Design Drawing Warm Ups

 My senior Design and Visual Communication classes are at the point where they are doing concept ideas. These ideas have to be based on either the designer or the design era that they have been researching.

They come into the class either from mentoring first thing on a morning or from another class or from interval, so their heads are full of whatever has been going on beforehand. They can not be expected to sit down and just start thinking of design ideas. The students find it frustrating and unmanageable. I also talk to them about the power a blank piece of paper has on your mind when you stare at it for too long. They think I am crazy when we talk about this, but staring at a blank page for too long, trying to think of ideas, makes your mind blanker and blanker and makes it even more difficult to produce design ideas.

The first thing we have done for warm ups this week has been "30 seconds / 5 things". This is where I time them for 30 seconds and give them 5 things they have to draw in the time. For example, 5 things that start with the letter "T", 5 things that live in the sea, 5 things you wear on your head etc. They start off worrying about their drawing and maybe coming up with 2 things in the time. By the time we are on our 5th or 6th thing, they are drawing like crazy and not caring what it looks like. This gets them smiling, laughing at each others really rough drawings and settling into the lesson.

Our next activity was to draw a big scribble on an A4 piece of paper with their eyes closed. They then swapped scribbles with someone else.  They then had to look at the scribble and try and pick out a figure out of it - looking for heads, bodies, arms, legs etc. I talked to them about the human ability to see faces and figures in any random pattern we see.

Here is my example that I did on the board to show them what I meant.

We then moved to using these techniques in a way that will help our design ideas.

They drew straight line scribbles on one page and wavy line scribbles on another page. They then had swap with someone else and look to see shapes that could help their design work. Year 11 had to look for seating and Year 12 had to look for lighting. They could ignore their architect or design era inspirations at this point as I didn't want it to complicate matters for them.

They then took these onto a drawing sheet where they started to make them look more like a design for a seat or lighting. 

Here are my example that I did on the board and the start of the development onto paper of some of the designs.

Year 12 Lighting

Year 11 Seating

Here is some of the Year 12 lighting work form today.

I was really pleased with how they reacted to this new way of working and they all had designs started by the end of the lesson, which is not normal for when we start concept ideas.

Warm Up Activity - Back Drawing

Today my senior class did a short warm up activity to get them loosened up for the lesson. They got into pairs (and one three). One rested on the back of the other and drew on paper. The other had to lean on the wall with their paper and draw what they could feel being drawn on the paper on their back. This then evolved into writing messages to see if they could understand them. This then changed to larger groups trying to pass messages through a few of them like a drawn version of the  Chinese Whispers game.
It got them all laughing and warmed up at the start of the lesson where I wanted them to start drawing developments of their forms.

.

Mindset Check In

Today, I gave my students some sticky notes and they were asked to write their reactions to 5 statements.

Here are the statements that were put up on the board.

Statement 1

Your intelligence is a fixed thing

Statement 2

You can’t get any smarter

Statement 3

You can learn skills up to a certain level then stop

Statement 4

You can’t learn how to do everything - we are only good at
certain things

Statement 5

I can’t get any better at things I am no good at

Here are their responses. They wrote them onto the sticky notes and I typed them up as they wrote them.

"Educators who value the importance of providing challenging opportunities for students find that students react to the challenge in different ways. Some students have a “Bring it on!” approach and embrace the challenge with enthusiasm. These students realise that they may not be successful and might even fail at a task or two, but want to take the risk and stretch themselves. Other students feel threatened by the challenge, are afraid they will not succeed, and will often give up before they put much effort into it. It is imperative that teachers develop a climate in their classroom where failure is viewed as an expected and very important part of the learning process and students learn to reflect and redirect so that they can approach a challenging task in a new way or with more effort." 

(from "Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Growth Mindset Learning Community" by Mary Cay Ricci)

The student responses were interesting. They started off with quite short answers and as we were getting to the last one they were getting more and more away from being totally positive in their mindset towards the statements. It is good to see a lot of positivity in their thoughts. There is room to work with them and try and get them to apply that positivity to their design work. That is where we come to our wall, when they are designing. I need to work through some strategies with them. Drawing is a skill. They all see that anyone can learn a skill and spend time to improve it. We need to work through strategies about the designing / thinking / analysis part as this is where we stick.

Mindset - Presentation from the HOD Physical Education

As part of our work on mindset, my inquiry group had a visit from the HOD Health and Physical Education today.  Mr Moyes brought over some of his art boards that he did when he was at school and talked about how he approached the work in a positive mindset.
It is good for the students to see people in different lights and to see different skill sets that they did not know about in people.



Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Growth Mindset Learning Community
Mary Cay Ricci

Link to book details

"Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change, adapt, and “rewire” itself throughout our entire life."

"We need to step back, take a breath, and realise that it is not about how fast students master learning. It is about the perseverance and effort that they put forth and the strategies that they utilise."

In order for my students to develop and use a growth mindset, they have to see it in action in different situations.

Using Games for Critical Thinking and Mindset

I am currently reading "Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Growth Mindset Learning Community" by Mary Cay Ricci.  Link to readings
Some of what she talks about is how she went into a classroom and did an experiment to try and increase and give them confidence in critical thinking and using a growth mindset. They got the students in the class to play non verbal reasoning games. This was to get the students to try and think in critical ways and for the teachers to see the students working and thinking in different ways.

"The addition of the games did something more than build the reasoning abilities of these students; the reasoning and problem-solving games contributed to a mindset shift in the teachers and, in some cases, the students as well. Many teachers reported that they saw potential in students that they would have never seen without the games. Some of the students who spoke little English flourished when the games came out. Some students who were functioning below grade level showed great strength in reasoning through playing these games. Teachers became more reflective about their own mindsets, viewed students differently, and raised expectations for many students." (from "Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Growth Mindset Learning Community" by Mary Cay Ricci)

I wanted to try something like this to see if it would work in any way with my target group of students in my inquiry.

I had done a little of this last year - blog post here - so I decided that this same Towers of Hanoi game was a good place to start. I want to do this as my inquiry is about seeing if teaching the whole class in the same way as I am teaching my 4 scholarship students will improve the achievement of the whole class. This will involve the rest of the class feeling that they are able to do this level of work so I am wanting to do a lot of work with them about mindset.

Here is my collection of homemade games that we tried out today.

Here are my students having a go this afternoon when we had a lesson in the last period of the day. We worked in pairs today. One had to explain what to move where and the other had to follow instructions. They ended up helping each other. As you can see from the pics, we also got the big chess set out where there was also a lot of discussion and helping. It's all about the tatics.

AS91627 - Design Elements - Student Work

My Year 13 class have been working on AS91627 in Design and Visual Communication.

Before the country went into Level 4 lockdown, we were well into the work. We have had training sessions with Pippa Lawler - blog post here and have been working our way through analysing our observational drawings through the lens of some of the design elements. 

My planning for this is here - Blog post - Lesson prep part 1 - Lesson prep part 2 - Lesson prep part 3

Now we are back to school, we have been working on a combination of the design brief for the product design project - link to workspace here or continuing on with the design elements work - link to class site. While we were on lockdown, I had started to put together examples and screen recordings of the design brief work so that students can get up to date when they are ready to. Link to help page on the class site here. This is an ongoing project for me, and this will expand over time as I make more "help" elements for the students to refer to.

The upshot of all of this is the students choosing what they want to focus on when they come into the class.

I have started putting together a presentation of the completed design element sheets as they complete them. This will be shared with the whole class so they can see each other's work.

This is no where near all of the students or all of their work (as of typing this post). I will keep it up to date as they complete this work.
I am hoping that seeing each other's work as they progress, it will inspire them to feel good about their own as they can see similarities in process in the work of others.

Back on Site - Level 2 Syle

I was SOOOOO excited this week. We were due back on site at school to teach. The week started with with an awesome staff meeting in the auditorium, where the chairs had been set up with enough space between them. We looked like a huge group of people who have been sent to the naughty chair!. It was so good to see everyone in the flesh.
We have a rolling start for our students. Y12 and Y13 in on Monday. Y11 on Tuesday, Y9 and Y10 on Wednesday then the whole school from Thursday onwards. It has been so good to see the senior students so far this week.
We have had to set our classrooms up in "exam style". Basically all separate desks with spaces between to ensure the correct social distancing. I wrote a blog post about the seating plans and drawing equipment boxes for the tables. 

Here it is in real life in the class. I had to put the tables on a diagonal as they were too close otherwise and I think I am going to have to swing the computer tables round so they are facing each other. Other than that though, it was an ok plan.

All staff were given a sanitation pack too so the students sanitise their hands as they come into the class and the tables etc get cleaned with the spray between classes. I don't think my tables have been this clean or been cleaned so often in their lives. We are a messy lot in my room.

As a warm up activity for my students to do so we didn't have to launch straight into our project work, they were all given paper and they got to play with the new drawing packs on the tables and get used to not moving round to get stuff like they are used to in my room.

