In this chapter we focus on the importance of the human capacity of design capability and how this can be fostered through design and technology education. Historic undervaluing of developing design capability in formal schooling is highlighted and counteracted by identifying recent recognition of embodied cognition and the role design education has to play in developing this. We forefront how learning that holistically links the head, hand and heart can be achieved by engaging learners in design contexts that are meaningful and have resonance with them and illustrate this through a case study of eleven year old learners designing for a public space. We provide background to how understandings of design processes have developed to enable more authentic approaches to design and technology education and how both summative and formative assessment can support these approaches. We place emphasis on pedagogic processes that maintain the authenticity of design processes whilst supporting and nurturing learning. This involves giving learners the skills of working with open and closed projects, how this many vary with the age and experience and how they can develop autonomy whilst also being collaborative and develop empathy. We highlight the importance of helping learners to draw on their own experiences and understand how they can utilise these when designing. Finally we explore how assessment is an important and integral part of pedagogic strategies when developing design capability. We provide a model for formative assessment that can be used directly within design projects based on a resource that actively uses formative assessment to Make Design Learning Visible.@en

This paper reports on a pilot project focused on the use of the formative assessment resource Make Design Learning Visible (MDLV) in different national settings. The MDLV resource centers on a design model involving seven interactive design skills and a formative assessment model involving five strategies. A team of researchers from seven countries in three continents, are working collaboratively with a teacher practitioner from each country to develop the structure of the research project and trial of a design activity that utilises the MDLV skills and approach to formative assessment. This paper reports on ongoing exploratory early work with the teacher practitioners trialing a short design project with an overarching theme of sustainability, a focus on developing two design skills (Empathy and Sharing ideas) and two formative assessment strategies (‘Activating learners as resources for one another’ and ‘Activating learners as owners of their learning’). The project centers on a design brief customised for each national setting and relevant for learners aged between 10 and 15 years of age. A structured portfolio supporting an iterative design process forms the basis of tangible evidence of learner responses. The pilot is providing insights into the effectiveness of the MDLV resource in developing design skills and formative assessment across national settings. Additionally, the pilot contributes understandings of comparative participatory research involving teacher practitioners across countries. The exploratory nature of the early stages of the project intentionally allows some aspects to be customised locally by teachers as we seek to understand rather than dictate how the resource is best used in the local educational contexts. To this end, the overarching structure and pedagogy of the activity is fixed, but aspects such as lesson timings, choices around the use of MDLV tools and the further MDLV design skills are flexible.@en