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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

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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)

Early Y ears Volume 18 Number 1 Autumn 1997




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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

Early Years Volume 18 Number 1 Autumn 1997 11




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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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