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Making Sense and Made Sense: Design and
Technology and the Playful Construction of
Meaning in the Early YearsRod ParkerRees
a
aSenior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Education , University of Plymouth
Published online: 06 Jul 2006.
To cite this article:Rod ParkerRees (1997) Making Sense and Made Sense: Design and Technology and the Playful
Construction of Meaning in the Early Years, Early Years: An International Research Journal, 18:1, 5-12, DOI:
10.1080/0957514970180102
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0957514970180102
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Making Sense and Made Sense: Design and
Technology and the Playful Construction of Meaning
in the Early Years
Rod P arker-Rees, Sen ior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts a nd Education, University of Plymo uth
How is a crate of Lego like a language? How is
Design and Technology teaching like Early Years
teaching?
In September 1996 the first group of twenty
students on the new Early Childhood Studies (ECS)
pathway of the University of Plymouth's BEd degree
embarked on a module which was to introduce them
to general issues in the planning and provision of an
Early Years curriculum through wo rk on the teaching
of Design and Technology. Although, in an ideal
world, the ECS team might not have chosen to
squeeze two modules into the time allowed for one,
the combination did provide opportunities to
compare issues in Early Years teaching and the
teaching of Design and Technology.
In this article I will be exploring on e aspect of
this comparison; the relationship between the
personal construction of meaning (the process of
making sense) and the complex pre-existing
structures of meaning (already made sense) which
surround children from birth. I believe that the
relationship between designing and making things
and finding out about already made things can serve
as a useful model for exploring this interaction
between active learning and "the implicit knowledge
which constitutes culture' (Bruner, 1986, p.135).
Playing with analogies between making things and
making sense and between made things and made
sense may support our thinking, not only about the
role of Design and Technology in children's
learning b ut also about the mediation of early
learning across the whole curriculum.
Steven Mithen (1996) has recently used
archaeological evidence to piece together a
'prehistory of the mind'. His study of the gradual
development of human artefacts over the last two
and a half million years has led him to sugg est a
possible explanation for the explosion of
technological innovation, between 100,000 and
40,000 years ago, that marks a developmental
change of gear. For over two million years early
humans h ad been slowly, very very slowly, refining
the process of chipping away at nodules of flint to
make sharp edged tools. At the same time and at the
same slow pace, new social structures were being
developed together with new ways of hunting and
finding food. M ithen suggests that these early
humans may have had quite highly developed
technical, social and natural history intelligences but
that these were isolated from each other, like the
tools on a Swiss army knife (p.37). Technology
could only blossom into art, religion and science
when modern humans developed 'cognitive
fluidity', the ability to make analogies and
metaphors which allowed us to use our 'modules' of
intelligence in parallel. Cognitive fluidity introduces
a degree of 'play' into the process of cultural
transmission by allowing us to be creative in our use
and interpretation of cultural tools:
the messages located in the cultural
environment are not merely 'accepted as they
are'
by the creative individual, but, rather,
analyzed and 'reassembled' (in one's system of
'personal sense') in novel ways. Hence the
individual is a co-constructor of culture rather
than a mere follower of the enculturation efforts
of others, (van der Veer and Valsiner, 1993,
p.395)
Vygotsky (198 8, p.64) recognised that the tension
between 'mature cultural forms' and the 'primitive
forms' constructed by children 'is the very essence
of cultural development', a mechanism for ensuring
that culture continues to evolve and to respond to
the changes that it enables us to bring about.
Baynes (1994), writing about the relationship
between play and designing, has identified the 'very
special interaction between things and the
imagin ation' (p. 10) that can be observed in
children's free play with objects. Imaginative play
enables children to develop cognitive fluidity as
they combine and recombine their developing
concepts, making meanings fuzzier, more flexible
and mo re useful: a pebble can be a snail because it
is round and smooth; a stick can be a horse because
it can be ridden. Most Play objects are 'made
things' which means that they are imbued with a
'made sense' with which children can converse in
their play. Lego, for example, is rectilinear, modular,
and can be both put together and taken apart.
