Browsing by Subject "design education"

Nowadays design has an important role in people's everyday life. The goal of design education is to help children and young people to be more aware of and to understand different forms of design in our society, and learn how to apply design methods in practice. This is the way to promote and develop important future skills, such as knowledge creation, critical thinking and problem solving skills. In the new Finnish National Curriculum for Basic Education 2014 designing is an important part of craft education. This Master's Thesis is part of a wider design-based research which consists of work done by me and Päivi Heikkilä. Our research theme was to design and develop new design-based teaching material for secondary school craft education. The goal of the material is to inspire teachers and pupils to get familiar with the design process and to exploit it in a more holistic way in craft education. The original teaching material was designed, based on the background theory and experience, together with Päivi Heikkilä. After that we continued developing the material using the methods of user experience research. The survey for the craft teachers was part of my own Master's Thesis. The aim of the survey was to collect opinions and development ideas from the teachers working in the schools. The beta version of Muoto & käsityö teaching material was sent to 115 craft teachers around Finland and they evaluated different features of it. They were also asked to give ideas how to develop the material. The data was analyzed using statistical and qualitative research methods. According to this research, teachers are seeing the Muoto & käsityö teaching material suitable for craft education. They see the appearance and the overall structure clear, the content suitable for the secondary school pupils and the theoretical part important introduction to understand the design process. Teachers were also pleased with the usability of the project part. All of our goals for the teaching material were achieved. Teachers are seeing the Muoto & käsityö teaching material as a current and necessary addition to craft education, especially now when the new Finnish National Curriculum for Basic Education will take effect.