Using SOLO to structure Design Analysis

When my students choose to do Design and Visual Communication, I am not sure they are fully aware of how much written work we have to do. They choose Graphics for the drawing (obviously!!)
The analysis side of the work is always the hardest part that we have to do.

Our Year 10 students have started their NCEA Level 1 courses already, so they are now the Year 11's on their JumpStart four weeks at the end of the year.
Part of what I have set up for my group is some analysis exercises using SOLO as the structure to support it. I have broken the questions down into slowly increasing depth using the SOLO levels.
Here is the template with the questions ...


The exercise that we did first this week to start us off was to find a picture of a running shoe and post it into the class Google Plus Community. The notes they had to write with their post was answering the questions on the Unistructural page. They then had to write a comment on someone else's post answering the questions on the Multistructural page. I did this first / with them to give them some confidence. This is their first time in this class doing work in the community where everyone can see it. There was a little bit of nagging involved for some of them as they were hanging back, waiting, not posting. I have found this is normal as I have used the Google Plus communities for a couple of years now with my classes and they are always a little shy at first. They get over it fairly quickly when they realise that there is no judgement on what they post and we are helping each other out.  Here is an example of what we did on Friday. We only had a single period so only did the first two levels. Come and visit the community of you want to see more. As usual there is a post that is "outside of the box".. !!

Breaking Down the Standards ...

This year, I have been focussing a lot of time in breaking down the NCEA Design and Visual Communication standards. This came as a result of a slightly more "challenging" moderation report.

I have split the breakdown into achieved, merit and excellence, listing what all the words and terms mean (the standards are not written in the most student friendly way to be honest!! ), what they will do in the project to cover this and then where the resources are on the site.
This has been, first of all, extremely helpful for me to ensure that I am offering project tasks that allow the students to access excellence. It is then helpful for the students to know what the standards mean and what they have to do in their project work to ensure they are covering everything.

Here is a Level 1 standard :-

Architect Poster

AS91069

Promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication techniques

4 credits - Internal

Standard	What does it mean?	What will you do?	Resources
Achieved Promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication techniques. selecting and presenting the features of an organised body of work to an audience.	Promote - present the work in some way Organised - different parts working together as a whole Body of work - more than one piece of design work by your chosen designer Visual communication techniques - effective presentation of ideas using a range of methods - sketching, use of colour and tone, analysis … both drawn by hand and on the computer	Research pictures and information about your chosen architect. Highlight which key pieces of information you will use in your poster design. Use thumbnail sketching techniques to start to design the layout of your poster. Develop your design work using a computer application - making sure you are using a few examples of the designers work, not just one. Analyse the effect you have created with your layout developments. Produce a final poster using Adobe Illustrator. Write a final evaluation analysing your final poster.	Collecting images Collecting information Highlighting the important information Layout exercise Drawing thumbnail sketches Design Development Final Design
Merit Clearly promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication techniques. purposefully selecting and applying techniques to ensure layout, composition and visual impact are appropriate to the context of the brief and audience.	Clearly - easily seen and understood Purposefully - with thought, not by accident Select - choose from a number of options of techniques Layout - how things are arranged Composition - how the design is made from separate parts and how they work together. Visual Impact - how the design looks and the effect it has	Achieved plus :- Explain why you have chosen the images you have on your designs. Produce a write up that summarises the life and style of the architect’s work. Analyse your thumbnail sketches as to how you have arranged your layout. Use design language in analysis of work. Explain how design elements have been used to achieve the design developments. Final design is very clear to understand, to read, to see. It gives a clear explanation of the architect’s work to someone else.	Producing the write up Using key design terms to analyse a poster Analysing thumbnail sketches Writing design development analysis This level also depends on the quality of your work and on you showing your understanding of your Architect.
Excellence Effectively promote an organised body of design work to an audience using visual communication techniques. communicating a high quality presentation that is convincing, shows accuracy of layout, visual impact, and precise execution of techniques.	effectively - does the intended job very well convincing - the evidence is there that your architect’s work has been taken into account in the layout of your poster. accuracy - correctly laid out, with no errors. execution - the method you chose to produce your poster	Achieved and Merit plus :- Analyse the key points of the architect’s work and use these to explain their style. Use the style of the architect’s work to influence the design of the poster. Use design elements well in the layout of the design work.	Key points and analysis This level also depends on the quality of your work and on you showing your understanding of your Architect.

