, so it made sense to do that for A-level. And geography I can't.

Milly Kearns: 2:30

I can't remember I think I was deciding whether or not to do art and DT, but I basically went with geography because, again, really enjoyed it at GCSE and also the way that they all linked together was actually quite unusual, but they all helped each other because they were doing a lot of design in geography. Even they don't realize it, but everything around you is designed, that even even just like engineering, wise in terms of like rock armor, and that everyone's thought about how this is going to work, but it's a process and then design something to kind of mitigate something. Um, so that was a really interesting perspective. And then psychology obviously is about how people interact with the world and how people interact with um objects and people, and I think that's really important for design as well.

Alison Hardy: 3:16

So I didn't didn't pick them to link together, but when I the more I learned about them, the more that they really did so isn't that interesting how actually the things that you like you didn't realize how they they fitted together, but it's obviously showing some sort of threads there, isn't it about about people, about having an understanding about people and how they interact with products and how, um, things are designed in response to what people need, and and that relationship there. I think that's really fascinating. You can now you've said it, you can see the link between those three. Yeah, yeah. So how did, how did all of that lead on to you doing what you do at a degree level at Nottingham Trent?

Milly Kearns: 3:57

um. So the school I was at, no logical next step was university, um, and I remember pushing back against that quite a bit because I didn't, I didn't really necessarily want to go to uni because I knew I wanted to do design, because it was my fate, that's the one I was most passionate about and I felt like there should be apprenticeship. Just made logical sense to me as an A-level student that a practical subject would have more practical um, maybe career routes, um. But my teachers said that I mean, I'm sure there are lots of great um apprenticeships, but they said actually the most typical one is to go to university and actually you probably would get a wider variety of education by doing that and kind of like experience of design um. So then that's that's obviously when I started looking at universities and I remember Dr my feet a lot.

Milly Kearns: 4:46

I remember being I don't, I don't know where to go or what to do, and I did find it hard because DT isn't like product design, isn't measured against other product design, um, what they call subjects.

Milly Kearns: 5:02

So in the same way that biology would be measured across the UK, or like STEM subjects, it's more to do with art and design, which is, as you know a huge category of courses. So just because somewhere in London was great at art, they might have a better ranking, but actually the product design could be terrible. So it was hard to figure out whether the best place to go was um. But I remember I remember actually going to Trent and um, I didn't like not seeing him and I was like I said I remember saying to my mom I don't want to go here, I don't want to do this, let's just go. And we went into one of the talks and they were talking about the course and they were talking about not just designing for products, they're designing systems and services and all of that and how people interact with the whole world and not just a built object. And I was sat there and I just remember going. Oh crap.

Milly Kearns: 5:57

I really like it here like really, I was like I don't like the place, but I love that idea of the course. So that was definitely the main motivating factor for picking Trent was because the course just spoke to me a lot more than the others, um, so yeah, I suppose that's how I've ended up where I am yeah, that's really interesting, isn't it?

Alison Hardy: 6:15

is it again?

Alison Hardy: 6:16

it's that whole thread about thinking about humans, thinking about people yeah and their interaction, and not just a thing, but the process of the thing, the space, yeah, and the systems all right, okay. Okay, that's really interesting. I find that fascinating. I think that kind of we sometimes forget about that is that some people might think well, design and technology is about making and what, what the students really interested want to make stuff. But actually for you it was more about the context and the why, as much as it was the realization of something. Right, okay, so you start, you start university. What? What is it that's there that you kind of think, oh yeah, this builds on what I did in my a level, my gcse, and what was there? Thinking, crikey, this is completely different.

Milly Kearns: 7:05

Or this is not what they said, this is the opposite, or, you know, challenging me the main thing I remember um, I started with Covid so it was a bit of a weird start anyway, um, and probably not exactly what they wanted. But I know that from my experience later on at university that it's all about studio and it's all about learning from other students and stuff. And I definitely remember at school I loved my design department and they were great, but it was much less collaborative. It was like you kind of asked what people were doing, but most people went to the teacher to get feedback and the teacher was the main facilitator of ideas and pushing it forward and making sure that it met the, the, the um grading matrix and all that because, when I came to university, it was all about coming up with ideas with other people, um, and having that collaborative space.

