Design Development

Today, I was talking to my Year 8 class about design development. It is a part of the design process that students always have problems with. They do one or two design then do not want to do any more. They say they "like" the one they have done and want that one. They are scared of doing any more that they might not like. They are basically scared of failing. Students always want everything on their design sheets to be "perfect". I showed them some of the my design development example sheets that I have done for my senior classes and explain there is always designs you really like, some ok ones and lots you think are terrible. This is normal.

We then moved on to how the students take on their sports training.

• They do skills training to get better at the main game
• They don't go out there and immediately think they should be great at it without giving it time and effort.
• They listen to advice about how to improve and do those things.
• They practice ... again and again and again.
• They don't think that time spent on these skills and training as wasted time.
• When they fail, they try again till they get better.

I then drew a quick concept design on the board and said we were going to treat that design like me going out on the rugby field with a ball.

• I will be hopeless, I can't kick straight, throw very well or run very far.
• I will need training, skills, practice and someone to show me how to improve.

This first design idea needs training too...

• It needs to improve
• It needs them to tell it how to improve - they are it's trainer
• It needs to practice and get better slowly
• It needs to repeat in order to improve

The students have been learning how to use TinkerCad to design stands for mobile phones that can be 3D printed. I want them to develop the design they have done on Tinkercad and do changes and improvements. Screen shots need to be taken while they do this to record the changes made and these screen shots put onto a Google slide presentation.

This is my example ... I started with a very basic idea which was a block with a slot in it - it needed serious training!!!
The last slide here shows an addition from Thingiverse. The students know about this website so I wanted to show that they could use things from there as long as they combine it with ideas and builds of their own and not just use something straight from there.

Here are two examples from today, which shows how the students are starting to change little elements of their design at a time and see what the effects are. (I have made copies of the students work so I can remove the names)

Aiming high....taking the leap

In the words of the fantastic Bruce Lee, failure is not the crime. Failing to aim high is the crime.

In this vain, we are aiming for excellence in Design and Visual Communication and taking that leap of confidence in ourselves.







At the weekend, to celebrate my 50th birthday, I took my own giant leap of faith and did the jump off the Sky Tower in Auckland.

Here is the official video of the jump ....


Here is a video taken from the bottom.

Here are the official photos from the day ...

You will all FAIL!!!!

It was our first full day back with all our students today so i got to meet both of my senior Design and Visual Communication classes. One of the classes in a mix of NCEA Level 1, 2 and 3 and the other class is a mix of NCEA Level 2 and 3.
We did some silly warm up design games and then I really wanted to talk to them early this year about the concept of failing. I asked them to write down what they thought of when they heard the word fail. This is some of what they said :-
Sad, exams, tests, depression, expectations, letting people down, loose
It was a very negative response to the word.
Then we talked about where they thought you could fail when you did design work :-
drawing, colour, ideas, thinking etc...

I then wrote on the board - "All designers fail"
They looked at me like I had gone a little crazy at this point.
They need to understand that failing is a vital part of designing. Without failing you can't learn what does not work in a design situation.
We talked about different words that we use in the design process :-
Test, trial, try, prototype, model .....
These are al things we do where we learn from our mistakes and failures in the process.

Then I wrote 90% on the board.
They will not be happy with 90% of the design work or the way they did it in their sketch books. They need to get over this and see it as part of the process. Students are terrible at tearing out pages where they are not 100% happy with the work. They only want their "pretty" "best" work in their books.
I asked them to see their sketch books as the messy story behind the final piece of work. This final piece will be the "pretty" version, nicely presented etc. It needs it's messy story to go with it.

I don't think they were convinced today, to be hoest. I am going to have to keep supporting them on this way of thinking. I always do sketchbooks of work along with the students, so I will actively point out my 90%,  say why I don't like it and highlight what I am learning from it by keeping it.

Time to put my money where my mouth is....

"Keep going"
"Learn from your mistakes"
"Pick yourself up"
These are things we say to students all the time.
This morning I received an email which means I have to put my money where my mouth is in this respect.
I had applied for the Core Education Vince Ham eFellows 2017 scholarship and the email this morning told me that I had not been successful.

The good thing is, the plan that I had put forward in my application is not something extra. I am intending to do the planned work with my Year 12 students anyway next year, so now I have to make sure I put as much effort into it as I would have done if they had accepted me,

The email I received was a generic "you have been unsuccessful" type, so I am not aware of why they think that my plan was not good enough.
I am going to include a copy and paste of my application here, and would be grateful if you have a little time, to give some feedback so I know where I can improve the focus for next year.
I have started the plan already with this year's Year 12 students, and they are helping me to start the planning for the course for next year.