Instructions (given out in stages with time in between) - 

Draw a square, 4 circles, a triangle, a squiggly line coming off from one circle .. etc ...etc...

Some of the instructions were about how they were feeling - draw a face on the cloud to show how you are feeling  - colour the cloud to show how you were feeling this morning - put some weather coming from the cloud to show how you feel about tomorrow.

These were interesting as they showed me the mixed feelings they had about coming back and how they are not looking forward to another couple of days of online teaching again till the whole school is back on Thursday.

I possibly am going to have to sew my sleeves into my pockets to keep me from hugging students. It is very hard. 

What do students want from your course?

I am currently reading :-


TEACHING COLLEGE: THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO LECTURING, PRESENTING, AND ENGAGING STUDENTS

by Norman Eng
"To figure out their mindset, ask yourself these seven questions posed by presentation expert Nancy Duarte (2008)

What is your audience like? Why are they here? What keeps them up at night? How can you solve their problem? What do you want them to do? How might they resist? How can you best reach them?"
He also talks about knowing what your students reasons are for choosing your course and what they are wanting to gain from it.

I asked my Y11, 12 and 13 students 3 questions.

What they were doing in the Design and Visual Communication room.

What are their short term goals from the course - this year.

What are their ling term goals for the course - after this year.

I gave them a small piece of paper to write their answers on and they were to keep them anonymous.

Key highlights for me :-
Knowing they can use the skills they learn in DVC in their chosen job choices like building. They like learning skills. Enjoying the subject even if they have no plans to use it in any future job ideas. Students wanting a change from academic style courses. Wanting to improve their drawing skills. Wanting to use their graphics skills in future design courses after school.

Key worries for me :-
Focusing on getting credits and achieving NCEA, not learning. It was the only thing in the option line they fancied trying.

Breaking the Labels

I told my students :-
"Don't label people"
We then did the exact opposite.

I wrote these labels up on the board ...

Detail - focussed on the smallest details and spend an hour on a tiny part of a design

Final Product - focussed on the finish, the end of the task / project etc, not caring about the process and journey to get there

Perfectionist - everything must be perfect and if it is not it gets ripped out of the sketchbook or rubbed out.

Slow pants - everything takes forever to complete

I can't draw - their negative self talk makes them unable to move forward.

After explaining what each of these meant, I gave the students a couple of sticky notes to label themselves.

"but you told us not to label people!!"

Exactly!, but you label yourselves every day and these labels stop you from making any progress with your design projects.

Don't Label Yourself!

Mindset - Loosening Up

I have a mixed NCEA Level 1 and Level 2 class. Within that class are students who have done Graphics before and students who haven't. This causes a lot of self doubt in a lot of the students who come in the room thinking they can't do it. They say to me "miss I can't draw", so they talk themselves out of achieving before they even start.
This shows even more now that we are past the research stage and are onto design ideas. They sit and stare at their sketchbooks for lesson after lesson, not feeling able to do anything. I try and sit with them and do some designing with them on loose pieces of paper so they can see me do it and copy. As soon as I walk away, they stop again, and obviously get off task really easily.
I always feel such a failure about this as I struggle to support them over these self made barriers in their mind.

Over the last two days I have tried something different with this class. We came back to school for term two this week and I saw them for the first time yesterday for a single period.
We played warm up games yesterday in the single period.
30 seconds to draw 5 things ... shapes, insects, animals, things that start with the letter A .....
They were slow and too fussy to start with. They soon loosened up and got into it, while not always hitting 5 for various reasons (putting too much detail in, thinking for too long ..)
As you can see, the quality of the drawing was not great but that was not the point. Quickly getting ideas down on paper was the point and beating that "blank page curse".

Today in the double period, we started with that for a few rounds to warm them up again and because not all the students were there yesterday.
Then they got their sketch books out and had to draw in there. They had to draw 10 different designs based on their project in 5 minutes.
They had to remember what they had learned in the 30 second warm ups - draw quickly, don't get lost in details, don't stress about the quality of the drawings.
They launched into this really well. They were nearly completely silent (very unusual with this lot ) and very focussed.

They then had to look at everyone else's work. they walked round the room looking at all the sketchbooks open on the desks. They had post it notes with them and they had to write one word feedback and stick it onto each other's books.

We equated that to getting a like on Facebook or a heart like on Instagram. That warm fuzzy you get when you see that what you have put online has been seen and liked.

Then they had to go round again and write a sticky saying what they liked and why.

After reading the warm fuzzies and the feedback from the rest of the class, they had to look at their own work and write a list of 5 things that they can do to improve one of their designs. I got them to write it as a list first so they could think about it separately to drawing.

