Friday, 24 July 2009
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Want one!
That is my son's standard response when he sees a desirable gadget and my instinctive reaction to seeing this plug concept:
What I liked even more was the video the student had made to explain the concept. It was such a simple production just using some stills and CAD animations, but so effective. I particularly like the image of the vanilla envelope with the plug prongs sticking through (I'm a MacBook Air user myself):
What I liked even more was the video the student had made to explain the concept. It was such a simple production just using some stills and CAD animations, but so effective. I particularly like the image of the vanilla envelope with the plug prongs sticking through (I'm a MacBook Air user myself):
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
The peapod
I recently had a meeting with a small group of lecturers from some of our different design degree courses to discuss possible applications for my research to help with their teaching. Jane from our fashion design course highlighted the problem of many students lacking very basic sewing skills when they start. They struggle to undertake what should be simple making projects and there is limited time within the current curriculum for this level of teaching. John from our furniture design course said they had just the same problem.
As the discussion progressed, Jeff from metalwork & jewellery came up with "the peapod" as an analogy:
So, we have this idea that students need a repertoire of basic skills, that's the pod. We need to identify a set of key skills to teach them as a basis (the peas) and these will provide the students with a foundation from which they themselves can expand and fill out their repertoire.
It sounds like potentially a good application for a multimedia learning resource and I think it will fit in well with my next research proposal. I also very much liked Jeff's concept of "peer leakage" and will have to work that one in somewhere too!
As the discussion progressed, Jeff from metalwork & jewellery came up with "the peapod" as an analogy:
So, we have this idea that students need a repertoire of basic skills, that's the pod. We need to identify a set of key skills to teach them as a basis (the peas) and these will provide the students with a foundation from which they themselves can expand and fill out their repertoire.
It sounds like potentially a good application for a multimedia learning resource and I think it will fit in well with my next research proposal. I also very much liked Jeff's concept of "peer leakage" and will have to work that one in somewhere too!
Monday, 13 July 2009
Vacuum casting
The folding knives research project demonstrated that well motivated independent learners working in physical isolation but supported by an online community could acquire complex new skills and use them in creative ways. This project applied our existing methods of eliciting and representing skills to a process used by undergraduate design students in University workshops and resulted in the production of an online resource and a set of proposals for how such resources could be developed in a more widespread manner.
In the creative disciplines, where learning is often based on practical projects, the craft skills of each discipline are both a crucial prerequisite for successful learning, and a learning problem in themselves. This tends to create a complex situation in which teachers and technicians are supporting both skills learning and intellectual development at the same time. While this can be very productive, pressures on resources can lead to concentration on skills at the expense of advanced thinking.
The vacuum casting process was chosen as a pilot project to test the feasibility of producing multimedia learning resources to enable students to work more independently in the workshops. A series of workshop sessions were arranged to enable a technician with expertise in the process to teach an expert learner, one of the design lecturers.
These were observed and video recorded by myself working in collaboration with the expert learner to generate prototype learning materials. These were developed and tested by two further learners who had no prior knowledge of the process and ultimately made into an online resource which would allow students to preview materials supported by selected video then print out worksheets for use in the workshop.
The online resource developed during this research is available here
This research was carried out with Prof Chris Rust and funded by Shefield Hallam University.
In the creative disciplines, where learning is often based on practical projects, the craft skills of each discipline are both a crucial prerequisite for successful learning, and a learning problem in themselves. This tends to create a complex situation in which teachers and technicians are supporting both skills learning and intellectual development at the same time. While this can be very productive, pressures on resources can lead to concentration on skills at the expense of advanced thinking.
The vacuum casting process was chosen as a pilot project to test the feasibility of producing multimedia learning resources to enable students to work more independently in the workshops. A series of workshop sessions were arranged to enable a technician with expertise in the process to teach an expert learner, one of the design lecturers.
These were observed and video recorded by myself working in collaboration with the expert learner to generate prototype learning materials. These were developed and tested by two further learners who had no prior knowledge of the process and ultimately made into an online resource which would allow students to preview materials supported by selected video then print out worksheets for use in the workshop.