Here is my application :-

Tell us a little about the context in which you work and your experience answer:

     I have taught Technology since 1995 and I moved to New Zealand in
     2004. Since then, I have taught Graphics / DVC at Tamaki
     College.
     I have been responsible for the Graphics / Technology department
     getting 3D printers and a laser cutter and I am taking the
     graphics / DVC course in a more product design direction.
     Since the school went fully digital and working on Google, I have
     also been the Google support person for the staff and have
     provided one to one PD and help as well as group sessions for
     them to learn how to use all the Google (GAFE) products.

 What is the area of practice you wish to investigate and develop further through this award? answer:

     I want to improve the achievement of my Level 2 DVC students.
     I wish to investigate the impact of a structured course which the
     students can work through at their own pace. This will be in the
     form of screencasts,forums and recorded skills sessions.
   
What is the background-answer:

     I investigated this briefly last year with one project at Level
     1. It gave the students a lot of support within the classroom
     setting as well as outside of it in terms of knowing where they
     were up to and what to do next. I was able to spend a lot more of
     my class time helping individual students instead of going over
     things and repeating instructions.
     A link to this investigation is here :-
     http://bobthedog3.blogspot.co.nz/p/mit-15.html
     This year, my teacher inquiry is based around improving Year 12 /
     Level 2 achievement and I am part of a "change" group at school,
     working with the ministry to effect change with the Year 12
     students.
     A link here to my Year 12 group enquiry so far :-
     http://bobthedog3.blogspot.co.nz/p/inquiry.html
     
Five minutes of total media time OR no more than 500 words of text-answer:

     I have a group of students in my Level 2 classes who are a very
     mixed ability group.
     Some have done Level 1 with me. Some have not done graphics with
     me at all. A large part of my group miss lessons throughout the
     year due to going on courses in other institutions like MIT. This
     makes following the structured course in DVC very difficult as
     they are all at different places and come in and out at various
     times throughout the year. I want all of my students to have the
     same opportunity to achieve the credits on my Level 2 course,
     regardless of whether they are in the classroom or not. The
     produced investigation will also benefit the students who are in
     the class as they will always know where they are and what to do.
     I also always have students who want to take my course but can't
     because of timetable clashes.
     This gives students the chance to plan their own learning at
     their own pace as thanks to the Manaiakalani Tamaki Learning
     Network, all the students have wireless access at home.
     This will give students access to the course and their learning
     at any time and give family access to know what the course is all
     about. The collaborative space  / discussion forum / google plus
     community will give the students chance to support each other, be
     the teacher and learn valuable skills about commenting and
     working with people online. (cybersmart)
     I will be able to support the students in the classroom in a much
     more personal and one to one manner to help them with their
     individual needs in regards to their project work and the
     students will be able to plan their own time more effectively
     when out of the class.
     As this is based around the "spiral of inquiry", I will be
     getting to know my learners and their individual needs in a much
     more effective way.
     If this proves to be an effective way of setting up a senior NCEA
     course, then this can be used at all levels to support student
     progress through their projects.

Learning to Fail ...

After going to the North Island GAFE Summit at the start of the holidays, I realised that there was definitely a theme going on of failure!!
When I got back, I decided to present failure as a topic to my senior classes as they are all at the point of starting design work for their projects.
I see design work all the time where the students have done one really good design and left it at that. There is nothing else on the page, like they don't want to "mess up" this good design with others that might not be as good.
I also see sessions where I know that students have worked well for the whole lesson but there is very little to show for it on the drawing sheets or in their sketch books. They rub out or tear up the designs that don't come up to their perceived idea of perfection.

Here is the presentation that we talked through today.

We talked about what goes on on the rugby pitch. Do they expect to go on and be Dan Carter straight away? What do they do? Great answers came from the group.... ...train, practice, repeating the same skill to get better, trying again... We also applied this to learning a new computer game and how many times they get "killed" when they first start. Then I asked them why this was ok in these situations and it didn't feel like "FAILING". I tried to present failing as more of part of the design process and not as something that they should rip out of their sketch books as they think that everything needs to be some version of "perfect". On the last slide, I tried to structure the process of failing in terms of SOLO taxonomy to try and get them to think about what is happening. We came up with suggestions as a class and wrote them up on the board in the correct places.

What they need to get over is the FEAR of failure, so we have an unofficial ban on the FAIL word as it gives the wrong impression.

We shall now see if they can transfer these thoughts over to their design work this week.