Enhancing design pedagogy through e-learning strategies

Presently, in design activities in second level education, the language and practice of design is complex and unclear. The aim of this paper is to discuss the effects of implementing a web-strategy approach to design activities, with particular emphasis on the active and visual preferential learning styles and 'right-brain' design activity. The web-strategy is composed of focus areas, lessons and tasks necessary for the holistic development of the learners design ability. The structure of the web-strategy is revolved around the key topics of contextual history of the designed artefact, concept development, development of sketching techniques and thinking as a designer. It is anticipated that the web-strategy's key topics will develop students' design ability and creativity within design activities of the technologies subjects by acknowledging students' preferential learning styles and right-brain cognitive activity. The design web-strategy was assessed by comparative analysis of a control and experimental project completed from September 2007 to May 2008. The initial control project (P1) received no input from the web-strategy. In the secondary experimental project (P2), a major element of the intervention strategy was web-based through activevisual e-tutorial media. The control and experimental project were carried out amongst a range of students as a comparison study from which the factor of experience was determined. For the purpose of this paper, the focus group of participants, consisting of 96 second level (high school) students range from different school types. The participants varied in terms of academic achievements, handedness, educational background and other demographics. This paper discusses the methodologies applied and identifies key outcomes to further refine and develop a 'best practice' web-strategy for design activities pedagogy.