Product Design using SOLO Taxonomy

I am busy putting together all my planning for next year so that I can get it all moderated and ready to go in the new year. I am currently working on the product design project for Year 12. They need to look at existing products and analyse them so I have structured this around the SOLO Taxonomy levels. This task then starts with some simple labelling and identifying and slowly builds the complexity of the questions to add more depth as they go.
I am hoping that if this is a smooth process for the students, then we can do something similar in structure along with all the literacy structure for the analysis of their own design ideas. This is the part that they always find difficult and I am constantly working on trying to improve.

Making Reading Activities from the NZQA Exemplars

I had a really good meeting with +Cheryl Harvey (specialist classroom teacher) today about various things and one of them was finding reading activities about design for my students to use.
She suggested that we have a look at the exemplars on the NZQA website for the standard that the students have just started. Link to exemplar work on the NZQA site here.
She said it is good for students to see the work of others across New Zealand. This also fits with what I saw happening in the classroom of +Robyn Anderson when I went to visit her. Blog post here.

I decided for their first reading task, that I would isolate just one design from each level, via a screen shot,  and type up the student notes with that design, rather than have my students try to read the hand writing on the examples.

I am going to also copy what Robyn did in regards to printing these out and getting the students to highlight key elements with highlighter pens.
Design terms, sentence connectors, descriptions, reasons given for decisions made etc.....


Excellence Exemplar

Merit Exemplar

Achieved Exemplar

Not Achieved Exemplar

What happens when students choose their projects?

While I was working with my Level 2 boys today, the chat got round to project / topic choice.
I was asked "can we design shoes?"
So my reply to the Level 2 (Year 12 ) boys was "do you want to design shoes instead of shelters in Year 13?" They already know the Level 3 main project is a portable shelter as they see it in the lesson (my class is a mixed level class)

Their reaction was quite excited, which then got even more so when I told them of the 3D printed shoes that I had seen online recently. I have put this idea past my other class of Year 12 students and they seem keen too. So it looks like I am rewriting the Level 3 Product Design project, which is all good. I would rather they did something they were keen on as this is a big project and takes up a fair chunk of time on the course. It is also god advertising for me, getting them interested for Level 3 while they are still in Year 12!!
I sent student R these links today as he was the one that started all this. Hope it will blow his mind as he was "really??...we can 3D print shoes???" today.

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

So their job now is to work out what materials we need to 3D print something flexible and if it needs a different printer. We need to know that before the budgets are due in at the end of the year.