Craft knowledge - craft learning

The skills involved in craft practice involve a large degree of tacit knowledge; the principles governing a skilled craft practitioner’s actions are often only known through undertaking those actions. This internalised nature of craft knowledge makes it difficult for expert practitioners to communicate their knowledge to others, presenting a barrier both to transmission and to knowledge elicitation.

Traditionally such skills were learned through some form of apprenticeship, where novices gradually subsumed craft practice over a period of time by working alongside more expert practitioners. However, many craft practitioners nowadays work alone and have insufficient work and / or money to take on apprentices. With little or no experience of training others, practitioners tend to be defensive about their skills. The reasons behind this are not fully known, but in part they seem concerned their explanations will over-simplify the complexity of their skill, and additionally they simply seem uncomfortable with not knowing how to explain what they do.

Elicitation and the role of the Expert Learner:
As the previous stages of this research developed it was seen that the presence of learners in the elicitation process often had a valuable effect in helping practitioners articulate their knowledge, especially where the learner had developed some self-confidence in their relationship with the craft master. The most recent research has employed an "expert learner" as an intermediary between the craft master and the designer. This demonstrated that such a learner had the ability to learn new skills with minimal instruction then, as the knowledge was recently acquired and the expert learner was consciously engaged with the elicitation process, she was able to rapidly adapt her understanding of it to improve transmission to the learners.

A key part of this process is the expert learner’s interaction with the designer and the developing learning resource. Through a process of video recording and summarising events using drawings and flow charts, the designer/researcher can assist with articulation of the knowledge and develop interpretation suitable for transmitting the knowledge.

Further reading:
Wood N & Horne G (2008). The new journeyman; the role of an expert learner in eliciting and transmitting skilled knowledge. Proceedings of the Design Research Society Conference, Sheffield. PDF
See also sections on craft knowledge and learning from Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF

Learning from interactive media

Video has become a ubiquitous medium and is regularly used in educational settings, but previous stages of this research demonstrated that in many circumstances it is not an effective method of teaching complex skills. It provides too much dynamic information for a novice learner to easily retain and they struggle to relate what they have seen to their own experiences. Our learning materials make extensive use of video, but text and graphics also play an important role and their development is a key part of our research.

The learning resource framework we have developed uses a layered approach to support learners during different phases of their learning. During the initial introductory phase, learners are given an overview of what is to be done and introduced to any key skills or strategies. A short, carefully edited video is often used to deliver this phase. During the second, guidance phase the learner is guided step by step through the basic process and gains an understanding of any common errors. Line drawings and text are central to this phase, providing the learner with concise information that enables them to gain some positive experience. During the third and final development phase repetition is necessary to gain mastery of the skill and this is supported by encouraging the learner to evaluate their outcome, identify and solve problems, and offering them a greater depth of material to explore. More extensive use of video can be made for this phase as the learner should now how sufficient experience to form their own interpretation.

Drawing: So, whilst video forms key parts of the learning resource, the vital, central portion is delivered through static illustration, providing an interpretive layer which gives the learner a firm basis upon which they can develop their own interpretation of any subsequent video watched. Line drawings have been found to be the most effective method of delivering this interpretation as they cut out the extraneous detail photography brings and enable the designer to focus the learner's attention on key points.

Further reading:
Fisher T, Wood N & Keyte J (2008). Hands on - hands off; on hitting your thumb with a virtual hammer. Proceedings of Design Research Society conference, Sheffield. PDF
See also section on interactive media in Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF

Transmitting craft - methods

Video observation is central to our research methods, based on experience developed over several previous cycles of inquiry into a variety of craft practices and learning activities. Careful selection and use of equipment and techniques ensures that recording does not intrude on the activity but does result in a useful record, often in locations that are highly compromised by bad lighting, difficult sight lines and shifting objects of attention.

During primary work with experienced craft practitioners, the expert learner provides a focus of attention, working alongside the practitioner to learn new skills. Then, through collaboration with the designer/researcher who produces summaries of events based on the video observation, the expert learner develops means of articulating the knowledge initially based on their own experience as a learner. The designer/researcher then develops prototype interpretation suitable for transmitting the knowledge and this material is used to mediate interactions between the expert learner and more novice learners, thus developing the learning materials.

In the most recent research project - the folding knife project - a wiki was used, initially as a collaborative medium for the co-researchers, then it was developed into a prototype resource accessible to learners. Our working assumption was that eventually we would produce professional quality multimedia resources, but eventually it became clear that the more basic wiki was very effective and had some benefits over more “designed” approaches. So, a wiki was used as a means of delivering the final version of the learning resource, a public version of which can be seen here.

Further reading:
Wood N (2010). A good record? The use of video in practice-led design research. Reflections 13 (Research Training Sessions 2009) pp114-125. Brussels: Sint Lucas School of Architecture. PDF
See also the methods section in Nicola Wood's PhD thesis. PDF