Then they had to draw 3 design changes for that chosen design based on their list.

All of these activities had very limited time allowances (5 minutes, 2 minutes, 3 minutes .. ) and I was calling out the countdown as they went.

On these 3 design improvements they had to label what the improvements were that they had done.

They then had to look at each others work again and give marks out of 5 for the design changes work.

The last thing that they had to do was to look at all the work that had been done today and choose one from someone else's work. They then had to draw a design development for someone else and give it back to them personally so they knew who had drawn what.

They were very respectful when doing this and were careful to explain the changes they had done to someone's work and why when they gave it back.

At the end of the session today I asked them for some quick feedback by answering 4 questions for me.

What I noticed the most today was the level of engagement and being on task for the full double period and the amount of work produced in the time.  I used :-

• Timed activities for the whole lesson
• Small times on activities all the way through
• Peer to peer feedback and marking
• Giving warm fuzzies before the more detailed feedback so they felt good about their work
• Giving help and support to each other in the form of designing improvements for some one else.
• Not focussing on the quality or standard of their drawings but the ideas that they were coming up with.

Three students who absolutely hated today are my three perfectionists. I spoke to them after the lesson and told them I was proud of the way they approached the work and to let them know that I knew they were struggling. They tried really hard and did well.

My boys at the back who struggle with the whole designing process did well today. They produced more work today than they have since we started designing work and finished the research.

My next problem - How can I get this to influence the day to day designing that we have to do? 

And - I was EXHAUSTED at the end of the double period as I was BAM BAM BAM though the whole thing.

Mindset Presentation - HOD PE

Today my Year 13 class were really lucky as the HOD of PE at Tamaki College (Mr Brenton Moyes), came to talk to them about mindset and how he did Art and Graphics when he was at school.
They started off being really polite when we asked them if they thought the head of PE was good at drawing. They then relaxed and were more honest. They all answered "no!". He brought in his art boards from school and they were really impressed.










Brenton did a great presentation, talking about :-

• failure
• trying again
• practising
• improving
• trying new things
• being outside of your comfort area

They did a warm up exercise to start with where they had to draw a face by not taking their pencil off the page. They then did it again with less time and had to put more detail in. After comparing their first and second efforts, they had to choose which one they liked the best.  This was then linked to trying a new thing, not being sure, having another go - a growth mindset. Brenton then described the process he went through for his art boards and how much trial and error he went through, getting things wrong, improving, trying again. This was linked through to a sports mindset of training and practicing. I spoke to them afterwards about putting people into boxes when we see them. We all do it and it is normal but we have to be able to break the boxes when we find out more about people. They are guilty of putting themselves into boxes which is stopping their progress. The "I can't" mindset related to drawing is killing their creativity in some cases, and the need to be perfect in everything they do is killing it with others. A great presentation from Brenton today and I will have to get him back to do more as a lot of the class was missing today.

Negative Mindset

This week I made a Towers of Hanoi game on the laser cutter and in the workshop.
It has been sitting on my desk while I build an Intermediate Technology project around it so the students have been seeing it and having a go.

It has proved to be a fascinating insight into the mindset that the students bring to their project work in Design and Visual Communication.

My Year 13 students are a mixed bunch of some who have done NCEA Level 1, Level 2 DVC and those who have not done graphics since they were in year 9 and 10.

My three boys who have not had any NCEA DVC experience were shy of trying the new game. One had a go, one was very reluctant but has a go eventually while hiding behind his sketchbook and one refused to have a go at all.
My two girls with no experience refused to have a go.

To day, student "A" tried again but still his behind his book. Then he hid behind stories of completion and how he made it under the mathematical minimum number of moves. He kept trying. I sat with him and gave him a few nudges, winks and finger points quietly. He made it in the 31 moves with help, then he did it again without hiding, in front of everyone by himself.

I chatted with him afterwards.

How was just now different to yesterday?
"you helped me"
What about when you did it yourself?
"I had practised"
Why were you hiding to start with?
"I didn't want to look stupid in front of everyone"
What about now?
"cos I'm the man miss!"
Yeah, yeah, yeah....

This was a fascinating insight today. This is exactly how they approach their design work.

• They hide their work by facing into the corner while doing it.
• They hide the parts they don't like by rubbing them out of throwing them in the bin.
• They sit and not do the work at all.
• Occasionally avoid the whole situation by organising something else to do during my lesson.

My next step is to try and get them to understand the importance of the "design journey". It is not all about the finished "polished" product / drawing. They expect everything to be perfect and get very disheartened when it is not.