Bridging Schools and Universities: Reshaping D&T's Future

In this episode, I'm sharing some exciting developments in design and technology education, starting with insights from a recent policy event I led at Nottingham Trent University. The day brought together D&T teachers and university lecturers in design education to envision the future of our subject, using an innovative co-navigator approach from Denmark.

I discuss the growing collaboration between schools and universities in design education, highlighted by lightning talks from key figures including Tony Ryan from the D&T Association and Michelle Gregson from the National Society for Education in Art and Design. The event demonstrated how breaking down barriers between educational sectors can enrich our understanding of design education's progression from primary through to higher education.

Looking ahead, I preview an upcoming series about pedagogy in D&T, where we'll be taking a fresh look at familiar teaching approaches like demonstrations, WAGGOLLs, and frameworks such as ACCESS FM. Working with Sarah Davies and Alice Hellard, we'll be exploring what research tells us about these techniques and how we might enhance their use in our classrooms.

For those interested in connecting with other D&T practitioners, I introduce the Archer Exchange Network, a new platform for sharing ideas and research in our field. 

As you reflect on your own teaching approaches, what aspects of D&T pedagogy would you like to examine more deeply? Whether you're teaching in the UK or internationally, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how we can build stronger connections between research and classroom practice.

Subscribe to stay updated on these discussions and join our growing community of design educators.

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:06

you're listening to the talking d&t podcast. I'm dr allison hardy, a writer, researcher and advocate of design and technology education. In each episode I share views, news and opinions about dnt. Well, it's a belated happy new year from me. It has been a while since I've podcasted, but it's good to be back and starting to get in the swing of things again and recording.

Alison Hardy: 0:35

First I just wanted to share about an event that I led last Friday at Nottingham Trent University. Some of you might have seen me posting about it on LinkedIn that is really the only place I post about things these days about a design education policy event day I organised and led and it was just great. Not just because it was me that led it, but no, it was great. As I said to people on Friday, it was nice to be in a nice space with nice people who had the same level of passion about design and technology education. We came together to talk about what a future of design and technology might look like and we kind of followed quite a structured system, which I think sometimes is really good. In design. I think we kind of think sometimes it's a free-for-all when we're doing design, but because this was kind of a real design event to follow some structure, and that's what we did. We followed a system called co-navigator. I'll put a link in the show notes. It's used by researchers, it's come from Denmark and it ended up with people on groups building things about what they saw as their priorities around design and technology education. But who was there? So we had some great design and technology teachers. I'd advertised it as open to people you know, there was no pre-invites for teachers and so we had a lovely range of teachers, some of I'd never met before, some of I'd had on the podcast, and then we also had university lecturers involved in design education. So this was the new element for me.

Alison Hardy: 2:11

In the last year or so, I've done more and more work exploring what design and technology is and how it's shaped in schools and what impact that has on design courses in university, through the Design Council meetings that I've been part of, an event that I ran last year, creating a collaborative response to the curriculum and assessment review response to the curriculum and assessment review and so myself and Daniel Latham from the University of Arts London got together and thought we need to be getting the voices of those involved in design education and universities together. So we had colleagues from across the country come along to that as well again, many people I'd never met before. But also it was facilitated by some of my lovely colleagues at Nottingham Trent who I've got to know in the last year, who teach on fashion courses, product design courses as well. So that was great. And I also had the excitement of seeing Lyndon Buck, who I went to university with at Brunel back in the early 90s and we'd not seen each other since then. Obviously we felt that we hadn't changed either.

Alison Hardy: 3:13

We had some lightning talks from Tony Ryan, the Chief Executive, design and Technology Association, michelle Gregson from the National Society for Education and Art and Design, and also Matt sorry Matt, I've forgotten your surname from University of Arts London, talking about collaboration between primary and universities around design education. And it was, it really was a collaboration. It wasn't University telling primary, it really was a co-productive activity which I think there's got some real potential. We're hopefully going to get those lightning talks recorded so I can put those out on YouTube for people to see and there'll be some outputs from the day. We took videos and again, once we've got permissions, if we get permissions, we'll be sharing those. So nothing is hidden. You know me, I like to keep things shared and transparent, so that was a really exciting day. That was on Friday, so I kind of came home buzzing, being after these things, when you kind of flatten out and you think, oh, I run up to this, but that was, that was Friday and hopefully there'll be more of that and more opportunity for people to get involved. It's always a challenge running things face to face when you haven't got the funds to help people come out of schools or pay for their travel or transport. So I'm really grateful for those. Schools and universities allowed their colleagues to come along and attend. It was. It was really good.

Alison Hardy: 4:32

So what's next for the podcast? Well, I'm going to start recording some episodes that are based on some reading I've done over the last couple of years about what the research says, about what good design and technology is, and I'm going to be looking at curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. So I'm really excited to be sharing that and going back to some of the literature that I've read and some of the more recent literature that's come out research that's come out in that as well, and I'm also going to be doing more sharing of this directly with the Archer Exchange Network, which is a platform that we're in the beta phase for for design and technology teachers. So look out for that link as well. That is open to invitation only, so please do look out for that. It is for design and technology teachers as a space to hear and connect with like-minded people and researchers in the field of design and technology. And then later this week I'm starting to plan Well, I've been planning it for a while actually, but we have our first official meeting for the series that we're going to do this year about pedagogy in design and technology.

Alison Hardy: 5:34

I'm meeting with Sarah Davis, my good mate from Nottingham Trent, and Alice Hellard from Goldsmiths. Matt McLean is going to be an intermittent guest because of his international travels on this, but also we've got some other people lined up to come on and we're going to do something a little bit tongue-in-cheek about pedagogy in D&T. It's something I've been planning for a good couple of years but not got round to. I don't know what you're like, but I sometimes have more ideas than I have capacity for and we're going to be looking at particular pedagogical approaches that we often see in design and technology, like demonstrations, like waggles what a good one looks like like some of the acronyms we use for writing specifications or product analysis, like CafeQ and AccessFM, and just doing a bit of a tongue-in-cheek critique from an academics perspective. So we know we're a long way from the classroom, so we're just going to share some of our experiences a little bit tongue-in-cheek.

Alison Hardy: 6:38

But actually what we're going to be really doing at the heart of it is unpicking these in terms of what does the research say about why these techniques are important, and then sort of building them back up to give some advice and tips about how they can be used and why they're used in design and technology, to maybe add a little bit more reflection and thought to why and how we select pedagogical approaches in design and technology. Our ambition is to actually have a book come out of this. So we're going to do things a little bit different. There won't be transcripts to those series but there will be some overarching notes that people can access for free. But we're going to look to build a publication that comes out of that and then hopefully do, as part of the big D&T meet which is happening in July thanks to Kate Finlay and co for organizing this do a bit of a panel and some, uh, helping teachers think about how they might research their teaching and get some practical activity. Um, supporting teachers and doing research, or maybe they don't even need. You don't need us and you, you are experts in your own classrooms. Um, where it said, we're a long way from the classroom but getting some research going to build up that research base for the design and technology community. So that's a little bit of a ramble on this Monday morning I've gone up early to do this. Kip is now sat looking at me waiting for a walk, so I'm going to end there. So those are just some of the plans. Those are some of the things that I've been doing.

Alison Hardy: 8:04

I thought it'd be good to get a quick podcast out, and now you can all hold me accountable for getting my episodes out about what the research says about design and technology. As ever, thanks for listening and do keep in touch. 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 drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast and how to connect with me on my website, drallisonhardycom. Also, if you want to support the podcast financially, you can become a patron. Links to speakpipe patron and my website are in the show notes. Thanks for listening.