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Not craft, not couture, not home sewing: teaching

creative patternmaking to the iPod generation
a
Susan P. Ashdown
a
Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design , Cornell University , Ithaca , NY , 14850 ,
USA
Published online: 06 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Susan P. Ashdown (2013) Not craft, not couture, not home sewing: teaching creative patternmaking
to the iPod generation, International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 6:2, 112-120, DOI:
10.1080/17543266.2013.793747

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 International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 2013
Vol. 6, No. 2, 112120, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2013.793747

Not craft, not couture, not home sewing: teaching creative patternmaking
to the iPod generation
Susan P. Ashdown
Department of Fiber Science and Apparel Design, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
(Received 24 October 2012; nal version received 7 March 2013 )

Students in apparel programmes today are denizens of a world of computers, social media, and popular culture manifestations
such as Project Runway. They have a dierent focus and dierent expectations and skills than students from previous
generations. Current textbooks and teaching methods for apparel patternmaking were developed by and for these previous
generations, and are rooted in the era of home economics. As educators we need to rethink how we introduce students to
creative technical apparel design. The methods discussed here were developed over the last 30 years and evolved based on
Downloaded by [Vienna University Library] at 03:42 07 April 2015

frequent student feedback. Teaching methods that resonate best with current students emphasise the conceptual, visual, and
practical; they focus on the creative process and individual development. Exercises are important, but only to introduce basic
concepts. Assignments quickly shift to individual creative projects. Technology skills are increasingly important, but the
teachers role is to guide and assess the learning process.
Keywords: teaching technical design; teaching creativity; digital native; apparel patternmaking; apparel construction

1. Introduction should march in good order through the streets . . . naked,

Student involvement in technical apparel design has shifted
over the last 30 years, as changes have occurred in the
students, the apparel industry, and educational institutions.
Students have dierent expectations, skills, and attributes
than they did in the 1970s and 1980s, when many of the
current generation of professors was educated, yet little has
changed in teaching methods. Eective teaching of the mod-
ern student of technical apparel design engages students in
such a way that the topic is perceived as providing useful
skills, as having value for their own goals and passions, and
as an exciting endeavour requiring creativity. To achieve
this, we require a shift in focus and a better understanding
of the student of today.
2. Teaching and learning in the twenty-rst century
Teaching has always been an eort of communication
between generations, as each generation attempts to pass
on knowledge from their reality to the next, often using the
teaching methods experienced when they were students. For
example, consider this quote from Aristophanes satirical
play Clouds written in 423 BC:
I will, therefore, describe the ancient system of education,
. . . when I ourished in the advocacy of justice, and tem-
perance was the fashion. In the rst place it was incumbent
that no one should hear the voice of a boy uttering a sylla-
ble; and next, that those from the same quarter of the town
and in a body, even if it were to snow as thick as meal.
(Aristophanes, Cl. 961 see Hickie [1853])
Over time this process of education has served us well,
as good and progressive teachers make the incremental
changes in their teaching methods that reect changes in
society. Their methods are adopted in turn by the next gen-
eration. However, the extent of social and technological
changes (as well as the rate of change) in the last 30 years
have been by far the most rapid and disruptive of the sta-
tus quo than those of any other era of history. Some debates
about the technologies that have driven the shift to a digital
world claim this change was not incremental, like changes
in the past, but that it represents a discontinuity or even
a singularity a phenomenon of technological accelera-
tion causing an eventual unpredictable outcome in society
(Prensky, 2010; Wikipedia. Technological singularity)
Starting with young people known as generation Y (the
Millennials) and generation Z (the Digital Natives), and
looking forward to generation AO (the Always-On Gener-
ation) each successive cohort of young adults has grown up
in a vastly dierent reality than the one before (Wikipedia.
