The students are brought together to be shown a Google Drawing that will be shared with them via the class site.
The purpose of this is to get them used to picking out key items of information from written text that they see on the internet.
This is to prepare them for next year when they are going to be collecting information about their architect and they need to pick out key points that they can use.
These are examples of student work that they created on the day.
This video shows sort clips of a few students talking about their work.
Lesson Topic :- Understanding Written Research - Introduction
Year Group :- Year 11 (Jump Start )
Learning Outcome
To be able to read a piece of information from the internet and use SOLO structure to help them IDENTIFY elements, see where design work is DESCRIBED and see where decisions are EXPLAINED.
Students can identify the elements in the text where the design and the materials used are identified.
Students can read through the information given and can highlight the areas that list and describe elements in the text.
Students can analyse the information given and can explain why they are highlighting the parts that they are.
They can start to question what they are reading as to what they don’t understand.
Students complete the reading and evaluate it so they can highlight all of the areas needed. They reflect on what they have read and pull out the words that they do not know and add them to the Answer Garden.
The students will look at the words in the Answer Garden in detail and work through finding out what they mean as a class / team.
Reflection and Analysis
What went well.
The students worked well in their pairs to do the exercise. They read through the given text well and making them highlight sections ensured that they read through it more than once looking for specific elements.
This was the first time trying this kind of activity, and they responded well and understood why we were doing it and how it would positively impact their project work in the long run.
What still needs work.
Should I choose the teams / pairs or let them work with who they are comfortable with?
Some teams are more on to it than others so the makeup of the teams has an impact.
I only got them to highlight a couple of key things in this initial exercise. Can I get the same impact if they are looking for a longer list of things from the same text?
The students are advised to get out their work on design elements, their sketches from their architect's work and their concept thumbnail sketches. They will refer to these to produce their design development layouts. These developments will be in the form of cut out coloured paper to represent the different elements of the poster designs. They are encouraged to use the shapes and design elements from the architect to guide their work as this will help them to get merit and excellence for their project.
This is the second lesson direct instruction where the teacher is reminding the students about using the design elements they have been looking at and explaining about recording themselves analysing what they have done.
This is a short video showing one of the one to one sessions with the students that happened as we went along with the lesson.
Student Created Content
Here are some of the students talking about their design developments.
The focus was to be on why they did the layout like they did and how it relates to the work and design style of the architect they have chosen to look at.
Students will use the elements given to identify the main elements in a poster design in a very basic way.
Students can combine the given elements together to create layouts for posters and can describe the effect that they achieve.
Students can relate the design elements they see in their architect’s work to their poster layouts.
They can analyse how they use the design elements so they create an effect that compares to the style of their chosen designer.
The students will shape and arrange the elements in ways that complement and reflect the architect’s design style to create design layouts. They can clearly reflect on what, why and how they have done this.
Thinking - look at their chosen architect and think about where design elements are seen in the work.
Using language, symbols, and texts - using simple shape elements to represent items in a design to think about layout in a simple way.
Managing self - using their own thumbnail layout sketches to produce developments. Keeping themselves on task.
Participating and contributing - Joining in the conversation about layout at the start of the lesson. Competing layout designs and sharing these into the class community.
Relating to others - helping others where needed to keep them up to date.
Prior knowledge
The students have drawn from pictures of their architect’s work, looking specifically for line, shape, form and pattern.
We have all worked on illustrated design words.
The students have all produced thumbnail sketches of layouts as the starting point for their poster layouts.
Lesson Sequence
Session Outline
The students will be cutting out pieces of coloured paper to represent different elements of poster design layouts. These will be the overall poster shape and proportion, the images, the information and the main title. These will be in reference to the design elements that they have drawn from their architects work, the design elements they have been drawing and the thumbnail concept layouts they have been doing.
Student Activity
Teacher Activity
The students sit together to listen to the instruction session from the teacher.
Respond and ask questions where needed during this session.
While working, the students will be referring to their previous work - drawings of the work of their chosen architect, design word illustrations and thumbnail concept sketches - to get ideas and starting points for their design developments.
Explain to the students all together about the different coloured paper elements they will be using for their layout work.
Demonstrate briefly how to produce a layout to the whole class.
Monitor individual progress as they are working to make sure they are clear about what they have to do.
Photograph completed layouts as they are done and upload them to the class community for all of the class to see.
Encourage and support the creation of analysis videos as the students reach that stage.
The students will be using the coloured paper to cut out the shape and proportion of the image and information elements of the poster layouts. These will be put onto the background white piece which will also have been cut to shape and size.
Stick all the elements down to save the layouts.
Hold the layouts up in front of an iPad and video an explanation and reflection of their layout design.
Make 3 different layouts in this same way and record them all.
Share the photograph of their layouts into the class Google Plus Community for the whole class to see each other’s layout ideas.
Share the videos of their explanations into the class Google Plus Community so the whole class can listen to the reasons for the layout designs.
Look at everyone else's layout designs in the class community and watch the videos of their explanations.
Resources
White paper
Blue and green paper
Scissors
Glue
Pencils
Rulers
Sketchbooks
Access to online to view design elements and pictures of architects work.
Next Steps
Use these simple layout structures to help them start layout developments on the computer.
Reflection and Analysis
What went well.