Milly Kearns: 7:53

Like even on in COVID, they still had like a team's um studio sorry, um that you, that you would join and try and talk to each other. It was tricky because no one really knew what they were doing and people weren't used to that environment so they weren't really that keen. But also, I think, in terms of the actual work, we still do process documents at university, because that is the one way that you can track how someone has gone from one idea to the next, to the next, and how they've developed it, which is obviously quite similar to a level and gcse so what do you mean by a process document before you?

Milly Kearns: 8:29

oh sorry. So a process document, so um, for example, if you're looking at in terms of making um or even just coming up with a design and research, and you basically start at the beginning and you go, okay, this is my idea, this is a problem I found. This is all the research to back up the problem. This is who I've spoken to kind of lay it out in a nice way and then you move on to the next. You're like these are the ideas I've come up with and then you kind of rather than just a page of sketches, you kind of pull out and evaluate oh, I like this one because it's doing this and this is my brief and this is how it kind of links to that um.

Milly Kearns: 9:08

So we still have that process which I definitely did have at product um at a level sorry, um, but I remember a level because I've looked back at, like you know, you get memories come back and then I've looked back at photos of me being like look how much I've done and my page would be an a3 page, probably be size 10 font and covered the whole screen.

Milly Kearns: 9:26

On every single page would be covered with words and that's how they said just cram as much as you possibly can in. And the first thing I learned when I went to university and I struggled with it probably even till now they said no words. This is creative course. You should be able to communicate with visuals and as much as, whereas when I was learning at school, it was basically like just talk until someone understands what you're saying, whereas this was much more considering what you're saying and considering what you're putting on a page and kind of the narrative of the of the project, as opposed to here's my brain dump, here's every single thing I've ever done. So that was a big learning curve for me and I'm still learning it.

Alison Hardy: 10:12

I want to ask you do you think then something could have been done differently in school about process, a process document than the way it was done in school? But the tension around that is saying that what school is doing is preparing you for university, which it isn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. It does a bit, but it that's not the only reason, is it? But do you look back and think, oh, I wish my teachers had done this or we'd learn more about that um, yeah, definitely in terms of.

Milly Kearns: 10:42

Obviously I've not had. I had a little bit of design experience in my placement um in the real world, but it was more making um, so I wouldn't be able to put it into terms of the industry but in terms of university that is. One of my biggest struggles is the presentation side of things and being able to basically just almost like a hero shot and just having one image or one word and it kind of sums things up in a really concise way and I think that I do wish that I'd learned more at school how to consider what I was saying with the design um, in terms of like presenting the design, but also in terms of what I was actually doing, because if I think back to the projects I was doing at school, it was basically like I mean this much for my school, but everything was like as multi-purposes, you could possibly make it, the more it could do, the better, and so a lot like you just add and add and add things and actually I think if they could definitely teach or just have an approach where it's actually why is that, why is that needed? Kind of questioning why that you've made those choices a little bit more than just going oh yeah, it looks great. Um, I think that would definitely help, which I thought something earlier.

Milly Kearns: 11:53

But I think one thing I definitely have learned more of in school than at university was the more theoretical side of design. Um, in terms of like design history and, um, like, uh, I think, um, manufacturing things like that. Because everything at university, because it's so self-led, is I basically learn about a process or a material because I might be using it in a project. Um, so I know more about woods and things because I've used more, I've tailored my projects towards that, whereas at school I learned a lot about the plastics and other materials and ceramics and things because it was part of the syllabus. So obviously the good thing is that it's so broad and that you need to show an understanding of it, and I think that's something I have actually missed in university is that I assumed that the lectures were going to be about giving us that background almost into design, so we had a bit more of a theoretical understanding.

Milly Kearns: 13:01

I think, from the understanding I've had from talking to tutors, is that actually they want to, because Trent's obviously quite tailored to preparing you for industry.

Milly Kearns: 13:12

The theoretical science of design maybe isn't as important to them in terms of the goal of what they're trying to like help us get careers and things, and actually having more practical design skills is better and working in groups and or everything that comes with the design process, which is why they focus on that so much.

