Crane Presentations

Among other things, class presentations happen frequently and often in most modern K-12 design curricula. Doing them regularly and modeling how they can be done effectively in part addresses a common misconception about designing: that learning from and adapting design ideas that others devise is cheating.

In MOVIE 1, you can hear the design presentations that teachers give to the entire class about their first prototypes. Listen for how groups talk about emergent problems that they encountered and which they had to solve before they could proceed with their work. In some cases, design teams will seem to move almost haphazardly from one emergent problem to the next. Part of the role that the Recorder can play is to review the steps that the team took from start to finish in their work, to show that things are less chaotic than they might feel.

Much of the learning that happens when students do design is engaging, but it is also fleeting. Having a record of design milestones can enable teams in reviewing evidence of their own learning. This challenge of following and documenting the evolution of a design is a long-standing concern of many design educators. Solutions have included keeping Storyboards (Challenges of Physical Science) and Design Diaries (Learning By Design). Most people who study the effects of such notetaking find that much still remains to be done before novice designers will consistently learn through reviewing and reflecting about their designing.