Knowledge of these properties is not handed on to
children like the baton in a relay race; they insinuate
themselves into children's minds like Chinese
whispers. Cognitive fluidity and the development of
language to go hand in hand: language frees the
imagination to play with new ways of
'reassembling' what is known, but it is also
dependent on play (imprecision or fuzziness) in the
links between signs and meanings:
Through the help of mediating devices
(meanings of abstract concepts) both cultural
continuity and cultural change are made
possible. Furtherm ore, the fuzziness of these
meanings affords variability within the culture
at the given time of the development of the
society. In other word s, heterogeneity of
interpretations of the same abstract terms is the
rule (rather than the ex ception), as it is
functional in the process of development of our
knowledge about the world, (van der Veer and
Valsiner 1 993, p.394 )
A crate of Lego and a language bo th offer a child a
limited range of 'bits' that can be put together in a
limited number of ways but each can be used to
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make models or sentences that have never been
made before. Individuals can appropriate the 'made
sense' of their forebears to respond creatively to the
world in which they find themselves and, because
their world is inevitably different from the world
their forebears grew up in, the sense they m ake of it
is also bound to be different. Of course there are
many differences between Lego and a language
(Lego pieces are much more precisely 'made' than
word meanings or conventions of grammar) but
thinking about how children learn to use something
relatively sim ple, like a construction k it, may help
us to extend our understanding of how children can
be introduced to rather less tangible kits, including
the 'tools of thought' Rogoff, 1990, p.191 ).
'Making things' and 'craft activities' have a long
history in Early Years education but in the new
discipline of Design and Technology learning the
knowledge and skills required for making is
combined with learning about what others have
made: children are taught to 'read' technology as
well as to 'write' it. The National Curriculum
programmes of study for Design and Technology
(DfE/WO, 1995, p.58) identify three kinds of
teaching activity: Designing and Making
Assignments (DMAs); Focused Practical Tasks
(FPTs) and Investigating, Disassembling and
Evaluating Activities (IDE As). Together, these
activities can offer a coherent framework for
promoting a playful approach to learning.
Designing and Making Assignments DMA s)
The aim of these activities is to provide children
with opportunities to
apply
skills and knowledge
about materials, techniques and tools in the
designing and making of products such as a hat for
teddy, finger food for a picnic or a vehicle that can
be controlled from a distance. Children must be
allowed to design what they will make, sometimes
alone but often with others in a grou p, since it is the
designing which gives children room to play with
what they know, to find their own imaginative ways
of tackling a problem. Without this involvement in
making design decisions, DMAs shrivel back into
simple, recipe following craft activities w hich can
promote a passive model of learning as reproduction
(training yet ano ther generation of flint-knapp ers).
The structure provided by DMAs to support the
mediation of children's learning is very similar to
the plan-do-review structure which seems to provide
a powerful mediating role in the High/Scope
programme:
The goal of the adult-child interaction is more
than descriptive pro se. It is a tutorial in u sing
language to guide action; moreover, children
learn to be self-critical, without shame, to set
high goals while seeking objective feedback on
their plans. There is deliberate modelling in
using language to guide action. (Sylva, 1992,
cited in Siraj-Blatchford, 1996, p.42)
Children are encouraged to become conscious of
their own thinking, through talking about, drawing
and modelling their ideas, but they are also
encouraged to recognise that other children may
have other ideas and that playing with possibilities
in discussion with others can be as helpful as
playing with m aterials. By identifying the special
qualities of each solution rather than simply picking
out the 'best', the review process can help children
to celebrate diversity in different children's
responses and to see themselves as members of a
'comm unity of enquiry ' (Fisher, 1995, p.48 ).
Focused Practical Tasks FPTs)
These activities are used to introduce ch ildren to
new ways of doing things. They are focused by the
mediating adult rather than the children but this
does not mean that they have to be prescriptive:
even in FPTs children need to talk about, try out and
make their own sense of new information. They are
practical because they involve children in activity
but although sometimes the focus will be on safe
ways of using tools, or techniques for working with
different materials, at other times the focus m ay be
on the
processes
involved in finding, selecting,
developing, modelling and evaluating ideas. While
the immediate aim of a FPT is to teach something
new, this new information must be bridged to
children's existing knowledge Rogoff, 1990, p.65)
and also to possible future uses (Adey and Shayer,
1994, pp.72-3): learning to join cardboard boxes
may not be an essential life-skill but it may provide
opportunities for talking about ways of selecting
from a range of possible strategies. This sort of
bridging can help children to see why they are being
asked to learn something but, more importantly, it
also shows them that they are free to imag ine then-
own ways to make use of this 'made se nse'.
