Teaching practice trends regarding the teaching of the design process within a South African context: a situation analys
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Teaching practice trends regarding the teaching of the design process within a South African context: a situation analysis Calvyn Potgieter
Published online: 28 September 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract In this article an analysis is made of the responses of 95 technology education teachers, 14 technology education lecturers and 25 design practitioners to questionnaires regarding the teaching and the application of the design process. The main purpose of the questionnaires is to determine whether there are any trends regarding the strategies and methods that are used to teach and apply the design process. From the curriculum documents for public schools in South Africa it is clear that the design process is considered to be an important aspect in a wide variety of subjects. In particular design is considered to be the backbone learning outcome of the Technology Learning Area. This prominence given to the design process in the South African school curriculum prompted this research project. A questionnaire was structured to accommodate individual teachers and lecturers who are teaching the design process according to the Technology section of the national curriculum statement of the South African Department of Basic Education. A separate questionnaire was structured to accommodate individual design practitioners. Regarding teaching the design process, teachers tend to closely follow the prescriptions of the school curriculum, lecturers tend to allow room for different interpretations and design practitioners tend to accommodate a range of approaches when applying the design process. Although the results revealed by the questionnaires are a reflection of the teaching practices of a limited group in a particular setting some knowledge transfer to similar situations should be possible. Keywords Technology education Design process Technological process Teaching practice Trends
Introduction From the curriculum documents for public schools in South Africa it is clear that the design process is considered to be an important aspect in a wide variety of subjects. In particular C. Potgieter (&) Department of Science and Technolgy, College of Education, University of South Africa, PO Box 25528, Monument Park, Pretoria 0105, South Africa e-mail: [email protected]
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the design process is considered to be the backbone learning outcome (one of three learning outcomes) of the new Technology Learning Area (Department of Education 2002; Chisholm 2000). Currently, after the acceptance of the Report of the Task Team for the Review of the Implementation of the national curriculum statement (NCS) (Department of Education 2009), aspects of technology education are to be incorporated in General Studies in the Foundation Phase (Grades 1–3) and combined with Natural Science in the Intermediate phase (Grades 4–6). In the Senior Phase (Grades 7–9) technology education will be implemented as a separate learning area (Technology). The design process (technological process) is also
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