The online resource developed during this research is available here
This research was carried out with Prof Chris Rust and funded by Shefield Hallam University.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
Whittling away
So, before I talk more about craft knowledge I think it is important to say that this is not just based on theory and observation. My own craft is Scandinavian-style greenwood carving, with axes and knives and I primarily carve spoons, a craft I learned with friends about fifteen years ago.
The major appeal is that it is a very accessible craft. The raw material is small diameter branchwood, often prunings from my own garden or waste from a local tree surgeon. The tools are inexpensive and a special workshop is not necessary, just a large log to act as a chopping block. I do most of my carving in my front room in front of the fire. At the end of the evening most of the shavings get scooped into the log burner and the hoover quickly removes the rest from the carpet!
A ladle in cherry wood showing my distinctive tooled finish - I use no sandpaper or other abrasives.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Folding knives
This research was carried out in association with Prof Chris Rust at Sheffield Hallam University and was funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council.
This project focused on the skills of traditional folding knife makers in Sheffield, once a significant part of the cities famous metalworking industries but now declined to just a few master craftsmen. In our research we undertook case studies with two of these craftsmen, a blade grinder and a folding knife maker, to demonstrate the tacit nature of such craft skill and reveal the methods we used for elicitation and interpretation.
Contemporary knifemaker and co-resercher Dr Grace Horne acted as an expert learner, working alongside the craftsmen, observed by myself as designer, and then through experimental making and collaboration together prototype learning materials were generated. The materials were tested and developed into an online resource using a small group of learners who come from a new generation of creative metalworkers whose interests lie in adapting traditional skills to new craft practices.
As a result we were able to demonstrate that the principles for craft transmission developed in previous research could be applied to a specific example of craft knowledge with useful results for the learners. We also developed a more robust methodology for the elicitation and design development methods needed for this form of design practice.
Multimedia outputs
FoldingKnives: a public version of the learning materials developed during the project.
TransmittingCraft: online documentation of the project; its background, the work undertaken and outcomes, including video and images from the research.
YouTube channel hosting video clips used during the research.
In this video Russell White makes a folding knife at Taylor’s Eye Witness, one of the last Sheffield manufacturers to still make folding knives.
This project focused on the skills of traditional folding knife makers in Sheffield, once a significant part of the cities famous metalworking industries but now declined to just a few master craftsmen. In our research we undertook case studies with two of these craftsmen, a blade grinder and a folding knife maker, to demonstrate the tacit nature of such craft skill and reveal the methods we used for elicitation and interpretation.
 |
| Traditional Sheffield folding knives |
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| Knives made by Grace Horne |
 |
| Knives made by a learner using the online resource |
Multimedia outputs
FoldingKnives: a public version of the learning materials developed during the project.
TransmittingCraft: online documentation of the project; its background, the work undertaken and outcomes, including video and images from the research.
YouTube channel hosting video clips used during the research.
In this video Russell White makes a folding knife at Taylor’s Eye Witness, one of the last Sheffield manufacturers to still make folding knives.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Expert learners
When I started working with craft practitioners, I started with ones I knew. They were all woodworkers because I’m a woodworker myself and by the end of my PhD studies I realised that, whilst what I was doing was successful, I was relying on my own skills to interpret the skills of others. To make my methods more generalisable I needed to work through someone else in an area unfamiliar to myself.
Inspired by some of the learners I had worked with, I realised the probable solution was working with an expert learner; that is one who is self confident, self motivated and already is possession of a useful set of skills relevant to those to be learned. I then gained AHRC funding to work with just such a person; contemporary knife maker and fellow researcher Dr Grace Horne.
We spent two years working with some of the last traditional knife makers in Sheffield, a city once famed for its knife making industries. During this time Grace worked alongside the master craftsmen whilst I video recorded, then we worked together to develop learning materials. Grace undertook experimental making, I designed experimental interpretation, and we worked with a group of enthusiastic amateur makers to develop on online learning resource.