Investigating, Disassembling and Evaluating
Activities IDEAs)
This is the least familiar k ind of activity but its
importance b ecomes clearer if it is set within the
overall framework of integrating making with using
what has already been ma de. John Siraj-Blatchford
has suggested that IDEAs 'actually constitute just
one more form of Focused Practical Task' (Siraj-
Blatchford, 1996, p.14) bu t I would argue that they
are as different as reading is from w riting. Learning
to 'read' made things can expand children's
technological 'vocabulary' and help them to
understand w hy things have been designed and
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made in a particular way but it can also help
children to recognise that things do not
have
to be
made the way they are:
Although we live in a world of hard fact we can
imagine the world changed and, within limits,
we know that we can change it - some
recognition of possibility is activated when we
start to ask questions. (Don aldson, 1992, cited
inB ottrill, 1996, p. 149)
Four year-olds wh o had great difficulty describing
the properties of cotton cloth were able to explain
why they would not like to have metal sheets on
their beds and this engagement of their imagination
helped them to identify what makes cotton sheets
better for this purpose. O lder children brought then-
imaginations to bear on pens and pencils, inventing
dozens of 'improved' versions and exploring the
possible costs that would be entailed by the changes
(a diamond studded pencil might be stolen, a pen
with an alarm to signal that the cap had been left off
might prove a nuisance) before finally returning to
their school pencils with a much fuller
understanding of why they were as they were. If
they are shown ways of playing with possibilities
children can learn to integrate divergent, creative,
imaginative thinking (how it could b e different)
with convergent, practical, informed thinking why it
is not different).
There are clear similarities between this
framework of three kinds of activities and the
organisation of the curriculum in many nursery
classrooms where opportunities for children to
organise their own activity, adult-led small group
activities and various forms of story-time or
'showing ' are commonly provided. My making
sense of the Design and Technology programmes of
study has inevitably been informed by the sense I
have made of nursery teaching but the comparison
may help to extend the toolkit of ways of thinking
about early years practice.
In D&T, as in the nursery classroom , different
kinds of activity have to be integrated into a
coherent curriculum which enables children to
develop their knowledge and skills but which also
promotes playful, creative and critical dispositions.
Units of work in D&T are often organised so that
children are introduced to skills (in FPTs) and
encouraged to consider a range of possibilities
(through IDEAs) before they are given the chance to
apply what they have learned in a designing and
making assignment (DMA). The three kinds of
activity are, however, based on a model (Black and
Harrison, 1988, p.28) which also allows for the
pattern more familiar to nursery teachers: giving
children opportunities to play (DMA) and then
using observations of their play to plan small group
activities (FPTs) and stories, visits, etc. (IDEA s) to
support and extend what they are already doing.
In practice the relationship b etween p lay
provision and teaching in early years classrooms is
considerably more complex than the relationship
between the three kinds of activity in D &T. Bennett,
Wood and Rogers (1997) have drawn attention to
some of the dilemmas which confront early years
teachers in their efforts to reconcile their beliefs
about play with the reality of what they are actually
able to do. While all appear to agree on the
excellence of play as a tool for learning there is less
agreement about the role of play in teaching. Playing
with the similarities and differences between issues
in D&T and early years teaching and thinking about
ways in which children can be helped to make their
own sense of the made sense available to them in
their environment has made me look beyond play
with objects to recognise the importance of
promoting playful thinking. A s Bennett et al. (1997)
point out,
laissezfaire
free-play activities do not
provide the most stimulating learning environment
for children but teachers may be reluctant to
intervene in play, often for fear of stifling children's
creativity (p. 124). Focusing on the teaching of
playful thinking may m ake it easier to decide when
and how to support children's learning without
trampling over their own ideas. Thinking in terms of
the three kinds of activity used in D& T teaching
may help teachers to imagine ways of meeting the
conditions identified by Bennett et al. (1997) for
improving the quality of play in schoo ls:
Integrating play into the curriculum through
clearly specified aims and intentions.
Balancing children's and teach ers' intentions.
Creating a supportive framework for
developing children's competencies as learners.
Mak ing time for quality interactions to enhance
learning through play.
Recognising opportunities for teaching through
play rather than relying on spontaneous
learning.
Freeing the teacher for more interaction in a
mediational role.
Teaching children the requisite skills and
strategies for becoming independent, making
choices and decisions.