Milly Kearns: 13:32

But actually, as as a student and as a learner, I think I would have appreciated more materials and design history lectures about where we've come from and what we've changed, and because I think it helps you understand where you're about to go. I think it kind of helps you understand, like the, the trends and and how things change, which is all really important in the whole context of you know, designing, because one of the issues obviously at the moment with the planet is that designers are great but people need to be questioning why they're even making it in the first place if it's not actually changing anything, if it's just the new iteration, does it really need to be made in the spike at all? Um, and I feel like you can understand that a lot more with a wider contextual knowledge. So, yeah, I think that's one thing I have missed from school that I did enjoy, but I know that some people, if they look back at their DT at school, wouldn't say that learning about the theory was their favourite part.

Alison Hardy: 14:30

There's different ways of learning, isn't it? It's not just sitting at a desk, you know. It can be done, um, through, through activity. Um, there's, there's different modes of doing that. Yeah, I think part part of the tension that teachers have in schools is, as you say, that the syllabus, the specification, is the big Dr, and so it's a huge amount of content to get through. Um, whether, whether having all that content makes you a better designer. I just want to kind of unpick a little bit about. You talked about design skills. Yes, how do you describe them and what would you say some of the things that you've learned then that maybe you would have liked to have done more of in school?

Milly Kearns: 15:11

I would say the basics of sketching is very briefly touched on in school, but no one. Sketching is a skill and in order to develop a skill you have to practice it lots, and in school you've just not got time to sit down and teach a skill to people that frequently. So why would you fill the very little time you've got with something that's not covering a syllabus, basically? So you don't. I never felt I was getting better at sketching, whereas at university every week in first year and second year we had sketching class for an hour and a half and all you do every week for an hour and a half is sketch. So you get better because you're practicing and you're using that muscle and all you're focusing on is not designing, it's not making anything new, it's just sketching and improving that skill. So that in terms of that, that definitely helped, and the same with CAD. So obviously, like the computer, computer designing and things that got a lot better at university because one, there's a much bigger variety of softwares to use, um, there's a dedicated technician that knows everything about that software. So they're probably going to be able to teach it better than at school, where it's a limited resource and and also it was. It was used in our products. So all the CAD we were using was getting freely printed or CNC'd or everything to do with the end outcome. So it felt like it was practical. Um, and again, yeah, just practicing and being able to basically be like, oh, this is how, or everything to do with the end outcome. So it felt like it was practical. And again, yeah, just practising and then being able to basically be like, oh, this is how you make this thing, and then you practise it and you do it. And at school you've just not got the time and it's no one's fault, but it just doesn't occur like that.

Milly Kearns: 16:51

I think university, in terms of the projects, has probably been, um, just a bigger version of school. So in school you do so. Gcse, we did lots of mini projects for two or three weeks or maybe a bit longer, and one was focused on using flexi ply. So you had, you very quickly came up with an idea. Maybe within a day or two you'd have, you were set on what it was going to look like and then it was all about how you can realize that and make a light with that material. And then another one was was not about making at all. It was all about um designing um some really like far-fetched ideas and like kind of testing that. And then there was another project that was all about biomimicry or I think you could pick whatever you wanted um, and it was all about researching that and figuring out okay, like basically getting to the mood board stage and being like if you were doing that.

Milly Kearns: 17:45

So I don't know if all schools do that, but my school definitely was good at compartmentalizing the design process into smaller chunks so you could really dive deep into certain sections, um, and that's basically what university's been. They've just been slightly longer projects and probably, well, definitely a much higher quality of um, of work that you're expected to produce. So, um, in terms of that, I feel like that my school did quite well um, because that was a similar thing. So when I first got to university, I felt quite prepared that, okay, no, I understand that this is tailored at research and therefore research is the important part and I'm going to focus on that. Um, and I think I learned more from my projects doing that, because you get um as much as you can learn from someone talking at you.

Milly Kearns: 18:32

It's much harder, it's much easier to like learn from your own mistakes when you've put something into practice, which I think for design is so important, because all everything you're doing is thinking for yourself.

Milly Kearns: 18:44

So obviously you can get other subjects where you're learning and so, for example, if I'd done geography or psychology at university, like predominant part of this course would probably be me sitting and learning from someone.

