Design Method in Education - teach it before science!

Making Connections with Life
As a concept, Scientific Method is more familiar than Design Method. But as an activity, design is more familiar, for most students, in what they have experienced in the past and what they can imagine for the future. Design makes a concrete connection with the past (so students can build on the foundation of what they already know) and with the future (so they will be motivated to learn skills that will help them achieve their own goals for life). Because design "connects" with students (with their past, present, and future) and with enjoyable activities in the classroom — and because design method can help students learn scientific method — it makes sense to teach design method before scientific method.

connecting the past and present:
The simple framework of Integrated Design Method (making quality checks by comparing GOALS with OBSERVATIONS or PREDICTIONS) will help students recognize the "design logic" they use in everyday activities. This familiarity makes a Design Method seem less intimidating, when students realize they are working with methods of thinking they already know, instead of learning something new and strange. This familiarity will help to reduce the feelings that "I can't do this," the emotionally based obstacles to learning that are causes (and effects) of low self-esteem in school.
Establishing connections with the past is also pedagogically sound because, consistent with constructivist approaches to education, students can build on the foundation of their prior knowledge. Design activities give students a chance to use what they know, to practice and improve old thinking skills, and to expand into new areas of application.

connecting the present and future:
In design the goal can be an improved product, strategy, or theory. Since this includes almost everything in life, students can see that design education is practical, that it will be useful in "real life" outside school, both now and in their future. When they realize this, and if they truly appreciate the value of what they can gain,
"Students will be excited about learning. They will invest extra mental effort because they are motivated by a forward-looking expectation that what they are learning will be personally useful in the future, that it will improve their lives. They will wisely ask, 'What can I learn now that will help me in the future?' They will discover that thinking is fun, and will want to do it more often and more skillfully!" {quoted from Aesop's Activities }
Due to its wide scope, design (to a greater extent than science) includes future activities that every student can imagine, especially if their imaginations are stimulated by a teacher who helps them see that what they are learning in school can be used outside the classroom, that it can help them achieve their personal goals for life. And if students are convinced that what they learn in school will "transfer to life" and will help them live a better life, they will be more motivated to learn.

Problem Solving in Life
It's exciting to use our minds skillfully. Thinking is a grand adventure, in design and in science.
Design is a way to solve problems. In common language, a "problem" is usually bad. But in design, a problem is an opportunity to make a difference, to make things better. Whenever you are thinking about ways to increase the quality of life (or avoid a decrease in quality), you are actively involved in problem solving.
In every area of life, generative thinking (to generate ideas) and evaluative thinking (to evaluate ideas) are essential. These mutually supportive skills are integrated in the problem-solving methods used in a wide range of design fields — such as engineering, architecture, medicine, music, art, literature, philosophy, history, law, business, athletics, and science — where the goal is to design a product, strategy, or theory. In fact, design includes almost everything in life.
A product can be an object (like a refrigerator, bicycle, or car) but it also could be a repaired object (a car that works better than before), a work of art (a painting, song, or story), a letter to a colleague, an inspirational talk for a community group, or a casserole for a potluck picnic.
Similarly, a strategy is needed in a wide variety of situations — educational (as a learner or teacher), social, athletic, political, military, legal, financial, or agricultural — involving competition and/or cooperation. You can plan a strategy for winning a soccer game, making a friend or being a friend, planning a party, running a charity, starting a business, or growing crops to feed a nation. When you make a decision in any area of life, you are designing a strategy for living, for helping you achieve goals.
Design and Science: If we define design as the process of designing products or strategies, and science as the designing of theories about nature, the main objective of design is to improve human technologies, while the main objective of science is to understand nature.

The Joy of Thinking
Design includes almost everything in life, so you can find many ways to enjoy the excitement of design thinking, to experience the satisfaction of solving a problem and achieving a practical goal. Since the beginning of human history, people have been designing strategies for better living, and designing products to carry out these strategies more effectively. For example, strategies for getting food (by hunting and farming) were more effective when using products (spears and plows). Design continues to be useful in the modern world.
Science is also useful, in two ways.
First, the understanding gained by science is often used by designers when they develop new products or strategies. The technological results of "applied science" are familiar.
Second, science can help us fulfill a deep human need, because it is one way to search for answers when, inspired by our curiosity, we ask questions about what, how, and why. Most of us want to know the truth, so an intrinsically appealing goal is the design of scientific theories that are true, that correctly describe what is happening now and what has happened in the past. In our search for truth in nature, we are motivated by curiosity about how things work, a desire to solve mysteries. { A fascinating mystery story, about a simple theory that is strange yet successful, illustrates The Joy of Science. }

This section assumes you are familiar with the concept of "reality checks" in science and design.

Design and Science in Education

A "Reality Check" Bridge: Reality checks, which are used in both design and science, serve as a bridge from design to science, and this will make it easier to learn scientific method. If you are serving as a teacher (if you are helping someone else learn) you can watch for an appropriate time, during a design project, to ask a science question: When predictions and observations are compared, do they match? Since this question is a reality check, which is the logical foundation of science, you have an opportunity to explain the logic of science: experiments and observations, theories and predictions, and (for the evaluation and generation of theories) reality checks. Of course, you won't do all of this at once. Pacing is important. But most components of scientific method are already being used in design method, and this will make it much easier to learn scientific method.
A "Science as Design" Bridge: It is useful to view science as a specialized type of design in which the overall goal is to develop an improved theory, and the main strategy is to evaluate the "quality" of a particular theory by comparing our GOALS for a theory with our OBSERVATIONS or PREDICTIONS about this theory, with the theory's CHARACTERISTICS as they currently are observed or as we predict they will be in the future. This approach will stimulate important questions (about the process of setting goals and determining characteristics, and about the factors that influence our choice of evaluation criteria) and educationally productive discussions. { How do scientists design a theory? }
A "Design to Science" Bridge is explained in the next section.
A "Learning from Reality" Bridge: We can also see a useful transfer of skills from science to design. In a scientific reality check, sometimes there is a close match between predictions and observations, and this gives us confidence in the theory being tested. And when there is not a close match, this can help us change our thinking so it more closely corresponds with reality, which is very useful in science and design, in education and life.

Design before Science
Because design "includes almost everything in life," it's easy to find design projects that are fun-and-useful for a student, who is thus motivated to think and learn. The process of scientific thinking also becomes fun-and-useful when design and science are connected by using reality checks as a bridge. This bridge allows a smooth transition from design method to scientific method, which is introduced in a way that is easy, fun, and comfortable, not difficult, boring, and scary.
As a concept, Scientific Method is more familiar than Design Method. But as an activity, design is more familiar, for most students, in what they have experienced in the past and what they can imagine for the future. Because the everyday lives of students have been filled with design thinking, design makes a concrete connection with their past (so they can build on the foundation of what they already know) and with their future (so they will be motivated to learn skills that will help them achieve their own goals for life).
An Experience Bridge: If students understand and personally internalize these "past, present, and future" connections, they will be motivated to study design. And some of this motivation can be transfered to science. How? If we teach design before science, and we explain the similarities between design and science, we can create an experience bridge (from design to science) that connects experiences in design with experiences in science that are similar although not as familiar.

Similarities and Differences: When students study Design Method and Scientific Method together, they can understand the many similarities and differences between design and science, and between various types of design or types of science. It can be useful to understand and appreciate both similarities and differences. The similarities call attention to opportunities for transfer, and the differences help us appreciate the unique characteristics of each area. {the similarities and differences are examined in Design and Science}

Why should we teach Design Method before Scientific Method?

Why should we teach
Design Method
before
Scientific Method?