Exploring Speculative Design-Based Teaching and Learning Methods in Technology Education

This study aims to explore the applicability of speculative design as a teaching–learning approach for fostering innovation in technology education and to derive implications for practice. To this end, the literature on teaching–learning methods used in technology subject education was reviewed. In addition, the cases of 21 teachers who implemented entrepreneurship education were qualitatively analyzed to identify the characteristics of innovation education, and these were reconstructed by linking teaching–learning strategies and activities from the perspective of speculative design. The findings are as follows. First, technology education enables learners to apply technical knowledge and skills to authentic problem solving and to embody their ideas as concrete outcomes through design and fabrication. However, teaching technological innovation requires organizing learning activities around “divergence and convergence,” distinguishing between “exploring and defining future problems” and, for the problems thus defined, “exploring solutions and carrying out technical implementation.” Second, in the entrepreneurship education cases, innovation education was categorized into a six-stage process, in which the scope of learning expanded from learners independently identifying what constitutes a problem or opportunity, to imagining new possibilities, and ultimately to translating these into action that creates new value for individuals and communities. Third, a teaching–learning method for technological innovation was proposed, comprising the stages of “problem/opportunity discovery, exploration of possibilities, generation of innovative ideas, concretization and implementation, value creation and sharing, and evaluation and reflection on impact.” Furthermore, rather than replacing existing teaching–learning methods in technology education, speculative design can serve as an approach that reframes current technological problems as explorations of possible futures, keeps the exploration of solutions open to diverse possibilities, and extends the evaluation of technical efficiency into reflection on the social value and desirability of technology. Based on these findings, further research is needed to develop a concrete speculative-design-based teaching–learning model and to verify its validity and educational effectiveness through field application.