Design and Technology Education is an excellent vehicle for the development of the so-called 21st-Century skills, such as creativity, critical thinking and cooperation. However, the development of these skills through design projects does not yet reach its full potential. Formative assessment is able to support the learning of 21st-Century skills.…

In this study, an educational development approach is investigated aiming at improving reading comprehension outcomes in primary education through inquiry and design-based Science & Technology teaching. The context is societal pressure to increase the likelihood that more students, later in their life, will aspire for careers in…

The aim of design education is that students learn to think and act like designers. However, the focus in the design studio is mainly on the design product, whereas the 'why and how' of the design process are barely addressed. A risk of learning by performing real-life tasks without addressing the skills involved, that is, without receiving…

In this paper, we explore the divergent and convergent nature of design feedback and the various responses to this feedback from a group of 24 young novice designers (primary school children age 9-11) taking part in a co-design project. Earlier research emphasizes that feedback can encourage a designer to take divergent as well as convergent paths…

The purpose of the architectural design studio is that students learn to think and act like designers. However, communication between teachers and students seems to be problematic. Teachers barely seem to explain how designers work, which may be confusing for students. To learn professional reasoning processes and strategies, different teaching…

In Dutch Design and Technology Education the beginning of a process of learning is usually determined by the teacher. In this paper it is argued that a beginning, determined in interaction with the students, is more profitable as the interaction will lead to joined-up exploring, creating and thinking and an increased motivation to learn.…

In this paper, we present an exploratory protocol study on the use of different communication channels during design sketching. We focus on how individual designers share their mental models with other designers in a group, and analyse their use of graphical, textual, and verbal communications during concept generation. Our findings suggest that…

The use of context-concept education alongside existing approaches is valuable. In this article we introduce a three-domain model for concept-context learning that supports both the design process as well as the idea of concept learning. The model shows how practical and abstract knowledge should be combined to improve context-concept learning.…