Milly Kearns: 18:57

But design is all about applying what you've learned or what you've from someone else or from yourself, and what you can see is worked in other products and things like that and then applying it and designing something around that. So it's very much Dr and I feel that those skills get naturally developed, like those soft skills of being able to manage your own product projects and things and and understand that if someone from one side is saying they don't like it and someone's saying they love it, being like okay, being able to understand those opinions and like put them into practice and things. Whereas I don't know, I obviously haven't got experience of other courses, but from from people I've spoken to, it feels a lot more uh, rigid and a bit more structured and this is kind of this is what we think about this theory and this is what we think about this theory and this is what we think about that theory, and then you just learn about that um. So I suppose that's a different sort of skill to that traditionally academic um learning yeah, I suppose.

Alison Hardy: 19:54

So one of the things that's coming out to me quite strongly from your, from what you're saying, is is this is this space to practice, or the recognition that practice is really important? And that makes me think that, in one of the challenges that's faced in schools at the minute is the lack of timetable, time, um, for all sorts of reasons. But it does then mean that actually, you know, homework could be practice, couldn't it? That's maybe another way of of doing things, but also teaching Dr what it means to practice, yeah, and being able to recognize what it is to get better, um at things. And then then you talked about this application of knowledge, um, yeah, so I think the fact that you probably did have a lot of that foundation of knowledge from school around processes and materials did help, but I think there's also the recognition that good teachers then build opportunity to Dr on that knowledge.

Milly Kearns: 20:56

Yeah, exactly yeah. It's not just that they were telling me that this is, this is one of the materials and this is one of the ways you can do this. The project would then be okay we learn about these three different materials, pick one and we'll help you to make something in that, and you can experiment with those parameters that we taught you about a week ago.

Alison Hardy: 21:16

Yeah.

Milly Kearns: 21:24

And that's what became much more easy to remember, because I'd had personal experience of oh yeah, I remember, actually, when I clamped that it didn't work, but I had to put it. You know all of that sort of technical aspect that you wouldn't get if you were just looking at it in a book and going, oh yeah, OK, so this is how it works.

Alison Hardy: 21:33

So if you could go back to your teachers, what, what would be the one thing that you would say Keep doing this, and another thing that you would say keep doing this, and another thing that you would say stop doing this, and another thing that you'd say try doing this.

Milly Kearns: 21:51

that's three things keep doing, stop, try. So one thing that I said I would say to keep doing, because I've spoken to people at university and they didn't have this and I know that it's that. That's one thing I found really hard. My school was very good at saying, just because you've come up with an idea right at the beginning, you still need to explore as many other ideas and avenues as you possibly can to know it's the right choice.

Milly Kearns: 22:13

So, basically, suggesting that you don't do design fixation and trying to trying to look at all the other avenues, whereas quite a lot of schools I've spoken to, for understandable reasons, have gone. Oh, that's your first idea, stick with that, because then we can make it, then we can do this, so we can. And actually what they learn is essentially when this is um, what they found tricky when they got to university is that the first idea is the best idea and it's not. It's never is. It's the most obvious idea.

Alison Hardy: 22:41

But so I call that the the dinosaur baby. That's cool. Yeah, so it's. It's. It's a book, that um that we used to use on the undergraduate dnt training book. I've just looked it up. Actually, um, cad monkeys, dinosaur babies and t-shaped people, and sometimes that first idea becomes a dinosaur baby and the stories that dinosaur babies aren't very pretty, so so only their mother loves them, if that makes sense, and um, and so that's where you kind of get fixated. You know the mother is going this is a beautiful baby. It's a beautiful baby, and when we have our first designs we try and make that design fit, no matter, no matter what. So, yeah, that dinosaur babies is when you you have one idea so keep doing that.

Alison Hardy: 23:28

That's what you need to keep doing is encouraging their students to to push into further ideas. So what should they stop doing?

Milly Kearns: 23:37

I think they should stop. I don't know how you'd stop, because I understand that it probably stems from how they're being assessed. But if possible, just stop telling people to whack everything on their process document because it's so hard to unlearn. It's really like it's four years later and I'm still trying to unlearn it because I'm so used to just going. It's partly because that's what I do, probably in terms of in conversation and probably like blur everything and that's probably my style of like communication. But it's so hard to unlearn that whole idea of just fill the page full of. I remember there'd be a gap and I'd I'd be just going oh, what can I add in there? That's not a valuable piece of information, that's purely just filling a pain like a gap on a page. So I would tell them absolutely stop that. And to tell people like, if it's not worth putting on paper, don't put it on there but do you think that would mean that some Dr might go?

