Design Analysis Practice on the Class Blog

 I am wanting to use the class blog so the students can analyse each others design work and they can give feedback to each other. 

To get them comfortable with using the class blog for their work we have been uploading their work with description and explanations of what they have been doing - blog post here and blog post here

Next, we had a go at product analysis with structured questions - blog post here

This week we has our first go at analysing drawn designs for the seating project we are doing. I always do the work alongside the students as examples for them to understand what we are working on, so I used my design page for this first go at analysing designs so they felt ok about saying what they thought about it.

I put up my design page, with number on each design so they could decide which one they wanted to analyse. I also  gave them a list of questions that they had to answer in the comment section of the blog post. I have colour coded the questions here to show how i use SOLO Taxonomy to structure the questions to have an increasing level of thought and depth.

1. Which number design are you going to be analysing?
2. Which architect do you think this design was based on?
3. Which part of the design links to the architect’s design elements the most?
4. Do you think this design is suitable for the place that it is designed for? if yes, say why you think it is, and if no, say why you don’t think it is.
5. How would you improve this design?  – you are not allowed to say you wouldn’t change it as everything can be improved.

The students coped really well with their first try at this and their answers were showing analytical thinking and knowledge of the work we have been doing with the designer research.

Link to blog post - scroll down to see the students comments.

Using the Class Blog to do Product Analysis.

 My Year 11 DVC class are starting to do prodict analysis as part of their design project. In order for us to have some practice at doing this, I have decided to use the class blog so we all pratice analysing the same products while being able to see each others analysis. This is a follow on from when we used Google Plus communities to suport each others analysis work. Link to blog post here. I like to use SOLO to structure the questions as it builds up the complexity nicely. 

We continued doing this as a class even when they stopped the communities. We sat around the front and did it all together on the TV screen.

This week, I put up one image of a procuct onto the class blog. Along with this, I put a set of questions that the students have to answer in the comment section of the blog. These questions still use SOLO as the structure. I have been publishing the comments as soon as the students have completed the task so they can see each others analysis. I am aware that they can copy by dong this but I want them to feel confident when they have to write an analysis. As we get more practice, I will keep all the comments unpublished untill they are all done.

Link to blog post

The questions I added to this image were -

1. DESCRIBE what SHAPES do you see.
2. DESCRIBE what colours you see.
3. LIST the PARTS of the design.
4. LIST what material is it made from.
5. EXPLAIN why is this material a good choice for this design.
6. EXPLAIN how you use this design. 

The words in capitals are taken from the SOLO posters that are in every classroom at school. Link to resources

Inquiry Focus 2025

 After thinking about a variety of things that could be my inquiry focus this year - link to blog post here, I have decided that my focus will be on using a class blog as a means to give feedback to each other.

The group I will be using for this inquiry will be my Year 11 DVC class as this is my smallest class and we can work on critical thinking as they look at each others work and give structured feedback to each other. 

So engaging in critical thinking is my focus with the use of the blog as the tool to do it.

Blogging about Form

 My Year 11 class are looking at some of the design elements in the work of their chosen architect. The first one we are doing is form, where they have to make the forms they see in plasticine. We then  take photographs of the models, print hem out and then draw from the photographs.

Link to my example - we include the photos, the drawings, descriptions of the drawings and photographs of the specific designs from the architect that were used as the influence. We are using Hapara workspaces to put together the work in one place.

Some of my students completed this work on form and have blogged about it before moving onto the next design element of pattern. I got them to include the page from their presentation and a description of what they had done.

Link to my example blog- I did an example blog with my work to show them how I wanted them to do it and what I wanted them to include.

Here are some of the blog posts about from form the class. 

• Hinano
• Alyanna
• Erich
• Rose
• Muna

I have been in and put comments on the completed ones, again to give them an idea of writing a comment and giving feedback on each other's work. When the rest of the class has done their blog posts, we will have a session where we all go in and make comments on each other's blogs. I will be giving them guidelines on what to comment about. This will change on each blog post we do as the focus of the work will be different on each.

Comment Guidelines

1. What does this show about the chosen architect?
2. What have they done well on their page? - this could be drawing in 3D, shading, showing the design element of form well
3. What do you like about the work and why.

Blogging with Year 11 DVC

 This week I started blogging with my Year 11 Design and Visual Communication class. I decided to go with one blog for the class that they can all post onto rather than each working on individual blogs. I decided to do it this way as I was a big fan of my classes using Google Plus Communities, where we would post up class work and give each other feedback - link to blog label for Google Plus Communities. I want the blog to work in a similar manner, where we can see and comment on each others work and it is easy for everyone else to see too.

Matt Goodwin came to the class on Monday to help us get to know how to use Edublogs. Some of the students had used it in intermediate school and could remember, so to be honest, most of the help was for me! We leaned how to embed a Google document, a Google presentation and how to put in an image. These are the 3 things that we will be needing to put into our blog posts so it was good to get a chance to try all 3 of these methods.

I decided to try this with only my Year 11 DVC class at first, as this is my smallest class this year and it will be a good group to try this with. We will be working on Google docs, presentations and drawings and in our sketchbooks so it will give us chance to try out different ways of getting work onto our blogs.

Link to blog

I was posting up my examples of the work we have done so far while it was up on the TV screen so the students could see how it was done.

So far we have posted up our Architect Information, our Mood Boards and our Design Words. work. Some examples from the students are linked here.

Architect Information - from Vika

Mood Board - from Avania

Design Words - from Alyanna

The work we are on with at the moment is looking at the design elements in their chosen architect's work, so our next posts will be presentations of the models and drawings from that. We had a go at some comments on the posts we have done so far but I want to go into that a lot deeper as we post more so that the students are analysing each others work.

Ideas for Inquiry 2025

 

Know your Learners - Ethnicities