Generation). The Mindset List developed at Beloit Col-
lege in the late 1990s in response to rapid changes in
freshman students attitudes and expectations gives edu-
cators insights into the worldview of incoming classes
an acknowledgment that the life experiences of each group
of incoming students diers signicantly, and requires a

Email: spa4@cornell.edu

2013 Taylor & Francis

 International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education
dierent approach in order to introduce them to a new world
of serious learning. The class of 1996 (born in 1978) was
described as a cohort for whom There have always been
57 channels and nothin on (television) and Analog tech-
nology is as quaint to them as horse-drawn carriages were to
their grandparents (McBride & Nief, 2011, p. 182). When
they were born computers were primitive tools, generally
without monitors and only used by government agencies,
researchers, or businesses. By the time they were in middle
school home computers were the norm, and the Internet was
introduced when they entered high school (McBride & Nief,
2011, p. 186). Eighteen years later, the characterisation of
the class of 2009 (born in 1991) is even more disruptive of
the norms of their professors. Most of them have never actu-
ally dialed a telephone, few of them have ever written
a letter, and they cannot gure out why anyone would ever
bother to print out a whole set of encyclopedias (McBride
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& Nief, 2011, p. 219).
Generation AO, those born at the turn of the twenty-rst
century, who will reach college age within the next decade,
are predicted to be skillful multitaskers, will use the Internet
as an external brain, and be conditioned to expect instant
response to their needs and quick xes to problems. If cur-
rent attitudes continue they will be perceived as lacking
patience and deep thinking ability that will impede their
ability to learn (Wikipedia. Generation).
Prensky, an innovator in the eld of education who pop-
ularised the terms digital natives (modern students) and
digital immigrants (those of us who grew up in a non-
digital world) maintains that modern students are indeed
dierent. He believes that due to the inuences that shaped
them they may even think and process information fun-
damentally dierently from their predecessors (Prensky,
2010, p. 3). He has conducted extensive interviews with stu-
dents, and believes that there is a mismatch between current
teaching methods and the expectations shaped by students
digital immersion. He believes that students choose not to
pay attention to an educational process perceived as not
worthwhile to them, compared to the way they experience
life outside the classroom. He points out that they will often
concentrate very well on extra-curricular activities, such as
computer games. According to Prensky Theyve been net-
worked most or all of their lives. They have little patience
for lectures, step-by-step logic, and tell-test instruction
(Prensky, 2010, p. 3).
Prensky (2012) also conceives of the emerging rela-
tionship between the individual and the digital world as
introducing a major change in the way we think and store
information. In his book, Technology and the Quest for Dig-
ital Wisdom Prensky hypothesises: . . . our brains power
is growing externally, through a new symbiosis with our
technology (Prensky, 2012: Kindle location 73 of 5818).
Humans can now concentrate more, calculate more, ana-
lyze more, connect more, communicate more, and create
more than ever before all because of technology (Prensky,
2012: Kindle location 97 of 5818). We need to nd ways
113
to engage and apply these enhanced capabilities in our own
eld of apparel technology; a dicult task for those of us
raised in a dierent reality.
Fecho (2011) describes the issues as a need to shift
from the banking model of education, rst expressed by
Freire (1970) whereby the teacher deposits information in
the students heads with regular withdrawal of informa-
tion through testing, to a new system designed to prepare
students for a world that is evolving at the speed of imag-
ination. He frames this as a process whereby we teach
meaning making instead of meaning inheriting.
Prensky (2010) discusses attention spans in reference to
students experiences outside the classroom. These extra-
curricular experiences consist of interactions with expen-
sively produced media focused on providing individual
experiences. This results in a lack of interest in the kinds of
experiences a teacher can provide in the classroom, includ-
ing a lack of tolerance for telling and testing models of
teaching. In an extensive series of informal interviews with
students he explored their expectations; students want an
education that addresses real issues. They want to con-
nect, to cooperate, to share control and to make decisions,
to create with their own tools, to discover and follow their
own passions, to be respected, to be trusted, and to have
their opinions valued. They do not want to be lectured to.
Prensky also talks about students as rockets, and the teacher
as a programmer who sends students o into a future that
will continue to change at ever increasing rates. In his view,
the job of the teacher is to ask good questions, to provide
context, to set standards and to evaluate the quality of the
work. He sees student responsibilities as nding and follow-
ing their passion, learning to use technology, doing research,
answering questions and sharing, practicing skills, and com-
municating their work eectively. He cites the commonly
quoted estimate that it takes roughly 10,000 hours (or alter-
natively10 years) to become an expert, and therefore that
the ability of a student to nd their passion and apply them-
selves to this eort is essential to sustain them through this
process of learning to the point of expertise in their eld
(Prensky, 2010).
