Create, Experiment, Build, Question and Learn.
I am a specialist Product and Graphic Design Teacher, specialising in the Iterative process of designing, prototyping and evaluating. With a particular focus on entrepreneurship and making, rooted in real-world contexts and challenges.
My mission is to plan and deliver creative, fun and engaging lessons for KS3, 4 and 5, ages 11-18.
Create, Experiment, Build, Question and Learn.
I am a specialist Product and Graphic Design Teacher, specialising in the Iterative process of designing, prototyping and evaluating. With a particular focus on entrepreneurship and making, rooted in real-world contexts and challenges.
My mission is to plan and deliver creative, fun and engaging lessons for KS3, 4 and 5, ages 11-18.
One of a series of Graphics Personification lessons, where students are introduced to graphic design and typography to create a piece of ‘positive advertising’. Also included is an instructional video to aid with delivery of content.
In this fourth lesson, students are tasked with personifying type to form the text for a piece of ‘positive advertising’. This is in response to an industry style, client brief by the NHS for their ‘Change 4 Life’ campaign. This lesson could be extended over several lessons.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in my personification graphics scheme. This scheme was designed for KS3 but could also be used with KS4 students.
Pupils’ love being creative with this hands-on project. Lessons are differentiated with strong cross-curricular (Literacy, Science) links, whilst requiring very little resources; only paper and desired material (I have used Fimo clay but another material could be used instead, such as cardboard). Also Included are diffirenciated resources and student/teacher examples.
In this second lesson, students recap biomimicry, and learn about the ACCESS FM system in product design and it’s importance in the design process.
Students design; through group tasks, individual tasks and class-discussions. We then cover some basic sketching techniques before leading to them sketching their final idea (isometrically), which they must then justify, through an ACCESS FM specification (clear success criteria).
Lesson consists of starter> class discussions> main task> peer assessment> plenary. Lesson is a double but could be extended over several lessons.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in this or other Product Design series/SOW (where the full iterative design process is covered). In this unit, pupils will gain an understanding into what is product design and the creative process of a designer, from initial ideas, final isometric sketching, writing a specification and clay model making (prototyping).
One of a series of Graphics Personification lessons, where students are introduced to graphic design and typography to create pieces of advertising. Also included is an instructional video to aid with delivery of content.
In this fifth lesson, students are tasked with designing a promotional piggy bank. This is in response to an industry style, client brief by Halifax encouraging people save with them. This lesson could be extended over several lessons.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in my personification graphics scheme. This scheme was designed for KS3 but could also be used with KS4 students.
In this lesson, students are introduced to fossil fuels and their impact on the environment through global warming in line with GCSE assessment criteria for Design and Technology. The lesson consists of videos, class discussions, a writing task and finally a design task.
Starter activity
Preparatory theory task
Class discussion/questioning and videos
Design (consolidation) Task
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in this or other Product Design series/SOW (where the full iterative design process is covered). In this unit, pupils will gain an understanding into the importance of sustainability and applied practical Science in Product Design.
In this lesson, students learn the importance of designing around the needs of a user as well as the key words Ergonomics and Anthropometrics, which link to the GCSE Design Technology Specification.
Students gain an understanding into ergonomics and anthropometrics in various products using real life examples and videos (Sony) and manufacturing (VW). They then apply their understanding to find the average size ‘hand’; measured from a class sample group.
Also included is a fun home learning task that further applies their understanding of ergonomics in a funny and creative way.
In this conceptual project, students are given a brief and apply their learning through the design and presentation of an artifact. Students love the challenge of speculating on the future and forming their concepts around a narrative. There have been some fascinating outcomes as students relish the creative freedom.
Speculative design is designing from a critical, political and/or ethical perspective in the form of an artifact from the near or distant future. There are several reasons why we might use speculative design:
To question and critique.
Raise awareness.
Start conversations.
Provoke, amuse or annoy.
The word ‘artifact’ is deliberate as the outcomes does not need to be a physical product. The outcome can be in the form of any 2D, 3D or digital ‘artifact(s)’. For example it could be a guide, a map, packaging etc. Trying to make the future artifact as believable as possible through storytelling.
Project structure:
What is speculative design?
