ARTS RESEARCH DIGEST

Learning Through Making: A national enquiry into the value of creative practical education in Britain (Executive Summary)

OBJECTIVES
To provide authoritative evidence to explain the benefits of learning through making at national and local level and to discover if access to practical experience in formal education was valued by students, employers and society

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements; Summary; Introduction; Why this research project? Launching the project; The outcomes; Findings; Recommendations; Conclusion.

SUMMARY
The report summarises the main outcomes achieved by three teams of researchers at Loughborough, Middlesex and Sheffield Hallam Universities. The team from Middlesex University looked at the results of learning through making and the ways in which human competence and capability may be enhanced by the experience. They attempted to measure and evaluate the experience; looked at the context of education from ages 5-16 in each of the four Key Stages of schooling. They then examined how employers and the general public view these competencies and capabilities. The Loughborough University team explored the experience of making in education and in particular the development of understanding of how materials, technologies, processes and wealth generation occur in human affairs. They found abundant evidence of the understanding associated with making, but reported that much of the learning occurred in adult life and leisure and that the opportunities for developing enhanced understanding in schools were, at best, only incompletely realised. The Sheffield Hallam University team focused on the employability of craft-educated graduates, the demand for them and their capabilities and their developing roles as employees and employers. The team found evidence of the widespread enhancement of learning through making activities but, in higher education, this was recognised and developed in the craft courses and only occasionally recognised to the non-craft courses.

AVAILABLE FROM
Education Section, Crafts Council, 44a Pentonville Road, Islington, London N1 8BY, UK Tel: 44 (0)171 806 2528 Fax: 44 (0)171 837 6891
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