The Buck Institute for Education lists the skills that
they consider critical for a twenty-rst century citizen
on their website. These critical skills are media literacy,
technological literacy, critical thinking (problem solving),
creative thinking, communication and collaboration, cross
cultural skills, leadership and social skills, the ability to self-
monitor, project management, ethics, and accountability for
high standards. They advocate project-based learning as a
method to engage the modern student, and to develop these
skills (Buck Institute for Education, 2012).
3. Design theory and teaching technical apparel
design
According to fashion designer Galliano The most excit-
ing discoveries, the marvelous moments arent with the
 114 S.P. Ashdown
sketchbook, but in the making (McDowell, 1997). The pro-
cess of creative design, in any eld, is similar. Wallas (1926)
describes four stages in the creative process: research,
incubation, illumination, and verication. Adams (1986)
describes the creative process as the ability to think and see
from dierent perspectives. This process is often charac-
terised as something not accessible through rational thought
processes, but relying on an intuitive leap without a clear
source of knowledge. The creative process will often not
be clear to the designer, who will not be consciously aware
of the source of the idea (Genter, 1989). Lieberman (1977)
emphasises the combination and re-combination of knowl-
edge in the creative process, and describes a process of
imaginatively twisting facts into dierent combinations,
the way a kaleidoscope shifts objects. Lacroix and Mau-
ris (1992) characterised the design process as a complex
alchemy of rich oppositions, in which one creates by
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combining things that are normally contrasted. Labat and
Sokolowski (1999) characterise the apparel design process
and creativity, placing the stage of creative exploration and
ideation after problem identication and research into user
needs.
Teaching creativity is a dicult (perhaps impossible)
task, but introducing students to a variety of perspec-
tives, showing them where they are limited by their own
preconceptions, teaching them the value of research, and
encouraging their imagination can help them foster their
natural creativity. Keeping project challenges open and
encouraging them to continue to think beyond their rst
solution can also provide an environment in which they can
learn how to approach technical tasks creatively.
4. Current practices in technical apparel design
Topics encompassed in technical apparel design include
traditional patternmaking, computer-aided patternmaking,
grading, an understanding of apparel t and proportion and
how to achieve it, material properties and performance,
product development processes, industrial sewing methods
and manufacturing processes, and appropriate communica-
tion methods for product development. The curriculum is
not perceived as real by students. It is often derived from
earlier Home Economics initiatives designed to enable
women to provide clothing for their families aordably,
through a combination of consumer skills and the develop-
ment of sewing skills that allowed women to make and alter
garments for their families. Patternmaking often focuses on
custom t only, using a couture model that is seen as the
key to maintaining quality. Knitting, dying, surface design,
and ber art techniques are taught using the model of a
craftsperson making one-of-a-kind objects. Product devel-
opment skills and more relevant industry concepts are often
taught separately in a classroom setting, rather than a studio.
Current methods used to introduce students to these
skills are primarily teach and tell methods. Some work
has been done in our eld to explore and test other methods
of teaching, including use of animation software (Boorady
& Hawley, 2008; Boorady, Hawley, & Schoeld, 2011)
and use of 3D virtual simulation of garments (Park, Kim,
& Sohn, 2011) in teaching patternmaking. Work has also
been done on understanding essential skills and capabili-
ties needed and learned in technical apparel design such as
special visualisation skills (Gitmiu & Workman, 2008).
Students often approach technical design classes with
excitement and anticipation, only to be bogged down by
activities that they nd tedious and unrewarding. With no
prior experience in how to learn technical skills (unrelated to
their familiar digital world), they lose interest and miss the
opportunity to develop these skills. If they can be introduced
to this process in a way that encourages their initial excite-
ment the development of appropriate skills will reward them
with a feeling of competence and eventually an ability to
engage creatively in the apparel design process.
Digital technologies such as computer-aided design
(CAD) patternmaking can be poorly understood and mis-
trusted by the professor who is a digital immigrant with
habits and understanding developed in a dierent reality.
When a technology is unfamiliar, it is easier to focus on
what can be lost in the translation from manual methods,
instead of how to maintain quality and reap the benets
of the CAD process. When new technologies are taught,
the teaching methods are frequently lecture based. Digital
technologies are perceived as additional material that must
be taught in an already crowded curriculum instead of an
essential tool of the emerging generation.
