期刊名称：Design and Technology Education: an International Journal
印刷版ISSN：1360-1431
出版年度：2019
卷号：24
期号：2
页码：141-162
出版社：Design and Technology Education: an International Journal
摘要：Co-invention projects in elementary school engage pupils in complex, open-ended design tasks in
a practical, hands-on way. Physical materials are an intrinsic part of design, involving trasformation
of conceptual ideas into material forms, such as prototypes. These tangible objects mediate
embodied thinking and act as material-social mediators of knowledge creation processes.
However, the material properties of the designed artifact and pupils’ varying skills and levels of
material knowledge constrain the design process.
While previous studies of materiality in design have mainly focused on adults, this study aims to
analyze and describe the different roles of material prototyping in an elementary school
collaborative design process. A co-invention process was conducted in a Finnish elementary school
during spring 2017, with the task of designing solutions for everyday problems. The data consisted
of six video recorded design sessions, where small teams of 5th graders prototyped their
inventions. We analyzed the video data across macro-, intermediate-, and micro-levels.
The results revealed that pupils used prototypes as mediators for ideation and collaboration. They
tested their ideas with prototyping, and material manipulation occurred during collaborative
ideation. Material representations supported the verbalization and demonstration of ideas. Some
challenges also emerged; prototype construction was a slow and laborious process, the division of
labor tended to be unevenly distributed, and the model took a dominant role over the designed
artifact. We conclude that support from the teacher and the learning environment is critical for
utilizing the full potential of material manipulation in an elementary school setting.
关键词：prototyping; collaborative designing; elementary school; maker-centered learning; materiality;
video analysis
