Think about designing a course for teaching six-year-olds to tell the time. Let digital watches, cuckoo clocks and every other sort of clock chase each other through your mind . . . . Have you ever had to teach a child to tell the time? If so, what were the difficulties? What strategies would you think of using?
How would you test that the six-year-olds (by the end of the course) had learned what you wanted them to learn? Would you be content with having them demonstrate that they can ‘say’ what various times are on a clock they are shown, or would you want them also to tell you how many minutes there are in an hour and how many seconds there are in a minute, and so on?
In thinking about these things you are touching on the content of referent 2: the nth generation of the specified needs. The content of referent 2 is the design decision-maker’s current specification of what end goal needs to be met; what criteria can be used to test achievement of this goal; what concepts, principles, information, etc (i.e. course content) will be covered in reaching the goal; what method-and-media is needed; and what constraints must be taken into account. The word ‘current’ in this context is very important. The content of referent 2 changes subtly from moment to moment as the designer thinks up her or his plan, structure and strategy of instruction. Referent 2 is a sort of ‘databank’ which is constantly being corrected and updated as the ideas for a design ebb and flow and vibrate in the designer’s mind. In the Think Tank workshop, referent 2 is represented as in Fig. 5.
Figure 5 The Content of Referent 2
The first generation of data in referent 2 is the specification made in activity 3 in the cycle of course making activities (see Fig. 1). The succeeding generations (of which there can be many) are the result of the intuitive, creative and logical thinking of the designer as she or he thinks up a plan, structure and strategy of instruction (activity 4.1). The content of referent 2 at any moment in time can conveniently be labelled the nth generation of data in this databank. The arrows in Fig. 5 are there to remind you that the end goal, success criteria, content and method-and-media must always complement each other. The dashed outer lines are there to tell you that you have to make your design decisions within the limits imposed by identified constraints.
As with referent 1, it is important to make referent 2 work for you when thinking up a design. Go in and out of the referent as you need to. Make use of one or more or all of the five elements as you need to. Referent 2 contains the basic ingredient for your design decision-making. If you have to, go away from referent 2 for a time and think without it. Creativity needs lots of freedom. You’ll come back to referent 2 again in your own good time; when, for example, you need to check the logic of your creative thinking, or when you need to validate your intuitive thinking. Referent 2 is always ready to serve your decision-making. It is a tool for monitoring your logical thinking about a plan, structure and strategy of instruction.