An important factor that must be addressed is continual
assessment of which topics are real and current in the mod-
ern world. Information needs to be well connected to topics
that relate to students ultimate goals. This is a signicant
issue because I think you need to know this does not,
and should not carry much weight given the complexity of
the modern world students have more demands on their
time and attention and should be ltering their own need
to know. This ltering process itself is an increasingly
important skill in their world.
5. Teaching technical design to the digital native:
thoughts for a new approach
Some of the teaching methods discussed here have been
developed over a teaching career of 30 years, based on fre-
quent student feedback (sometimes mid-semester). Meth-
ods have been changed in response to student comments
over the years, new educational theories, and emerging tech-
nologies. This is not intended to be a proscriptive set of
teaching methods, but as a suggestion of ways to resonate
better with current student skills and expectations.
5.1. Teaching visually
The current student is exposed to an endless array of
images that convey powerful emotions, comprehensive
 International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education
information, and a variety of experiences with a force and
clarity far surpassing images from previous decades. These
images are created by professionals who devote their lives
to this process in moviemaking, game development, and
advertising using enormous budgets and powerful and e-
cient technologies. It is no wonder that students have little
patience with lessons from a traditional patternmaking book
with two dimensional, obscure line drawings, or a product
development textbook that is dense on text, and is often
outdated by the time it is published. The quandary for the
professor is how to compete with the rich visual world the
student experiences. One strategy is to bring as many pow-
erful images as possible into the classroom from the work
of current designers from the Internet or fashion journalism,
relating them to current topics of discussion.
However, it is a time consuming process to locate eec-
tive images for the specic topics under discussion. In this
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case having students do the research to locate images may
be an eective strategy, and will also teach them to look
beyond the overall eect of a design to the technical struc-
ture that creates the eect. This involves the student actively
in the learning process, rather than feeding them with those
examples considered appropriate by the professor. Provid-
ing context to the images brought in by the students will
give them information about the history and structure of
the industry that they lack, and will make the images they
locate more meaningful. Indeed, if they are in control of
nding images they will gravitate to the ones that are per-
sonally meaningful and can be guided to nd relevant
historical pattern sources, even books that they would reject
if introduced as a textbook.
Creating a set of teaching videos that the students can
review, fast forward to points that they missed, and follow
as they experiment with a technique can be an eective
visual strategy for teaching draping or construction meth-
ods. Students can use this technology engendered resource
in the place of notes taken in class, or the line drawings and
words from a textbook. However, the creation of a set of
videos that is used over again can quickly engender a loss
of interest, as they will lose relevance to a specic class. A
better strategy is to video a demonstration and discussion
of the technique during the class, drawing on specic stu-
dent responses and interactions with the class, creating a
personal resource which students can relate to and refer to
as they try the technique on their own.
When choosing textbooks, we often look for compre-
hensive texts that detail every technique that we wish our
students to master, but this encyclopedic information is
often presented at the cost of a more eective presenta-
tion for the student. Books that emphasise basic concepts,
and that trace relationships and that emphasise the gar-
ment/body relationship may resonate more with current
students than compilations of techniques. Some exam-
ples include Fabric, Form, and Flat Pattern Cutting by
Aldrich and Aldrich (original edition 1996, newest edition
2007), a book that explores the relationship between fabric
115
properties and garment silhouette. The newest edition of
this book also has instructions for using new technologies
to duplicate patterns in the book for development and exper-
imentation. Integrating Draping, Drafting, and Drawing by
Abling and Maggio (2009) is a visually oriented book that
shows the 2D pattern, the process of draping on a 3D form,
and the 2D illustration in the form of a at of many gar-
ment styles. This addresses issues of communication using
the croquis at, and shows the direct relationships between
the 2D and 3D form. A new publication, Patternmaking by
Lo (2011) includes many visual images that illustrate basic
concepts with an appealing directness and an eective con-
ceptual viewpoint. Pattern shapes are related to the body
with line drawings superimposed over photographs, a clear
and eective visualisation.
5.2. Teaching conceptually
The individual technique or sampler method of teaching
skills one-by-one and in isolation, in a sampler strategy
has other problems. Students only have the instructors word
that these are indeed important skills. Many of them have
been passed down in textbooks and syllabi from year to year,
with little thought to their relevance to current practice, and
no thought to the conceptual basis of the techniques.
