Dream

Part of these packages: Explore and create

Supported by these technologies: Blogger,

You present a design brief to your class that ties to the curriculum and the local community, but leaves room for interpretation. You inspire the students by providing them with the motivation for giving their best and by telling them about the ownership and freedom over the task. You present the learning activities process and your schedule, and negotiate the assessment criteria with the class. Students form teams, discuss, question and familiarize themselves with the design brief. The teams refine their design brief, particularly in relation to whom they are designing for, initial design challenges and possible design results. Students record reflections and document their work online. Classroom time: Approximately 1 lesson

1. Prepare / Listen

  • Prepare a design brief, by choosing a Learning Story and adjusting it to match curriculum requirements and school schedule.
  • Plan and schedule the Learning Activities of the entire design process. Design activities can cause unexpected delay. Include a buffer lesson to the course schedule.
  • Through preparation you have the opportunity to expand your competence and expertise, for example, by locating concrete examples that show why it is important to design thoughtful outcomes. See: http://bit.ly/design-inspiration.
  • Prepare an initial list of assessment criteria that reflect the curriculum requirements.

2. Inspire

  • Present your design brief, examples, all activities and your schedule to your class.
  • Ensure that everyone is on board by rendering the design brief as a shared goal that relates to the students’ personal context.
  • Discuss your assessment criteria with the students and agree on them.
  • Form teams of 4 to 5 students. You may ask the learners to define initial roles. More info: Learning Activity “Teamwork”. Careful consideration of team formations to prevent free-riding.
  • You may reach people beyond the classroom by being proactive about sharing your design brief with other teachers through the iTEC facebook group and the iTEC teacher community.

3. Coach / Question / Support

  • As the student teams discuss what they will design and how to refine the design brief prompt individual teams with questions that support them to elaborate their choices.
  • Encourage students to question your design brief. Ask them open ended questions, such as (a) Who is the design for? (b) How can you find out about the people you are designing for? (c) What challenge are you addressing and how? (d) Who is responsible for what? (e) How would you present your creation process and your design?
  • Initial confusion is part of the beauty of design. There is no need to answer all questions right away. You and the students will figure out the answers as you go along.
  • Coach the teams to find a specific audience for the designs they plan to create.
  • Exercise your educational expertise, and push students beyond their comfort zones, if you notice that the topic is not challenging enough.
  • Support the students with examples in case they get stuck.
  • Encourage experienced students to share their knowledge across all teams. For example, asking them to record messages for others using TeamUp, or assigning experienced students to perform the role of assistant teachers, who help others.
  • Students record a reflection (see reflection activity). Explain that the recordings play an important role in their assessment and in receiving feedback from you, other teams, parents and the people they are designing for.
  • Beyond school: Each team sets up a project blog (or comparable service) and send the URL to you and to the iTEC facebook group. On the blog, the teams describe their project and refined design brief. They post initial sketches of what they are planning to design.

4. Assess

  • Review the work of each team, their reflection recordings and blog entries, then record audiovisual feedback for them. Your feedback might include suggestions and questions.
  • You could assess the students’ ability to question the task provided to them, in particular their grounds for introducing changes.
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One Response to Dream

  1. Anna says:
    December 18, 2012 at 11:28

    We appreciate your comment and considered it in our analysis.

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    Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

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