The layouts are really starting to reflect the style of the chosen architects so I think that letting them think in simple colour blocks like this is working. They are applying the design words / elements well that we have been talking about and I can hear them speak the right words as they are discussing their work with each other.
This is a good start to Level 1 using the correct terminology from the start, then they can include it in their analysis write ups later in the course.
What still needs work.
This was the first time for the class to make videos of themselves talking about their work, so they were quite shy about it. This also took a long time as they needed to redo and hide in corners to do it.
Some students had not completed many hand drawn thumbnail sketch layouts, so had to spend a little time catching up on this before they could start on the development layouts.
As we move into next year and our whole staff having to be public with their inquiries, I have been thinking about how to simplify things about inquiry so I can help in a more structured way.
I like using an app called Mind Node to get thoughts down, so this is my first attempt at simplifying things down to the basic steps that can be fleshed out as confidence grows.
The start of the lesson is the students sat at the front for about 10 minutes of the double period (100 minutes). They are listening to the teacher go over the activity that they will be doing for the double period so they are clear what they have to do.
The activity involves them choosing 6 of the provided design terms and illustrating them visually.
They can either illustrate with a found image or they can draw their own illustrations.
Direct Instruction video
The students are round one table listening to the instructions for the first part of the lesson.
It is just the teacher talking with not a lot of interaction between the students for about 10 minutes. The interaction came during the lesson as they were getting on with their work and discussions were had between each other and the teacher.
This video shows a speeded up version of the ongoing lesson. Here you can see the students getting on with their work and interacting with the teacher as they move around the room offering support where needed.
Here are some of the students explaining their work as they do it.
This is the presentation that was shared with the students in the class community so they have an example of each word to look at.
These are the images used for the explanation at the start.
Level 1 Google Plus Community
Lesson Topic :- Design Word Illustration
Year Group :- Year 11 (Jump Start )
Learning Outcome
The students will understand the meaning of a set selection of design words.
They will be able to illustrate these design words so they can see their meanings in a visual way.
Illustrate 2 or 3 design words from the list with images sourced online. These images identify the main meaning of the word.
Illustrate all of the design words from the list with image that describes the meaning of the words in a design sense.
Illustrate all of the design words on the list with images that are found or drawn. These images clearly explain how the word is used in a design sense and how it can be used to compare the design element in a design.
Illustrate all of the design words with drawn images that they have created themselves. The work shows that the student can use the word in context when reflecting on a design.
Thinking - decide how they want to illustrate the selected words so the meaning is visually clear.
Using language, symbols, and texts - understand the meaning of a word and represent that meaning visually.
Managing self - Staying on task and thinking of own ideas to illustrate the words.
Participating and contributing - joining in the group chat with ideas.
Relating to others - helping others out with ideas where needed. Respecting each other’s different ideas.
Prior knowledge
The students have analysed movie posters using a set of design words.
The students have drawn where some basic design elements are in their chosen architects work.
Lesson Sequence
Session Outline
The students will look at a presentation of examples of illustrated design words. They will then make their own presentation using the same design words but finding their own illustrations or drawing their own and scanning them.
Student Activity
Teacher Activity
Sit around the front table and listen to brief introduction.
Look through the presentation that has been shared on the class community with ideas for illustrations for each word.
Listen to each other as they give verbal suggestions as a whole class as to what could be used to illustrate each word.
Facilitate discussion around the front table about the example presentation and what images the class think could illustrate each word.
Oversee the work as it progresses, help where students are stuck, give ideas and suggestions.
Provide materials where needed if students want to draw their own illustrations.
Scan any drawings the students produce and share them into the community for them to access - go over with them briefly how to do this as we have not done this yet.
Facilitate discussion and decisions regarding choice of illustrations.
Print off the chosen ones and present on the back wall for the class to refer to.
Make a presentation of their own with each one of the design words on a separate page.
They can find an image online using Google Image search to illustrate the word or they can draw what they think it looks like - if they draw it, their drawing will need to be scanned.
Share their presentations into the class community
Look at everyone else’s presentation.
Discuss and decide as a class which illustration fits each word the best - it could be more than one if they like.
Print selected illustrations ready to present on the classroom wall.
Reflection and Analysis
What went well.
Allowing the students the choice of how to present the work was interesting as it is producing some really varied and personal outcomes. The problem with letting them draw their own is that it is taking a lot of time but the results are really interesting.
There was a good understanding shown of the meanings of the words and the visual illustrations are going to be useful on the wall in the future.
There was plenty of time during the lesson as the whole class got on with the task for me to move around the room and have conversations with individuals and give help with understanding where it was needed.
It was good listening to the students explain their drawings to me verbally, as it really showed their understanding. This did not come out SO well in the video of their work as they were shy on the camera. (it is only the second class on air recording for this new group)
What still needs work.
Everything always seems to take WAY longer than you originally think it is going to. We are going to have to spend some more lesson time after this double period to finish this activity, but I think it is important to finish it to a good standard as they are going to use this work to refer to later.
Although I did speak to the students for about 10 minutes at the start of the lesson, I feel it was important to set the tone and make sure they understood the task and took it seriously enough. It was only 10% of the overall lesson time.
The students only had to pick 6 of the words, but getting some of them to pick one and make a start was a bit of a mission. Maybe if I had specified the first one just to get them going it would have been a cleaner start, and they could have had the choice after that of the next 5.
