DVC NCEA Results...

So it is that time of year when the external results are out. It is a mixed bag for my classes this year, so I am a mixture of delighted, pleased, grumpy.

Level 1

I am delighted by the Level 1 results for Design and Visual Communication this year. All of the students produced work for one external assessment ( AS91063 ). This is all of the free hand sketching that they produce over all of their project work. ( standard details here ). It is good that the students have passed this assessment as the skills in this standard are needed for just about everything else that they draw at all three levels. As most of my Level 1 class have said that they are coming back to do Level 2, then they have a really good starting point for their sketching to continue onto the higher level.
The other external assessment (AS91064 ) is a technical drawing. ( standard details here ). We did this work in the October school holidays and it was a "volunteer only" standard. I automatically enrol all of the class into the other standards as the minimum for the course.
The internal standards were all achieved in the project work that the students complete over the year. Some of them were VERY last minute, but we got there in the end, after a bit of nagging.

Level 2

My target for this year was to improve the Level 2 results, as this is the second year through for the new aligned standards. Overall, I am happy with the improvement shown from last year. I only had 4 Level 2 students last year spread across two groups, so it was difficult to get a clear picture of how the new standards ere settling in. I am especially pleased with the improvement in AS91337. It is a much bigger group of students and we spent a lot of time using different techniques to produce their design ideas, both with drawing and modelling. The big improvement here was the note making and analysis that students have to do in this standard. We used Google docs to do a lot of this so that we could read, feedback, add to, change, as we went along. We also did whole class activities online to analyse work and use the correct design terms and language. I think that this gave the students a lot more confidence in what they were saying about their own design work.

They all completed the work on the design era (AS91340) so the whole group achieved this standard, but it was at widely different times through the course. I think that this had an impact on the lighting project (AS91342), as they have to use the information gained from the design era to design their light. The slower ones were the non finishers of the lighting project. This is a definite target for this year - opportunities outside the class time to complete the design era work so this does not hold them back on the next part.

The bach project was a new one this year (AS91341) and replaced the poster from the previous year (AS91343). The bach project was a very popular one with the students, and we got to use online design tools (floorplanner.com and planner5D ). The main problem here was time and attendance. A much tighter grip must be taken this year on the progress through this project so the deadline target is met. This is the last project of the year, so there is nothing to be done about a deadline this late as the posting of the work away to Wellington is the next thing.

The technical drawing external (AS91338) was volunteer only like Level 1. We did the work in the October holidays and I had two boys taking up the challenge which was great.

Results 2013

Results 2012

Level 3

This has been the first year of the new standards and this is where the grumpy bit comes in.

I am not a happy bunny at all and there will be serious changes in how I do things with the Level 3 group this year. I need to reassess how I supported and approached the work last year, and work out where I can build on what we are doing in terms of :-

• skills - this is especially important for students who come with no prior work at Level 1 or 2
• use of the Google site for support and instruction out of the classroom
• use of Google docs for more collaborative work to support them
• the requirements of the external standards and making this clearer to the students

I have not included a screen shot of these results as it is makes me grumpy to look at them. 

Moving on....

I have been using the work we have been doing in the department on including SOLO taxonomy into our planning to develop one of my Level 1 project (see this here). I now need to work this planning and support into all of the the other project instructions on the Google site that I use for my class. 

The Level 2 students responded really well to the online designing that they produced for the bach project, so I need to include more of this in the design development stages of the work, at all levels. This also gives the added benefit of work being able to be produced at home, as they proved last year.

Overall, more group work will benefit all the students at various points during their project work, as this gives them more confidence in what they are doing with their own work. There are lots of opportunities and methods of doing this both using Google apps themselves and the large range of linked apps. 

Like I said... Yay and Yuck....