The Art of Balancing Engagement and Learning in Design and Technology Lessons

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In this episode of Talking D&T, I reflect on the conversation published earlier this week with Tony Ryan about the various industry contexts developed by the Design and Technology Association for Key Stage 3 pupils in England. I explore  the complexities that teachers face when designing a unit of work, particularly in the realm of design and technology.

Drawing from the "Inspired by Industry" work discussed by Tony, I emphasise the importance of selecting contexts that engage and motivate young learners. However, I also acknowledge that not all contexts will appeal to every pupil, as engagement is subjective and dependent on individual interests.

I discuss the role of teacher stereotypes and the need for awareness when choosing design contexts. Using the example of dinosaurs, I explain how teachers might assume certain topics will appeal to specific age groups or genders, and I encourage listeners to question these assumptions by referring to Ulrika Sultan's work on gender stereotyping.

Also, I stress the importance of considering pupil progression when planning units of work. I argue that the context itself is not the primary driver for learning but rather a motivator for interest and enjoyment. Teachers must think about how the unit builds upon previous knowledge, introduces new concepts, and prepares pupils for future learning. By doing so, they can help children move from surface-level understanding to deep knowledge retention.

(Text generated by AI, edited by Alison Hardy)

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Chapters

• 0:00 Designing Contexts for Student Engagement
• 10:41 Designing Effective Units of Work

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:48

I think the conversation that you might have listened to earlier this week that I had with Tony Ryan about the different contexts that the association have developed with industry for Key Stage 3, that's Lower Secondary School in England, and also the projects on the page, just really shows some of the complexity that a teacher has in designing a unit of work, and that's not just for design and technology, but obviously I'm going to talk about the context of design and technology. So mainly what I'm really going to focus on in my reflection here is around the Inspired by Industry work that Tony talked about and shared and there's a link in the show notes from Tuesday for this that what they've done is set these contexts that they're hoping will engage and motivate young people and and that's that's a really key, essential component of thinking about planning a unit of work what will engage and what will motivate. And there's work by Eccles and Wigfield that talks about this expectancy value theory and one of those aspects of expectancy value is around children having a buy-in, a motivation to engage in with a piece of work, and one of the drivers is what I'm looking at when I look at the Inspired by Industry is that children are seeing the real world context for their design work, for the work that they're doing in D&T, if they're using these by industry contexts. So if we look at Eccles and Wigfield's research which I find really interesting and I've used this in quite a bit of my research along the way if we look at what they're talking about, this engagement in terms of motivation, in terms of interest, comes from this subjective task value. And when we say it's subjective, what we mean there is that it's dependent on the child. So not all of these contexts or a context that a teacher selects and Tony and I spoke about the dinosaur one, for example will appeal to everybody in the class.

Alison Hardy: 3:01

So a teacher, when picking a context for a design and make or a design activity or a make activity, can pick a context that they think would appeal, for example, like the dinosaurs, but needs to be aware that that might only appeal to some of the class, not all of the class. Ok, so thinking about what motivates them. If we look at Eccles and Wigfield's theory, it's a subjective task value of interest, enjoyment, value. So what is it that is around, that context about dinosaurs, for example, that is going to appeal to some children be mindful of that, but it's only some children in them wanting to engage. So then, what also a teacher needs to be aware of is what are their own stereotypes that they have of the children in their classes and the activities and the genders that might feel more interest in some of these topics.

Alison Hardy: 4:01

Now I'm not making any statements here around the Design and Technology Association activity. What I'm doing here is is just saying, is using that as an example to kind of unpick that when we think about a design context, for example, like dinosaurs, that will only appeal to some children because of their own subjectivity. I've got an interest in dinosaurs, but teachers might choose it and need to be aware of why they might choose it, because they have a stereo typing about what types of activities will appeal to year seven, that's, 11 to 12 year olds, which the dinosaurs context is particularly designed for. It doesn't have to be, but that's where it's sort of pitched at that. Are we saying that's more suited to 11 to 12 year olds than it is to 13 to 14 and so on? So we might also bring those as a teacher, and we might also bring some of those things around. What. What motivates some? Because there's mechanisms within there. We might. We might have gender stereotypes and then we might think about it's going to appeal to boys rather than to girls, and you might want to have a look at Ulrika Soltan's work around gender stereotyping to to question some of that. So that's just one layer of complexity when a teacher is selecting a context for a unit of work and it's very easy to get seduced by a shiny context and shiny resources. But actually what's going on behind that and experienced teachers will know this and people designing good units of work will know this is the teacher has to think about.

