Designing the Future By Adrian Camm, Head of Teaching and Learning During my first year at the College, I continue to be amazed at the dedication and professionalism of our staff in providing outstanding learning opportunities for our students. Many exciting projects and developments are continuing right across the College, from Early Learning to the Senior School, and the development of the “Designing the Future” program will be an exciting new direction for Year 5 in 2015. Designing the Future will invite students to combine new technologies and timeless craft traditions to create solutions to exciting real-world projects. From simple materials to technological game-changers like 3D printing, smart materials, robotics and computer science, a “cando” maker ethos will be adopted to revitalise a learnercentred approach to the teaching and learning of Year 5. Throughout 2015, students will engage in design work that will require them to become deep, independent thinkers, work in teams, take responsibility for their own learning, solve real-world problems and develop important habits of mind through tinkering, invention and complex open-ended project work. Building on the ideas of developmental psychologist Jean Piaget that “to understand is to invent”, students will be empowered to explore their natural curiosities and do the real work of inventors, designers, jewellery makers, historians, engineers, mathematicians, artists, scientists and composers.
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Piaget defined knowledge as the ability to modify, transform and operate on an object or idea, such that it is understood as a result of experience. This idea underpins the philosophy of Designing the Future, in that all children should engage in invention, tinkering and making because they are powerful ways to learn. Making in particular is a technological and creative learning revolution currently happening around the globe, with vast implications for the world of education. The Maker Movement overlaps with children’s natural inclinations and the power of learning by doing. Combined with traditional craft, DIY and hands-on materials, today’s new low-cost, flexible, creative and powerful materials offer much more than just “hands-on” crafting – these tools bring electronics, programming and computational mathematics together in meaningful, powerful ways. John Seely Brown, co-founder of the Institute for Research on Learning, says developing mastery is an iterative process of playing, messing around, experimenting, assessing progress and adjusting all along the way. By inventing, tinkering and making, students will be able to develop mastery across a range of disciplines and bring thought and action together in powerful ways. One might try to marginalise the Maker Movement as having nothing to do with real education and dismiss such activities as play, but play is one of the highest forms of research. New and emerging technologies like 3D printers are radically altering the manufacturing,