Design and Technology Education lab

What is design and technology education for me?

At first sight it seems like it is a tool to prepare our children for industry. Because product design and media design are mostly associated with industry and consumerism.

But when I rethink, it seems like it is talking about the basic nature of humans and that is problem solving, doing innovations, and translating that innovation into the product.

Design is everywhere, it is connected to life, it is connected to society. Good design can help us in our day to day lives and also it helps policy makers and system enablers to translate their vision into action.

Just like any other tool, design also has other sides. If you are in power with hidden agendas, design can be your weapon to implement it. We can see how the design of advertisements, packaging, malls and supermarkets are promoting consumerism.

Why do we need to teach design and technology in school ?

• Participating in D&T activities will give you an opportunity to learn creative thinking, critical thinking, visualization, empathy, collaboration and other skills.
• Which ultimately leads you to be good problem solver, creator
• Apart from that, participating in D&T activities will give you a lens of questioning bad designs, bad systems and not being a part of traps. Which hacks your mind and fulfills the agenda of people in power.

Now what should be the elements of D&T education?

According to me :

• Experiences for 5 scenes

investigating , experiencing, evaluating the material, places, texture, nature

(meeting with different people, living with different places, experience the light, taste, smell, etc)

Not only spatial thinking or craft but to get empathize with user other factors are also very necessary, so being a sensitive is first step towards being good designer

• Second part will be skill building process

Where you develop different cognitive skills like creativity, critical thinking, divergent thinking, spatial thinking, abstract thinking, problem solving. Also hands on skills like craft, wood work, planning, sketching, technology skills like coding, electronics, carpentry, working with metal, etc.

• Along with these we need to do a real life design assignment which synthesizes all the skills and aptitude you have learned.

These steps are inter connected and we should do it parallely

We should also think about how we can connect design education with other subjects. In science they can design products using the scientific principle they have learned, in maths they can design board games or think the opposite, how children use knowledge of design in other subjects.

We should think about how we can make design education more and more connected to nature and society.