Providing a structure for review time so that
children become more consciously aware of
what they are doing, learning and achieving in
their play.(p .130)
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Janet Moyles (1989) has argued that 'play must
pervade how teachers present learning activities'
(p.86) and focusing on promoting playful thinking
can help teachers to extend play into story, singing
and sharing times as well as 'choosing' and small
group activities. Reading stories to children, playing
singing games and talking about matters of interest
can all be seen as oppo rtunities to help children to
access the made sense of cultural beliefs and value
systems. Just as IDEAs can encourage children to
recognise that things do not
have
to be as they are,
to imagine ways in which they cou ld be different
and to consider why particular design decisions may
have been made, so 'carpet times' can help children
to recognise that stories can be used to explore
possibilities ('what if...') and that they can be retold
in different way s, that songs and games can be
adapted to suit a current interest and lhat it is alright
for friends to disagree abo ut som e things. Design
and Technology provides excellent opportunities for
teaching playful thinking because children can play
with their ideas 'live' using tangible materials,
especially those like sand, water, dough, blocks and
construction kits which allow ideas to be constantly
developed, changed and literally reassembled. But
children also need to learn to play around with ideas
in group discussions and in other areas of the
curriculum because, although opportunities for play
with ob jects may dim inish as they gel: older, playful,
creative, critical dispositions (Katz, 1995, pp.47-69)
can survive even into adulthood.
It may be difficult to alter dispositions later in
life but I would hope that a module which combines
practical work on the teaching of creative and
critical approaches to D&T with a wider
consideration of the role of playful thinking in the
early years might help students to escape from the
modular thinking of the stone age. Cognitive
fluidity is particularly important for students
training to b e generalist early years teachers,
especially as initial teacher training courses are
becoming increasingly fragmented into subject
modules. We hope that students on our Early
Childhood Studies pathway will be playful thinkers
themselves, both in their coursework and in their
planning, doing and reviewing of work in schools,
and that they will recognise the importance of
encouraging children to develop a playful,
imaginative approach to making their own sense of
the made sense that surrounds them.
References
Adey, P. and Shayer, M . (1994)Really Raising Standards:
Cognitive Intervention and Academic Achievement,
Routledge, London.
Baynes, K. (1994)Designerly Play,Loughborough University of
Technology Department of Design and Technology,
Loughborough.
Bennett, N. Wood, L. and Rogers, S. (1997)
Teaching Through
Play: Teachers Thinking and Classroom Practice,Open
University Press, Buckingham.
Black, P. and Harrison, G . (1988) Technology in the Science
Curriculum, in Technology and its Place in the Curriculum,
AMM A/Engineering Council, London.
Bottrill, P. (1996) Children Thinking and Learning Through
Design Activity at Age Six, Early Child Development and
Care,Vol.121,pp. 147-163.
Bruner, J. (1986)
Actual Minds, Possible Worlds,
Harvard
University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
DfEA/WO (1995)
Design and Technology in the National
Curriculum,HMSO , London.
Donaldson, M. (1992) Human Minds: an Exploration,Penguin
Press,London.
Fisher, R. (1995)T eaching Children to Learn,Stanley Thornes,
Cheltenham.
Katz, L. (1995) Talks with Teachers of oungChildren,Ablex,
New Jersey.
Mithen, S. (1996)
The Prehistory of the
Mind Thames and
Hudson, London.
Moyles, J. (1989)Just Playing: the Role and Status of Play in
Early Childhood Education,
Open University Press,
Buckingham.
Rogoff,B. (1990)
Apprenticeship in Thinking: Cognitive
Development in Social Context,Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Siraj-Blatchford, J. (1996)
Learning Technology, Science and
Social Justice: an Integrated Approach for 3-13 Y ear Olds,
Education Now Books, Nottingham.
Sylva, K. (1992) Conversations in the Nursery: How they
Contribute to Aspirations and Plans,Language and
Education,
Vol.6, No.2, 3 and 4, pp. 147-8.
van der Veer, R. and Valsiner, J. (1993) Understanding Vygotsky:
A Q uest for Synthesis, Blackwell, Oxford.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1988) The Genesis of Higher Mental Functions,
in K. Richardson and S. Sheldon (eds)Cognitive
Development to Adolescence,
Lawrence Erlbaum, Hove.
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Figure 1 and 2
children demonstrate their knowledge about
numbers. Jessie (4 years old) is centering on her J.
This is the most important letter to her at the
moment and she uses it for number symbols as well
as writing symbols. Ashton-Warner (1965), in her
teaching of reading, said that letters in a child's
name are personal to them.
Daniel (4 years old) is mixing up letters and
numbers and taking a lot of risks. In observations of
children's writing it was also noted that this two
way use of symbols happened (Clay, 1975).
Donna (3 years old) the youngest has 'one' fixed
very much at the beginning of her line.