Alison Hardy: 5:52

The context is kind of one motivator. The dinosaur, for example, is one motivator but it's thinking about and it the they refer to this on the um inspired by industry website is thinking about pupils progression. So when selecting a context, the context isn't the main driver for the learning, it's kind of the um, a motivator around interest and enjoyment in in one way. So a teacher then needs to think about if I'm taking this off the shelf unit of work which, which all can be adapted and again the association talk about them being adapted it's thinking about if I'm going to put this in my unit of work in, say, for example, the mid part of year seven, so in England that would be just after Christmas. What have they done before that they're going to use and what are they doing in that that they're going to build on in the next unit of work in year seven, year eight, year nine and so on. So it's thinking about in this unit of work what are they learning that's new and and what are they revisiting and reinforcing so that actually builds on some of the theory around how children learn and how they retain that knowledge, so it moves from being surface knowledge to deep knowledge.

Alison Hardy: 7:23

So a teacher then has to think about this aspect of progression. And when we're thinking about this aspect of progression we're thinking about what's gone on before, what goes on now and what goes on afterwards and where we're giving children opportunities to learn something new and use it, because it's a procedural type of knowledge in design and technology or it's a new form of conceptual knowledge, that new to the children that they're having to integrate with previously learned conceptual knowledge. So for example, if there's mechanisms in here, they might have looked at certain types of levers in the past and they might be adding, say, a type 3 lever in type 1 or type 2, or they might be being more introduced to more complex ways of thinking about levers and adding linkages and they might be adding in some of the mathematical complexity and working out some of the forces within that as well. That might be in addition to maybe, for example, what they might have done in primary school. So thinking about that progression is really key. And so that then starts to tie into another type of motivation is about the attainment value. So if they're then building on previous knowledge, they're using that knowledge, they're adding new knowledge to it and as a result of that they can make and design something that's more complex and the way it moves and they see the success in that. That starts to link into an aspect of attainment value which again links in with Eccles and Wigfield. But again the teacher has to think about how do they motivate the children in making those choices to engage with and put an effort into that activity because the achievement is worthwhile, making that cost of learning how to do the linkages, the levers and so on. So that's a second aspect to teachers.

Alison Hardy: 9:30

Planning around a context is first of all. We've had the context. Does it engage, does it motivate? And then secondly is around progression where does it sit in? Pupils spiral of progression in terms of learning more, reinforcing more, practicing and drawing on. And then there's also, as a teacher, being able to say, well, are we covering the national curriculum or the requirements? And so where does that sit and and how? How? How does this context do that?

Alison Hardy: 10:03

So all of this is really complex for a teacher when looking at these really interesting, exciting, well-thought-through contexts by other people, other organisations like Inspired for Industry, but is then taking that and personalising that to their own context in terms of the pupils that they're working with and thinking about motivation, thinking about engagement, thinking about what they're perceiving around stereotypes and roles and thinking about what they know about the children in their classroom in terms of pushing them and what they've learned before and what they're going to learn next.

Alison Hardy: 10:41

So I think these units of work can be really helpful, but I think for inexperienced teachers they need picking around progression and for experienced teachers they need to be stepping back and thinking which aspects of this can I build into my already planned unit scheme of work, my progression plan for a three to four year program that supports these children's development, that engages with what they value in terms of and how that, therefore, might help with children being motivated engaging with the work.

Alison Hardy: 11:18

So some things to think about is just just kind of trying to step back and say, yeah, the great, great projects, great ideas, and I really like the way the association has started to unpick some of these things and recognizing that it is complex when planning and a unit of work and taking a context that a teacher can see online, like, for example, the dinosaurs, is just one part of it. Actually thinking about progression, students motivation, what they're engaged with and their own context is really important. I hope you found that interesting. Come back to me if you've got any thoughts or opinions, as ever, but these units of work other units of work that other people are producing are all about shaping design and technology and shaping its value. I'm always interested to hear what other people think and how they think contexts are shaping how children value. We've not really unpicked that about how it's shaping the subject, but anyway, thanks for listening.