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From This It Was Seen That The Input By The Teacher: Their Personal ...

From this it was seen that the input by the teacher: their personal technological capabilities; their understanding on how each idea could or could not be manufactured by the available resources; the time available; and the knowledge of the pupils manufacturing capability.
Whilst the interventionist mode a faster pace is dictated, not much time was spent on the design, it was draw initial ideas and straight to manufacturing. Very few detailed sketches and their development took place, the project development took place during the manufacturing. Pupils tended to get out of their depth with their technological ability, and showed that here the pupil lost ownership of their idea to the teacher. At this point even capable pupils would be waiting for further instruction as the next step was beyond their capability, which resulted in the teacher becoming frustrated with the pupil's demands.


Fig. 2 Diagram of Interventionist and Collaborative strategies
(Atkinson, 1995, p.41)

Regardless of which teaching strategy was adopted the findings confirm that of Atkinson (1995, p.40) at the projects start they both followed a similar pattern. The project was explained, then work began on the specifications and analysis of research required. It was observed that girls were at ease working in a reflective, evaluative research and analysis phase, whilst a large number of the boys were intent on looking forward, past this important design period, on to the manufacturing period ahead.
In respect to the assessment of Big Pictures and Small Steps the process of control and achievement of the pupil by the teacher. Observed over the duration of the project it proves that the creative thinking and project management of Small Steps in School A was clearly passed on to the pupils, as opposed to the linear model of Big Pictures used in School B, yet on an individual level, pupils being offered a combination of both processes produced ‘Good' designing capabilities.


Small Steps designingSmall Steps designing

Fig. 3. A typical design project with a ‘Good' outcome, expressed diagrammatically.
(Lawler, 1999, p. 133)
From the undertaking of the time constrain test the results confirmed the findings of Lawler (1999) in that a large proportion of the boys achieved better results when the project was introduced through Big Picture designing, and that a large proportion of the girls achieved better results when the project was introduced through Small Step designing.
It was interesting to see a confirmation of data as found by Lawler (1999, p.136) in that the boys did better with a Big Picture designing approach rather than Small Steps, yet girls were spread more evenly between the two.

Conclusions & Recommendations
It is clear through this investigation that to answer the question of: can we promote more interest in Design & Technology by having more relevant projects, the answer is yes.


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