Students taught in this manner are not introduced to
the creativity of technical apparel design. Students who are
guided to understand the conceptual basis of the eld have a
better opportunity to understand the importance of the inter-
action of the moving body, the garment silhouette (formed
by the pattern), the fabric, and the fabrication method. They
can then begin to understand the great complexity, the need
for creative solutions, and the enjoyment inherent in solv-
ing technical challenges. Quotes from the great designers of
the past and present that express these conceptual issues can
also help them to understand the place of technical apparel
design in the creative process.
A better strategy for teaching, rather than the laundry
list of techniques developed by the professor, might be
a guided discussion at the beginning of the semester on
what techniques the class feels are important, exploring
the conceptual basis for each one along the way. Though
the class might not opt to explore every technique, they
will be invested in the ones that the class adopts, and if
they learn how to learn, they can teach themselves other
techniques as needed. Having each student discover, learn,
and demonstrate a technique to the class as a whole could
also foster this process. Teaching conceptually, instead of
just presenting techniques in isolation invests each tech-
nique with importance beyond the present example, and
helps students learn the context of each example. Some
ideas for patternmaking concepts might include: follow-
ing the contours of the body (adding darts and seams),
capturing shape and maintaining it through the construc-
tion process (truing, notches, and seam allowances), tting
the body or dress form (ease, line, grain, balance, and set),
 116 S.P. Ashdown
maintaining the garment silhouette while choosing dierent
style lines (shifting darts and seams), tting active body
parts (creating sleeve and pants patterns), adding fullness
(gathers, air, pleats, and cowls), creating shape within the
fabric panels (eased seams and tailoring techniques), and
interactions between fabric and form (bias cut and fabric
properties). Construction concepts might include joining
fabric (various seaming techniques), nishing the edges
from which the garment falls (facings and interfacings),
creating edges that fall from the garment (hems), fasten-
ing the garment (zippers, buttons and buttonholes, hooks
and eyes, and snaps), care and durability issues (nish-
ing seams and creating linings), etc. Of course, these ideas
can be then extended into product development concepts
that address issues such as grading for ready-to-wear siz-
ing, marker making for resource use and cost control, and
seam and stitch identication for manufacturability and
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communication.
5.3. Teaching the real and immediate
One of the biggest challenges facing the professor of tech-
nical apparel design skills is in engaging the students
understanding of the importance of the needed skills, con-
vincing them to invest the time needed to master skills
that may be highly frustrating to practice at rst, and to
understand how these skills will help them achieve their
ultimate goals. Students in a university setting may not
use construction skills on a daily basis when they reach
their ultimate career path yet we maintain that they will
benet from knowing them for portfolio building, and for
understanding the relationship between skilled patternmak-
ing/construction and a successful clothing design. Apparel
design is the only one of the design elds (architecture, inte-
rior design, landscape design, or even product design) in
which the designer can actually make practically anything
he or she can conceive with their own hands. This gives the
designer ultimate control over a highly complex product,
in which the appropriate choices of fabric, patternmaking
and t, and construction can spell the dierence between a
masterpiece and a disaster. This knowledge, acquired in a
personal way, can give them the tools needed to make deci-
sions of all kinds in the industry setting in their eventual
career path. Yet when a student faces a sewing machine, or
muslin and a dress form for the rst time, particularly stu-
dents whose only manual skill is texting, it can be a dicult
task to convince them that they can and should work to gain
these skills.
One place to look for rapid, satisfying methods of teach-
ing construction skills is on the factory oor. Apparel
manufacturing is notorious as an industry for which oper-
ators can be taught quickly to create high quality products
using manual techniques. Of course, teaching the range of
skills to create a full garment is another issue, but people all
over the world who have never even seen a sewing machine
are taught the basics of sewing very quickly. Should we be
teaching university students antiquated skills that do not
relate directly to modern patternmaking and construction?
Should they be drafting on paper from body measurements,
and pinning seams to sew? These techniques tend to foster
little understanding of garment t, grain, fabric proper-
ties, and how to create a quality result with the minimum
of handling. They are also tedious skills to teach and to
learn. Instead, why not let them learn to manipulate fab-
ric by draping, and use industry construction methods and
machines, handling the fabric as they create seams without
pins? Industry techniques are perceived as more relevant,
and facilitate learning of necessary construction skills in
a reasonable time frame. Domestic techniques could be
reserved for dicult fabrics and those techniques that are
not easy to learn using industry methods.
