Making Confident Design And Technology Curriculum Decisions Without Guesswork

A curriculum can look tidy on paper while the teacher behind it is quietly thinking, “Am I getting this right?” We sit with that reality and treat it seriously, because design and technology education is full of high-frequency decisions that rarely come with neat, usable evidence attached. When you are choosing content, planning projects, or defending DT to senior leaders, guesswork is a poor tool, yet it is often what we are left with.

This week I unpack some of the specific decision problems D&T teachers keep reporting to me: how to know whether pupils are stretched enough, what to do when learning falls flat, how to judge what is stable knowledge versus what needs updating for new technologies, and how to balance breadth and depth. We also dig into sequencing, whether to teach skills, practices, or underpinning ideas first, and how often concepts need revisiting before they become embedded as deeper, tacit understanding.

Looking beyond D&T, I explore what happens when progression is unclear and teachers reach for proxies like Bloom’s taxonomy, generic assessment, or ever-more “impressive” projects. I share why that drift is understandable, how it can weaken subject clarity, and why the most useful next step is to collect and name the decisions themselves so we can find evidence that actually fits the discipline of design and technology.

If you have a curriculum decision you keep revisiting, I want to hear it. Subscribe, share the podcast with your D&T community, and leave a review so more teachers can join the conversation.

Share your curriculum decision problems here: D&T Curriculum Decision Evidence – Identifying Priority Decision Problems

