Progression and Pedagogy of Design: Contextualizing Design based Pedagogy in Teacher Education Programs Erasmus Project

Project Title

Progression and Pedagogy of Design: Contextualizing Design based Pedagogy in Teacher Education Programs

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

In the last three decades, the emphasis on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) continued to increase as a potential solution to overturn declining numbers of students choosing careers in STEM disciplines. The emphasis on STEM continues with increasing number of STEM centers in the UK or MINT (mathematics, information technology, natural sciences, technology) centers in Germany. STEM literature emphasizes on supporting design, for instance Turkish Ministry of National Education made several updates in the elementary and middle school curriculum to add design based thinking into the curriculum. 2023 Vision aims to add design studios in all schools,and the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) also added design based thinking into teacher education. On the other hand, European reports underline the lack a coherent agreement to support design based pedagogy. Departing from this need, teacher education programs will share thinking about how to leverage design to improve coherence and relevance of instruction In this project.

The biggest difference of this project is to change the emphasis on completing the design products to creating a learning environment around design products. Previous studies focused primarily on completing design products. This project aims to change the emphasis on the teaching environment created around the design products. By looking at its nature, the project is the first of its kind about design based pedagogy. The project will offer guidelines for teacher education programs and teachers by presenting activities supporting interdisciplinary thinking and offer assessment strategies to measure design based pedagogy. The project will start with creating the Booklet of Design Based Pedagogy. Then the project will shift to Practical Applications of Design Based Pedagogy and Online Learning through eTwinning projects.

When creating the Booklet of Design Based Pedagogy, the main goal will be to offer a common framework and set of activities to implement design based pedagogy. The partners collaboratively create the booklet that will include three steps: (1) Reviewing Design Challenges and Design Products across European teacher education programs, (2) Supporting Scientific and Engineering Practices with Critical Thinking, (3) Assessing Design Based Pedagogy. Reviewing design challenges and design products across European teacher education programs will help to picture the existing practices across European teacher education programs. In the next step, activities that support critical thinking when engaging with scientific and engineering practices will be created. Finally, partners will work on creating tools for assessing the design based pedagogy. After reviewing the existing practices, the booklet will offer guidelines to implement design based pedagogy with critical thinking and ways to assess design pedagogy.

After creating the booklet, partners will focus on practical applications of the design based pedagogy. To reach out a bigger audience, partners will focus on practical applications in two different ways: (1) Applying design based pedagogy in teacher education programs, (2) Applying design based pedagogy in eTwinning projects. When applying the pedagogy of design, four different teacher education programs will test the activities and these results will serve an important role to finalize project activities. Then all partners will start reaching out to teachers through induction programs to create eTwinning projects.Induction programs are part of teacher training in Europe. To reach a bigger audience, teachers from all European countries will be able to access the project activities. All partners will connect with local teachers, and teachers from all European countries will be able to access project activities.

Besides offering a common framework of design based pedagogy, the project will also offer online learning for teachers in a rapidly changing world. As schools and universities started doing classes online in 2020, the project will aim to prioritize online learning and implementation. Finally, the project team will present how design based pedagogy can be supported in teacher education programs and schools. This final step will show how design based pedagogy can be implemented coherently in teacher education programs and schools. By the end of the project, European teacher educators will design a coherent framework and set of activities for design based pedagogy, test the framework and activities in teacher education programs and schools. In addition to picturing how design based pedagogy can be learned in teacher education programs, the project will also present the pathway to implement a coherent design based pedagogy in schools through induction programs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 124670 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF USAK & Country: TR

Project Partners

• TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN
• DOKUZ EYLUL UNIVERSITESI
• UNIVERSIDAD DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI PADOVA