The expert learner can learn with minimal instruction. They have the advantage that they have enough skill to learn through observation without needing 'bridges' as they are operating in the zone circled below:
Our research showed that, as the knowledge was recently acquired and the expert learner was consciously engaged with the elicitation process, she was able to rapidly adapt her understanding of it to improve transmission to the learners. Hence, she was able to develop the bridges needed by the novice learners to start developing their skills:
A key part of this process was the expert learner’s interaction with myself, the
designer and the developing learning resource. Through a process of video recording and summarising events using drawings and flow charts, I was able to assist with articulation of the knowledge and develop interpretation suitable for transmitting the knowledge.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Thesis writing and den building
I have some friends who are in that painful writing-up stage of their PhDs. I was sending them sympathy on Facebook when I was reminded of the philosophy I developed as I was writing my thesis a few years back ...
Writing a thesis is like building a den from sticks - did you ever do that when you were a kid? You just need to start building, believing it’s going to work. From time to time you need to give it a bit of a shake to see if it’ll stand up, but don’t shake it too hard or too often or it’s sure to fall down. Sometimes it’ll give a bit, but you just need to keep adding in more sticks, weaving them in a bit more and it’ll grow more sound.
Well, it worked for me anyway!!
Writing a thesis is like building a den from sticks - did you ever do that when you were a kid? You just need to start building, believing it’s going to work. From time to time you need to give it a bit of a shake to see if it’ll stand up, but don’t shake it too hard or too often or it’s sure to fall down. Sometimes it’ll give a bit, but you just need to keep adding in more sticks, weaving them in a bit more and it’ll grow more sound.
Well, it worked for me anyway!!
Mind the gap
The skills involved in craft practice involve a large degree of tacit knowledge; the principles governing a skilled practitioner’s actions are often only known through undertaking those actions. This internalised nature of craft knowledge makes it difficult for experts to communicate their knowledge to others, presenting a barrier to transmission.
In addition many practitioners have little or no experience of training others and tend to be defensive about their skills. Possibly this is because they are uncomfortable with not knowing how to explain what they do, and maybe also they worry their explanations will over simplify the complexity of their skill.
My experience of working with numerous expert craft practitioners over the last eight years is that this defensiveness needs approaching sensitively, but can be overcome so such craft skills can be recorded and transmitted. The key concept behind my elicitation and transmission strategy is that of bridges across the knowledge gap, which draws on the theories of Michael Polanyi [1] and Donald Schön [2].
The first stage of craft learning is through observation and imitation. Polanyi described this as a process of indwelling: the novice seeks to dwell in the actions of the expert through observing them and taking action to imitate them. However, at an early stage of learning
it is very difficult for a novice just to observe and imitate successfully [3,4]. According to Polanyi, the difference between the skill of the novice and that of the expert is “a gap to be bridged by an intelligent effort” and Schön similarly referred to “an apparently unbridgeable communication gap” between novice and expert.
This is a drawing I have made to represent the concept; it might look like a graph, but it is not intended to be in any way measurable! The x-axis represents some measure of time and the y-axis some measure of skill. The expert has already achieved a high level of skill and the novice is setting out to become at least as skilled, but initially there is a gap between the two where the novice struggles imitate what they observe the expert undertaking:
Polanyi only views this knowledge gap from the perspective of the expert, explaining “Our message had left something behind that we could not tell, and its reception must rely on it that the person addressed will discover that which we have not been able to communicate”. The onus in his terms is on the novice to understand through intelligent effort. However Schön suggested the solution was in “reciprocal reflection-in-action”, implying that the expert needed to make as much effort as the novice in the process of bridging the gap, observing the novice's attempts at imitation and modifying their instruction until accord is reached.
However, as I mentioned earlier, many expert practitioners are not familiar with training novices and are reluctant to engage in a discursive process; simply correcting 'mistakes' at face value rather than seeing them as the novice's way of trying to understand the problem. This is where I come in. My role is as an intermediary between expert and novice, facilitating reciprocal reflection and recording the bridges that are needed to cross the gap.
It is important to note that these bridges are not tacit knowledge made explicit as is sometimes suggested. They are pieces of explicit knowledge enable the novice to dwell in the tacit knowledge of the expert and build their own tacit knowledge. Some might end up as fundamental to their practice, but many will just be stepping stones on the way to mastery.
In addition many practitioners have little or no experience of training others and tend to be defensive about their skills. Possibly this is because they are uncomfortable with not knowing how to explain what they do, and maybe also they worry their explanations will over simplify the complexity of their skill.