Transcript

Why Evidence Matters In D&T

Alison Hardy 0:06

You're listening to the Talking D&T 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 D&T. This week's episode is a follow-on from what I did a couple of weeks ago, or in actual fact, it's the last episode I did because I had a bit of a break last week. When I asked, what's the evidence that teachers need to help them make decisions about curriculum and planning or about pedagogy? So I did a bit of a call out about where is the evidence and what sort of evidence is needed and what sort of questions. And I just want to say thank you very much to those of you who responded. And that gave me really plenty of food for thought. And so I've done this, I'm doing this episode because I want to sort of build on what they're saying, not because I have any answers, but to show some of the things that teachers are saying to me that they don't have any evidence for that you might also resonate with, or they might give you some thoughts about what are the um issues, the decisions that I'm needing to make decisions about that I'm not able to make, or they keep recurring, or I don't know where to go to get evidence. You know, so one of the teachers commented that they don't think there's a day that goes by in school where they don't doubt themselves and about what they've included in their curriculum, and that the list of decisions is endless. Now you might be somebody who feels like that as well. That really got me thinking that obviously for this teacher, I'd hit a bit of a nerve, and some of you may find yourselves in a similar position with endless decisions, you know, daily doubt. And then there's not even discussed with that's this teacher, but another one commented about some of the competing pressures. Who are we trying to please? Who are we performing for? Who are we trying to respond to? So what struck me here wasn't so much about just the uncertainty, it's about how many specific decisions are embedded in what the teachers who've responded to me have said. And you may well have more, and that's completely understandable. And so I wanted to share these that I've heard already, not because I have any answers, but to make it okay for us to have these questions. But let's be really clear, these aren't worries or concerns that they might manifest in that way, but actually they're moments where teachers are having to make decisions or choose between options without feeling that they have a secure basis for making those decisions. You know, so some of the questions that that the teachers pose to me was well, how do we decide if students have been stretched enough? What do we do if something falls flat? How do we know that something might work? And if it doesn't work, why it didn't work, and if it did work, why it did work? How do we decide when it's right to keep the curriculum as it is? What are the things that are stable and what are the things that are developing the new technologies that we have to introduce? You know, what's the balance in our curriculum decisions? What about if we're in a sector where there isn't a national curriculum? How do we decide what to teach? What's enough? What's too much? Do we go for breadth or depth? Is there a balance that we can find? How often do we need to revisit a concept or a piece of knowledge or a practice for that to become embedded in pupils' tacit knowledge or their deeper knowledge? So these are things that that people are saying, and these are decision problems. And I think these are decision problems where the evidence base isn't clear, or maybe it's not accessible, or perhaps it doesn't exist in a usable form. I I don't know. I I have I have my own thoughts about whether the evidence base isn't clear or whether it's accessible or it doesn't exist. But that's not what I'm trying to say here. I'm not trying to project what I think is whether the evidence is there or not, whether it's accessible or not. I'm trying to find out from you what the questions are. So that might help me find some of the answers for you, or might help some of you think about how I can find these answers either in my own practice or beyond that. So let's let's take something like you know, are we stretching students enough as one teacher asked? Now that sounds like a general concern, but actually I think it's quite a precise decision problem. You know, so what would we need to know to answer that with confidence? Well, we'd need to understand what we mean by stretch and challenge. Um, does that mean that something's more complex, that there's more variables for the children, the pupils to weigh up, the students to weigh up? Does that mean that they're responding to a context that they are unfamiliar with? Does that mean they're having to draw on a bigger or deeper bank of knowledge? What are we stretching? Are we stretching their knowledge base, their skill base, or the design and technology capability? And how do we how do we unpick that in a way, you know, that makes that um being able to articulate? So these are really complex decisions. And so it's obvious then, isn't it, that that these aren't one-off dilemmas, they are they are problems that come back again and again. And so I suppose I'm asking, do any of those decisions feel like ones that you revisit repeatedly? Which are the ones that you never feel that are fully resolved? You know, another teacher talked about um sequencing, you know, what comes before what? Um, you know, how do we decide that we need to think about, you know, do we teach them the skill? Do we teach them the practice? Do we teach them the underpinning idea? How do we resolve that? How do we decide what are the key things that are stable and what are the things that change? As I said, another teacher asked about um what is more valuable? Is it is it teach them about a process of designing, or is it knowledge about new and emerging technologies? How do we decide what are the important things? And when we decided what are the important things, and these all might vary by school, how do we um manage to plan that in a way that actually develops the children? And what do we mean by developing the children? You might have other ones that are you you're struggling to resolve year on year. Now, if we if we look beyond design and technology, I can start to see that actually this isn't just a design and technology issue, there are issues in other subjects such as geography and history, for example. I read an interesting uh newsletter from somebody who's a geography teacher, talks about how when it's not clear what progression looks like in geography, then teachers fall back on using blooms as a proxy for progression. If we're not clear in history, somebody else talks about what disciplinary thinking is in history. We might talk about in design and technology, design and technology capability. If we're not clear what that is, then we don't know how to assess it. Now, there's actually been an awful lot of work in D&T about assessing design and technology capability, but it has kind of got lost along the way. Um, but if we're not clear, then we resort to generic assessment, which might be one of the issues that we have with the in in England, the non-examined assessments or the examined assessments. So in geography and history, these teachers are still having to make important decisions about progression, about what counts, but it just might manifest in a slightly different way. And what what they're sort of talking about is that unless it's sufficiently grounded in the discipline or andor in research evidence to guide those decisions, then we go looking outside. And one of the teachers that I heard from said, um, you know, we're then asked to meet what the senior management team are looking for about something that's exciting and engaging and marketable. Um, you know, so then you fall back there on something that looks sexy or interesting, or there's a really exciting outcome, whatever that might be. So we fall back on a false idea about what progression is because maybe it's not been accessible to teachers about what progression looks like, so then they can't defend that in a strong way. So this is not to say that teachers, design and technology teachers, those of you who are listening, have a deficit, but it's it's knowing where you would help find the answers that stand up to senior leaders in an assertive way to say this is what it looks like in design and technology. So, what we also do in design and technology, you know, when we talk about geography and blooms and history and generic assessment, we see projects as proxies for progression. Whereas projects are the thing that should be designed carefully by the teacher as a curriculum designer to think about progression. But if you don't have a clarity about what progression looks like, and you maybe fall back on blooms, or you fall back on projects that are more complex, but you're not clear about what you mean about complex, then these don't actually resolve anything. Um and if complexity is judged by the outcome, which we see time and time again in design and technology, rather than understanding, and then what do you mean by understanding? We can't we kind of fall back on on these things that actually almost weaken the subject, and that's I'm using loaded language there, but I don't I don't mean to be doing that in a way that implies that teachers should know and don't know. I I don't think that I really don't think that's the issue. I think it's that as a community we maybe don't articulate these things, or maybe there isn't the research there. So if that's what's going on, if we've got all of these uh decision problems about curriculum design and design and technology, then one of the most useful things we can do isn't to jump straight into solutions because we then possibly fall back on these proxies, but to get clearer about the decisions themselves. That's what I'm trying to collect is what are these decisions that you're having to make that you need some evidence from the design and technology community field to help you answer? So, what's a recent curriculum decision that you've made? That you you've based it on your own experience and evidence, but you're basing it on a on a heuristic rather than some evidence. And that's not to say either or is better than the other, but how do you how do you know that what you're choosing to do is either based on your own experience or experience of others or evidence? None of those are right or wrong, or more right or wrong, but are you able to articulate that? Because we do we have these conversations about what are the curriculum decisions, you know. What were you choosing between when you were making these decisions? And where did you feel uncertain and kind of think, I've kind of got to go with my guts, or I'm gonna have to look to other subjects to get the answers? And so, what would you have needed to know to help you make those decisions differently? Not necessarily better, just differently. So this is a sentence that you might well be able to fill in. Here's your sentence down. I need evidence to help me decide whether to do this or do that. One of the teachers who wrote to me is do I do I foreground the process when I'm teaching children? You know, we're doing this, we're doing that, in these orders in particular, or or do I disguise it? Um and then tease out at the end. And and that's a really interesting dilemma. I can I can see that other teachers would have that, you know. So do I do it that way or do I do it that way? So if you recognise that that sense of constant decision making and uncertainty, I really don't think that's about individuals getting it wrong. I just think it might be telling us something about what we as a subject don't yet collectively know. Or maybe the evidence is there and we don't know where to find it. So my call to action is send me one curriculum decision problem that you're having. And then I'll continue to share them on the podcast. We might get some answers, we might not, but at least we're building up a base of knowing that we're not alone in some of these decisions. And maybe we can start some discussion. But I just want to at this point find out what you're saying the decision problems are for curriculum in design and technology. So there'll be some questions in the show notes to help you prompt. There'll be a link to a a form where I'm asking people to kind of capture some of this in some depth. And, you know, thank you to those of you who have done that already. I can really say you've taken some time and some thought over that, and I really appreciate it. There's no right or wrong responses. Let's just build up a bank and let's start to share this so we have this collective understanding that maybe we can do some digging around to find out some answers. Answers that might help what you're doing and the decisions you're making be made easier with greater confidence that actually ultimately lead to better outcomes for students in design and technology. I'm Dr. Allison 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 member via Speakpipe or drop me an email. You can find details about me, the podcast, and how to connect with me on my website, dralisonhardy.com. 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.