One strategy to engage student understanding of this
process is to set up a Saturday Factory a one day project
where students learn one simple step in a manufacturing
line, and repeat it for a four-hour period to create an actual
product. Products with a social benet are popular with stu-
dents (Charity projects such as feminine hygiene products
for Days for Girls and garments for Dress a Girl Around
the World are good examples.) Students will gain facil-
ity handling fabric, will learn what it feels like to develop
a manual skill through repetition, and will understand the
bundle system of manufacture rst-hand.
5.4. Teaching by fostering individual passions
Perhaps, a students most important task is to learn to nd
their own passion, so that this can drive their need to know
and learn appropriate skills. This can turn a student into an
avid searcher for the knowledge and skills that they need to
accomplish their goals, instead of a grudging sample maker.
If, after learning a set number of basic skills agreed on by the
class, students then each design their own projects, research-
ing the steps needed to complete the project, learning new
skills as needed, with the extra incentive of creating their
own unique product they will have the incentive to put in
the hard work to produce a quality item.
Reducing the amount of time and resources to create
eective patterns can help keep student interest high. Cre-
ating half-scale models has been a popular technique since
Madame Vionnet used them to create her elegant and beauti-
fully patterned bias cut gowns, but now technology exists to
derive the best benet from a half-scale dress form. Body
scan technology is now used to create digital 3D models
that can be produced in any scale, with exact proportions.
Patterns generated in the computer can also be scaled, so
that half-scale prototypes created and tted as initial pro-
totypes can be scaled up for further development on a full
scale form. Alvanon, a dress form manufacturer, has cre-
ated exact half-scale models of their forms for several years
(Alvanon) (Figure 1).
A runway showing of completed projects at the end of
every semester can also be a good incentive for students
 International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education 117
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Figure 1. CAD and the availability of half-scale forms that reect true dimensions of the full scale form reduce the time and materials
needed to experiment with dierent pattern shapes.

Figure 2. Second semester freshmen students designs in a hallway runway show, showing a range of design concepts each reecting
the individuals passion.

to invest more time and energy into their projects. Even
a simple hallway show, in which students model for one
another and for an audience of their peers, can give the
projects an added level of relevance and excitement that
drives learning, increases involvement and feeds student
passion for creation and display (Figure 2).
5.5. Setting standards and teaching quality
According to Prensky (2010), a key task of the educator
is to set standards and to evaluate the quality of the work
done by students, and this is a key concept for developing
technical designers. It is important to teach quality at every
stage of the process. If a draping student is taught to pin-test
their draped pieces for correct grain and balance, for correct
seam angles, and for correct ease on the mannequin, then
the modications needed to achieve good t will be second
nature to them when they t their designs in nal fabric onto
a live model.
However, the relevance of each quality step should be
carefully assessed before adding it as a requirement. Some
couture level techniques, though undoubtedly contributing
 118
to a high quality garment, do so at the cost of tedious hours
spent with very little gained ultimately in the wearable gar-
ment. Again, the apparel industry can be a good model for
setting the appropriate balance between garment quality and
time spent. Other techniques can be sought to yield eective
methods of maintaining quality within a realistic timeframe.
One place to look for creative methods of making gar-
ments is in the top costuming shops for theater, movies, or
other performances (for example, Cirque du Soleil). Meth-
ods used in these shops can contribute ideas that t well in
the process of a designers task of prototyping their designs,
at an interface between custom creation and manufacturing.
5.6. Teaching technology
The use of CAD in every stage of the technical designers
process is critical to the next generation of apparel prac-
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titioners. Every stage of apparel production from design,
through product development, patternmaking, manufactur-
ing, and distribution is driven by technology. Yet, it can
be dicult for those of us who have not grown up with
computers to understand the value of these technologies,
and to incorporate them into our already crowded curricu-
lum. Learning new technologies ourselves can be dicult
and time consuming. Understanding what students need to
know about them is even more dicult.