My experience of working with numerous expert craft practitioners over the last eight years is that this defensiveness needs approaching sensitively, but can be overcome so such craft skills can be recorded and transmitted. The key concept behind my elicitation and transmission strategy is that of bridges across the knowledge gap, which draws on the theories of Michael Polanyi [1] and Donald Schön [2].
The first stage of craft learning is through observation and imitation. Polanyi described this as a process of indwelling: the novice seeks to dwell in the actions of the expert through observing them and taking action to imitate them. However, at an early stage of learning
it is very difficult for a novice just to observe and imitate successfully [3,4]. According to Polanyi, the difference between the skill of the novice and that of the expert is “a gap to be bridged by an intelligent effort” and Schön similarly referred to “an apparently unbridgeable communication gap” between novice and expert.
This is a drawing I have made to represent the concept; it might look like a graph, but it is not intended to be in any way measurable! The x-axis represents some measure of time and the y-axis some measure of skill. The expert has already achieved a high level of skill and the novice is setting out to become at least as skilled, but initially there is a gap between the two where the novice struggles imitate what they observe the expert undertaking:
Polanyi only views this knowledge gap from the perspective of the expert, explaining “Our message had left something behind that we could not tell, and its reception must rely on it that the person addressed will discover that which we have not been able to communicate”. The onus in his terms is on the novice to understand through intelligent effort. However Schön suggested the solution was in “reciprocal reflection-in-action”, implying that the expert needed to make as much effort as the novice in the process of bridging the gap, observing the novice's attempts at imitation and modifying their instruction until accord is reached.
However, as I mentioned earlier, many expert practitioners are not familiar with training novices and are reluctant to engage in a discursive process; simply correcting 'mistakes' at face value rather than seeing them as the novice's way of trying to understand the problem. This is where I come in. My role is as an intermediary between expert and novice, facilitating reciprocal reflection and recording the bridges that are needed to cross the gap.
It is important to note that these bridges are not tacit knowledge made explicit as is sometimes suggested. They are pieces of explicit knowledge enable the novice to dwell in the tacit knowledge of the expert and build their own tacit knowledge. Some might end up as fundamental to their practice, but many will just be stepping stones on the way to mastery.
[1] Polanyi M (1966). The tacit dimension. Peter Smith, Gloucester, MA [1983 edition].
[2] Schön D A (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: toward a new design for teaching and learning in the professions. Jossey-Bass, London.
[3] Wood N (2006). Transmitting craft knowledge: designing interactive media to support tacit skills learning. PhD thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, available here.
[4] Wood N & Horne G (2008). The new journeyman; the role of an expert learner in eliciting and transmitting skilled knowledge. Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference, Sheffield, available here.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Learning resources
The framework I have develped for learning resources offers a layered structure to support learners through different phases of learning.
Introductory: a passive, observational phase where the learner gains an overview of what is to be done and is introduced to any key skills or strategies.
Guidance: an active, participatory phase where the learner is guided step by step through the basic process and gains an understanding of any common errors.
Development: repetition is necessary to gain mastery of the skill and this is supported by encouraging the learner to evaluate their outcome, identify and solve problems, and offering them a greater depth of material to explore.
Video remains an important medium but is mostly used in the first and last phases; for contextualising each stage of the process and for more advanced learning where the learner has the ability to form their own interpretation.
In the central phase still images, in particular line drawings, are key to providing the interpretation necessary for learners to engage with the activity. The step by step guidance provides the bridges for the novice to start to tap into the skills of the expert and learn to read moving images, whether live demonstration or video, for themselves.
Guidance: an active, participatory phase where the learner is guided step by step through the basic process and gains an understanding of any common errors.
Development: repetition is necessary to gain mastery of the skill and this is supported by encouraging the learner to evaluate their outcome, identify and solve problems, and offering them a greater depth of material to explore.
Video remains an important medium but is mostly used in the first and last phases; for contextualising each stage of the process and for more advanced learning where the learner has the ability to form their own interpretation.
In the central phase still images, in particular line drawings, are key to providing the interpretation necessary for learners to engage with the activity. The step by step guidance provides the bridges for the novice to start to tap into the skills of the expert and learn to read moving images, whether live demonstration or video, for themselves.
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