Alison Hardy: 24:34

well, I've got nothing that's worth putting on the paper.

Milly Kearns: 24:37

I think that's that's something that you need to teach them. I think you need to be able to. Your students should be able to critically think and go. This is a valuable piece of information that has informed my process and my decision making, and this piece of information is only there because it doesn't. It doesn't play a part at all, and being able to differentiate that information, I think obviously that's a hard skill to teach.

Milly Kearns: 25:03

That's not that's not like book smarts, but I think, as if you can try and develop that. I think that's important. If you're, if you're asking the question of well, what if my student doesn't want to put anything down, then actually I think it's a bigger thing than just they don't know what to put down. It's actually they probably don don't understand what they're doing, and that's maybe what you need to Dr first.

Alison Hardy: 25:25

Yes, it's about the quality, maybe, of the research they've done and the research they've been given to Dr on and their understanding of the design context or situation. Or brief, yeah, definitely, yeah, good point, good point. And so what should they try doing? Try doing.

Milly Kearns: 25:41

I think I should try do more studio things so encourage students to Dr on each other's knowledge and kind of collaborate a little bit more in terms of like bouncing ideas off each other, because I think there is a bit of a cult because I was definitely guilty of it as well a culture of like this is my idea, this is, and even if I gave someone else an idea, I'd be like they made my idea in the end and it felt like I was um, it was my possession. But actually that's not how it works in industry. Obviously in competition it does, but in in in-house design companies and like consultancies, you work together and it's all about oh, someone furthered it with this idea and someone had this one. And I think that's probably missing in schools at the moment, because it is my grade and my work and my design, and actually it would probably help in terms of future designers to to unlearn that thinking and pick it, pick it apart and say, well, actually your work is what you've physically done and what you've been thinking about, but there's no reason why your design skills can't improve by helping someone else and it's like kind of everyone needs those outside opinions. It's always going to make your work better.

Milly Kearns: 26:58

And actually, as a designer, being able to hear outside opinions is so important because, like we said right at the beginning, it's always going to make your work better. And actually, as a designer, being able to hear outside opinions is so important because, like we said right at the beginning, it's all about the person. So if you've got someone that's seeing it from a different perspective, you need to be able to take that information and use it, or disregard it and understand that it's not actually beneficial. Um, and that's a really important skill that you can only learn by practicing. So why not start school? Good, good point.

Alison Hardy: 27:23

Good point. I like, yeah, I like that one and it is a challenge and there has been a shift in education towards the individual, away from the group. But I think that is something to think about and there are design strategies that can be used to develop that. I think that whole space about studio I had um derek jones on the podcast a couple of years ago now, from opening diversity and um, yeah, we talked about design studios and I've done something similar with alice hellard. So, yeah, be good to have those back on the podcast, talk about design studios and what that might look like for schools. So what's next for you then, Milly?

Milly Kearns: 28:05

um, well, I, as you know, because you were helping me with it, I've done my dissertation a little bit about not just design it's, it's more to do with, like pottery and things, and how creative education kind of impacts certain sectors, um, so I was doing studio pottery and by doing that I was already more, I was already interested in education, but I've become much, much more, um, passionate about it, especially creative education in schools at the moment. So I think I would like to do that in the future. I'd like to become, um, a DT teacher.

Alison Hardy: 28:41

Um, yeah, um, I can't see the fact that my eyebrows have just shot up there. Okay, so I didn't put you off when I spoke the other week.

Milly Kearns: 28:49

No, definitely not um, I do love, still love, the idea of being a designer, because obviously I'm passionate about design but when I was at university or have been at university, I've realized that one of the things I'm most passionate about is like when people come up with ideas and kind of having that group discussion and like being, oh, you could do this or you could do that, and actually a lot of what you can do, and you can achieve a lot of that in schools when you're helping young people to come up with their own ideas and develop their skills. So I've got a conditional offer from Eton College for September, so as a teaching assistant of product design, so that's really exciting.

Alison Hardy: 29:31

Right, okay, so it's Ollie Cooper, isn't it? At Eton College? Yeah, yeah, oh, that's exciting, that's exciting, and so, but what about your final project? What's all that about?