Figure 3. This novelty cup from the 1990s still captures the essential truth about computer use the computer cannot substitute for basic
understanding (cup from Russ Companies, led for bankruptcy in 2011).
S.P. Ashdown
Until recent times, technologies could be taught using
traditional methods. When programs were DOS based, and
students did not know how to use a mouse, then tell and
test methods were appropriate. Teachers could keep ahead
of the students, and be the technology expert. However,
now that CAD software is frequently updated making con-
tinuous learning the norm for all technology users, and now
that students are arriving with high-level computer skills
built on years of use in a variety of situations, new strate-
gies are needed. Prensky (2010) discusses this issue. In his
opinion, it is neither practical nor necessary that the teacher
be the technology expert that it is the students job to learn
and use the technology, and the teachers job to ask good
questions, provide context, make meaning, and set stan-
dards. He advocates appointing the most technically savvy
students in the class as assistants, who can address technical
problems and teach needed skills to both students and the
teacher. Todays students have the skills to learn new tech-
nologies, honed in the real world, often to a greater extent
than many of their teachers.
The task of the professor should be to develop an under-
standing of the place of technology in the industry, while
crafting experiences that give it context, demonstrating both
strengths and weaknesses. For example, printing a digitised
and trued pattern and comparing it to the original draped ver-
sion can show subtle changes that can occur in curves and
 International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education
in the balance of the pattern. Teaching students how to pre-
serve the t of the pattern throughout the truing and grading
process provides the context that they need to understand
the use of CAD. The important lesson is that the computer
cannot create a quality result only the operator can control
this process (Figure 3).
6. Results: responses of students
Most students have responded well to these teaching meth-
ods, though they were sometimes challenged by the non-
traditional approach. Comments from a draping class in
response to The best aspect of this course is: show that
they appreciate being taught from a conceptual basis:
(The professor) is a very knowledgeable educator who
pushes her students to understand the basis of draping. She
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focuses more on the foundation rather than more complex
ideas, encouraging students to focus on perfecting their
base.
They also respond well to the use of industrial techniques,
and the videos:
I also appreciated how (the professor) understands how
things are sewn in real life (serging, etc.) and is open to
students using industrial techniques. The videos were also
incredibly helpful.
The remnants of the teach and tell style of teaching got the
most criticism, as this response to the question The worst
aspect of this class is: shows:
The lectures that didnt need an hour and a half some
lectures should have been segmented or cut entirely.
Responses to the introduction of a project in technology
that relied on the students to teach themselves indicate
that this was not successful, as can be seen from this
comment:
The project should not have been the students guring out a
program because the professor didnt understand it herself.
However, this could be a response to how project was
introduced and judged. Focusing the class and assessment
on the learning process, not the project, and setting up a
system that allows better communication among students
could change this outcome. One constraint is the arrange-
ment of the computer lab with desks set in rows facing
the front, making student interaction dicult. Developing
a method to connect the students despite the environment is
critical.
Overall, the reduction in lecture and teach and tell
methods, the focus on teaching the students how to learn,
and helping students nd their passion as the driving force
has been a useful shift in teaching methods, which has
resulted in greater student successes, as well as a more
interesting teaching experience.
However, these methods are not proposed as a model
for teaching, but as a guide towards developing appropriate
119
ideas that will resonate with other cohorts of students, or
with new generations. Developing a culture of collaboration
in the teaching and learning process will provide a sce-
nario in which frequent feedback from students can reveal
which methods and projects work well, and which ones
need revision. We cannot know whether the current shift
to ever increasing use of digital technologies will continue
to impact teaching and learning styles. We can only guess
what will shape future students, and how we will need to
respond. Perhaps, the current shift to local, more meaningful
and sustainable clothing forms will initiate a change in our
industry. A parallel to the growth of community-supported
agriculture and eat local initiatives in the agricultural
community is possible. A corresponding interest in local
clothing-making could drive a shift back to a more craft-
based paradigm that could resonate with young people and
awaken interest to a dierent culture and dierent values.
Whatever happens in the future, our task as teachers is not
to download a set curriculum of information to students,
but to understand, engage, and guide our rocket students
to their future. Understanding this will keep our attention
and our eorts focused on the needs of the students as they
change.
Acknowledgements
Many talented undergraduate students and graduate teaching
assistants have contributed to this work.
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