Curriculum Programme

D&T issues

Portfolios in design and technology education: The students’ views
Author: Prof Malcolm Welch

web.data.org.uk

What are your pupils’ perspectives on using portfolios in their design and technology lessons? Do pupils think that portfolios enhance their designerly thinking and creativity? Do pupils value their portfolio as an important learning and assessment tool?

These are some of the questions Malcolm Welch and David Barlex are asking in the second and final year of a research study that is investigating the use of portfolios in design and technology education.

Malcolm, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, has recently returned to Canada after his annual visit to the Nuffield Curriculum Centre. Last year Malcolm and David interviewed professional designers to investigate how they use portfolios to enhance creative product design. They also interviewed teacher educators and secondary school teachers to obtain their insights about using portfolios for teaching, learning and assessment. The preliminary results of this research were enthusiastically received at the DATA International Research conference in July 2004.

During Malcolm’s visit this year they interviewed Year 6, Year 7 and Year 10 pupils in schools in Hammersmith, Liverpool and Shrewsbury. Pupils were asked to describe what was useful and what was not useful in their portfolio, how the portfolio helped them get better at designing, and what they would include if they had a free reign. While it is too early to report results, many of the students’ comments reflected those of the professional designers – the portfolio should include only those materials that contribute directly to their design work – there is no place for retrospective titillation!

David will be visiting Queen’s for two weeks in August to work with Malcolm on the analysis of data. In October/November David and Malcolm will develop curriculum materials for pupils and teachers that provide guidance on using sketchbooks and various types of portfolio. Watch this space for further developments!

• You can download the paper direct from this site, by kind permission of DATA. For more information on the Conference proceedings, visit the website given above.

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