Milly Kearns: 29:45

So my final project is looking at again people and it's sort of it's become a system and a bit of a product. So I started by looking at people with arthritis and trying and talking to lots of people and kind of figuring out if they had any issues, um, and if they could be solved with a product or a system or something I could intervene with. Um, and the main thing that was kept coming up was actually, yes, it was about their hands, but the main thing was um, or their, their joints, but the main thing was that once they'd been diagnosed by a doctor, a lot of people felt very unsupported when they'd left the doctor's surgery and a lot of the methods of intervention were medication, which isn't something that lots of people want to take full time. So an overwhelming majority of people I spoke to had kind of moved towards holistic therapies and trying to like, even if it's just managing their healthy eating and um and the exercises they're doing and things like that, like looking at more of a yeah, holistic approach.

Milly Kearns: 30:54

So, um, I have basically um ideated this idea of um like a strand of social prescribing. So it's a clay class um, a clay lesson that they can go to and they'll meet like-minded people and they'll learn about the clays. It's a compound movement so they'll keep their joints going and they'll be able to chat and and feel supported. But also part of it is introducing different um holistic therapies and methods of managing their symptoms so that they're learning hello.

Alison Hardy: 31:24

They're learning in the podcast.

Milly Kearns: 31:27

Here we go oh, um, yeah, learning um about their condition and how to manage the symptoms, um, whilst it not just being like a really medical kind of speak, and one of the things when running this is a very long-winded explanation of my project You're going to have to get this shorter, aren't you for submitting the description's got to be clear, much shorter.

Milly Kearns: 31:55

But essentially, when running these clay classes, quite a lot of them had arthritis of the hand and struggled with repetitive motions. So I'm focusing it down onto one core element of making, which is a coil pot, and basically designing different ways that they can. They can roll clay and smooth it without it just being a repetitive motion and hopefully reducing strain. So that's what I'm doing at the moment, so we'll see how it ends up.

Alison Hardy: 32:21

Um, yeah, right, yeah, so you're gonna have to sort out your elevator picture, but that's okay. It's okay. I'm not commenting on on the lens, you know, because these, because these things are complex, aren't they?

Milly Kearns: 32:34

you know, design says designing a system is really complex yeah, and it also is your baby, like when you're doing like your project just becomes your life and you can't switch off from it. So I think that is always evident when people talk about their work and it's never as like, even if there's someone's designing a speaker, there's always more to it than it's just a speaker. So, yeah, that is yeah. That is what I mean about having to be more concise. I think that is partly a personality trait as well. Yeah.

Alison Hardy: 33:05

Yeah, and it's also kind of getting to the nub of what it is, isn't it that you're trying to do? Yeah, You've designed a system that enables people to.

Milly Kearns: 33:13

Yeah, be more supported after being diagnosed with arthritis and that's basically all it is, and again, isn't that interesting?

Alison Hardy: 33:21

You talked about what your D dnt department could have done around collaboration design studios and that's almost exactly what you have created in terms of your design project. Yeah, you have created a collaborative physical space around a particular material that you've identified that would be useful for them holistically, not just physically yeah, yeah, exactly that, definitely I've just created.

Milly Kearns: 33:49

I've just created a picture for you. I'm just going to record that and, like, just play it off my phone and everyone else.

Alison Hardy: 33:55

I'll send that transcript to you, but yeah, I'll send you a bill as well. No, but no thanks, ever so much money. That's been fascinating. And I think those three things, those takeaways keep doing, stop doing and try doing. I think that that's really can be really helpful for D&T teachers. And think about how you know I mean I'm very aware that your experience is your experience and other people if I had other people on the course or you know other design courses come and talk about it. They give different perspectives, but no, but that's been really interesting. I think teachers will find that fascinating to think about how they might shape what they're doing. But no thanks, ever so much and all the best in submitting your assignment and your future opportunities that you're taking up in terms of thinking about teaching D&T.

Milly Kearns: 34:41

Thank you so much Thank you for talking to me.

Alison Hardy: 34:47

I'm Dr Alison Hardy and you've been listening to the Talking D&T podcast. If you enjoyed the podcast, then do subscribe on whatever platform you use, and do consider leaving a review, as it does help others find the podcast. I do the podcast because I want to support the D&T community in developing their practice, so please do share the podcast with your D&T community. If you want to respond to something I've talked about or have an idea for a future episode, then either leave me a voice memo via speakpipe or Dr me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, Dr. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links to SpeakPipe, patreon and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.