In all of these examples the children 'moved'
from left to right. They also showed how much they
knew about the written number symbols.
In the number line area the connection between
numeracy and literacy is clear. In literacy the claim
was that if you make tasks open then you find out
much more about the children. This was also
evident in the number line area. By making the
questions open I was finding o ut more about their
idea of number: personal numbers were meaningful
to the children and w here the children start from,
just as in literacy development names are important.
Looking at the number line again one could
interpret this as children at different stages of
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number development. Three children only felt the
numbers but made no responses. This m ay have
been because it did not stimulate them to say
anything or they did not want to or they did not yet
recognise written numbers. A large percentage of
the children talked about 'their' number as in their
age number, this seemed a central focus to them just
as letters in their names. Children usually write the
letters of their name first (and are m otivated to do
so) then use this knowledge of letters when writing
other words. Their age number, a highly motivating
factor and personal to them, holds the same power
and it may be a number that they use in other
contexts. For example, Daniel age 4 years used the
number 4 to put on a birthday card for his mum.
What better number to give your mum than you r
own personal number
Some children talked about favourite numbers
(this may have been in terms of feel or colour). This
favourite number talk stimulated conversation and
some children named more than one favourite
number thus giving indications that they know
about more than one number.
Touching and counting was the focus for some
children. Perhaps this was a natural response. They
may have thought this is what you do with numbers,
you repeat them in some kind of sequence, the
sequence does not seem to alter. The number line
provided the familiar sequence and they responded
to it. Other children's knowledge extended beyond
the counting. They were confident in their
familiarity with numbers and were concerned about
the sequence not having a number one. Two of the
children knew that there were more numbers than
"one to ten' and wanted to continue the line not only
beyond 10 but indeed before 1. Stacey, for example,
was confident in her knowledge of numbers to
assert that there was a 0 before 1. It could be argued
that the children involved in the circus game
mentioned earlier knew numbers had a function and
could use them to create their own meanings.
These children who interacted with the number
line were seen to have varied levels of number
knowledge and involvement, some just wanting to
look and touch but not expressing, at this time, any
further response. Other children demonstrated quite
developed comprehension of number enough to
make self-initiated responses, indicating to the
surrounding adults that they were building firm
conceptual knowledge about the relation of numbers
on a number line.
A positive model
It is interesting to note that because of the 'open'
approach the children were able to tell us what they
knew rather than what they did not know - for
example, Guy who wanted to add to the space after
8 and said we needed 10 and 12. Did he just think
that only 10 and 12 came after 8 or did he know that
9 and 11 were numbers in that sequence? In the
deficit model an educator might say that he could
not count accurately after 8. However, in the
positive model of observing learning that was used
in the study I view Guy as having knowledge of
numbers beyond 8 and that he is able to articulate
his knowledge. He seems to know that in sequence
numbers 10 and 12 come after 8 rather than before.
One could say that he had visual mental recall of
those numbers (10 and 12) and that they came close
to 8.
If looking at children's learning from a negative
view (i.e. this is what she/he cannot do) it is
unlikely that one can see the partial knowledge, or
the emergence of a concept, or the gradual refining
of approximations. From the developmentalist view,
as put forward in the study, it is vital to know this
kind of information to facilitate and support the
learning, whether it be more of a structured group
input or providing opportunities in the classroom
environment.
Co-operative learning and joining the
mathematics club
In Amy's circus game children were observed
supporting Amy and each other in the naming of
numbers. It could be said that the children were
learning about numbers through the number game -
the naming, the order and ways to use numb ers.
Amy was also accepted in the game (and had a high
status because she initiated the game and was the
"leader') even although her skills of naming
numbers were not quite as advanced as others in her
group. She was learning from other children (they
were also learning from her, for exam ple in
organisation skills). Acceptance for Amy meant she
was in a relaxed atmosphere with no pressure for
right or wrong answers. I believe this encouraged
her learning.
Smith (1988) referred to children becoming
proficient readers and writers only when they joined
the "literacy club'. They become accepted members
of this com mu nity of writers and readers*; In th e
same way the children in the number line were a
community of mathematicians giving each other
support. Their use and knowledge of mathematics
was growing within a social context.
Number readiness
In the light of ever increasing (Young-Loveridge,
1987;
Womack, 1993) we seem to be m oving
towards the premise that the way for children to
learn about numbers is exposure to numbers.
Exposure to numbers in the environment does not
actually mean didactic teaching, as children make
their own meanings from their experiences. This is
especially true if the children are empowered to
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