I have been rewriting my Level 2 DVC course from scratch and have decided to include 2 Generic Technology standards to work alongside the DVC standards. The work I have been doing this week on the first technology standard has been greatly helped by breaking the standard down in this way as it is my first time working with this standard.  It has made it very clear in my head what we have to do.

Here is the Level 2 standard I have been working on this week :-

Level 2 Product Design Project

AS91354

Undertake brief development to address an issue

4 credits - Internal

Standard	What does it mean?	What will you do?	Resources
Achieved Undertake brief development to address an issue. identifying an issue as a result of exploring the context determining a need or opportunity and associated stakeholders reflecting ongoing consideration of the social and physical environment where the outcome will be developed and situated reflecting ongoing key stakeholders’ opinions describing the outcome to be developed and explaining why such an outcome should be developed explaining the physical and functional attributes required for an outcome producing a final brief comprised of a conceptual statement and specifications.	Undertake - to do something Brief - a description of what the product should do to solve a problem Address - to deal with the problem Issue - the problem Identify - recognise / highlight Explore - find out more Context -  place / situation Need / Opportunity - the problem that is to be solved Determine - decide Stakeholder - the person / people who will use your design Reflect - show / think carefully Consideration - careful thinking Attribute - a quality / feature Physical - things you can see and touch Functional - how it works Conceptual - based on ideas	Visit the cafe and analyse what all the different areas are that could have design work completed Write a questionnaire to take with you to the meeting with your client Initial meeting with your client to find out what their needs are and what area of the cafe they want design work for List the social and physical environment elements that the design will be made for List the clients’ opinions as to why the design needs to be made Write a description of what the product is that is going to be designed and why it is needed List all the the attributes needed for the outcome based on the client needs - physical (where and how it will be used) and functional (how it works) Write a design brief that includes a statement of what is to be designed and  list of specification points that need to be included	Context analysis task Group ideas for questions Writing the questionnaire Presenting the answers from the questionnaire Mood boards about the possible design eras Social and physical environment Product description and attributes Design brief Specification
Merit Undertake in-depth brief development to address an issue. prioritising social and physical environmental considerations related to where the outcome will be developed and situated reflecting ongoing feedback from key and wider stakeholders.	In-depth - lots of detail Prioritising - deciding which bits are the most important	Achieved plus :- List the social and physical environment elements that the design will be made for in order of importance. Give reasons why they are in this order. Use a questionnaire to get feedback from the customers of the cafe about the needs of the client and how it affects them	Prioritising social and physical environment elements and giving reasons for choices Stakeholders opinions and needs
Excellence Undertake comprehensive brief development to address an issue. describing the outcome to be developed and justifying why that particular outcome should be developed justifying the specifications in relation to the physical and functional attributes required for an outcome.	Comprehensive - includes everything that is necessary Justify - give good reasons Specifications - detailed description / list based on needs and situation	Achieved and Merit plus :- Write a description of what the product is that is going to be designed and give reasons with evidence, why it is needed While writing the specifications, link them to the physical and functional attributes that you have stated already.	Product description and attributes - focus on the reasons why Specification - focus on linking the physical and functional attributes

Jump Start

We are starting Jump Start for our Year 10 students in 2 weeks. This is where they stop being Year 10's and start on their NCEA courses. They have done their options and with the seniors having left for exams, the timetable changes to next year's.
I have decided to make a new site dedicated to jump start.

I am designing it to be full of work and exercises that will give them the skills to get through Level 1 Design and Visual Communication.

• Sketching and rendering are important drawing skills to take them through any of their design projects. 
• The research and analysis tabs are the two areas that are key to getting their achievement up into the merit and excellence levels.
• The Google Plus Community is our place where we work together and support each other.
• Ako Ngatahi is a new idea for next year.  I want the students to start making the how to's and rewindable learning elements, as well as me. How we present this is up for grabs at the moment - blog, site YouTube channel - I haven't quite decided. 

This site is a work in progress at the moment but if you want to take a look, here is the link. I've got another week to get it complete.