Mind-map tasks
Case study
Imagining the world in 2067 in regards to society, housing, resources, economy, politics, technology, health and environment
Critique Sessions
Prototyping of artifact
Final presentation
The project can help students develop their rapid prototyping, storytelling, critiquing and presenting skills. It has been delivered to both college and university students.
Pupils’ love being creative with this project. Lessons are differentiated with strong cross-curricular (Literacy, Geography, Science) links, whilst requiring very little resources (only paper and product examples). Also Included are diffirenciated resources and student/teacher examples.
In this first lesson, students will be introduced to the iterative product design process. They will be briefly introduced to ‘what makes a good design?’ through Jonny Ive and Dieter Rams’ 10 principles of good design. This leads to a group ‘ranking task’ where they must rank and discuss varying design examples of a hair dryer product.
They will conduct a piece of product analysis using the ACCESS FM system; through group tasks, individual tasks and class-discussions. Leading to a piece of problem analysis to help find a justified improvement or gap in the market place for their own product.
Lesson consists of ranking activity> class discussions>prep task> main task(s). Lesson could be extended over several lessons.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in my Product Design series/SOW (where the full iterative design process is covered). In this unit, pupils will gain an understanding into what is product design and the creative process of a designer, from existing research/analysis, writing a specification, initial ideas, isometric drawing and CAD modelling.
One of a series of Graphics Personification lessons, where students are introduced to graphic design, typography and advertising.
In this first lesson, students are introduced to graphic design, personification and anthropomorphism through various questioning activities and a Pixar video. Finally they are shown how both are used effectively in advertising (M & M’s and Kellogg’s) before creating their own Pixar research page, demonstrating an understanding of the key words learnt; in a visual way. Also included is an instructional video to aid with delivery of content.
If you enjoyed this lesson, please see the other lessons in my personification graphics scheme. This scheme was designed for KS3 but could also be used with KS4 students.
What is debugging and how can I fix errors?
This lesson acts as a short introduction to what debugging is and explains the principles of identifying and fixing errors found in code, applied in a practical and fun way.
♦ Introduction to ‘Debugging’ and the additional keywords: error and fix.
♦ Practical activity where students draw their own coding problem and arranging printed ‘blocks’ in order to challenge one-another and practice debugging before moving and applying on the computer.
♦ Practical coding activity to debug the basics of a program.
This is the first introductory lesson of a unit/project that introduces students to the exciting world of coding! In the project, students will design and code their own educational game for primary year students. The full scheme will be uploaded in March 2023 when it is fully complete.
If you enjoyed this project/scheme of work please leave a review and visit my shop where there is a range of creative and engaging design and engineering projects.
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↠ Projects work in Powerpoint or Google slides. This file may be zipped. Once downloaded right-click the file and select ‘extract all’ to open. ↞
✎Please note I am a UK seller and unless otherwise stated the product uses standard English. This should not affect the use of this product in other countries. ✎
♥ After using this product please leave a rating and comment.
♦ If there are any issues with the product please contact me (via the Ask a Question tab) before leaving feedback.
This unit acts as fun and engaging introduction into coding, with** students using the Scratch language to create their own interactive educational game for primary year students. There is an accompanying portfolio for students to complete where they investigate, design then test/evaluate their programs.
Statement of Enquiry: Scientific logic and systems can be used to create innovative and functional products.
Unit covers:
♦ Introduction to coding: How does a computer understand instructions?
♦ Introduction into: storage - process - output: How can we create interactions?
♦ Debugging: How can we find and fix errors in code?
♦ Creating Sprites and backgrounds: How can we size and move things on screens?
♦ Program analysis: Why look at the work of others?
♦ Generating and evaluating design ideas:
♦ Loops: How can I simplify my code?
♦ What/if statements: How can code make it’s own decisions?
♦ Variables: How can we use storage to make our programs more interactive?
♦ Feedback: How do we measure the success of our program?
Included are:
Slide presentations for each lesson.
Editable student portfolio.
Additional lesson resources.
Scratch how-to cards.
Links to an online coding course.
Student outcomes and examples.
If you enjoyed this project/scheme of work please leave a review and visit my shop where there is a range of creative and engaging design and engineering projects.
–
↠ Projects work in Powerpoint or Google slides. This file may be zipped. Once downloaded right-click the file and select ‘extract all’ to open. ↞
✎Please note I am a UK seller and unless otherwise stated the product uses standard English. This should not affect the use of this product in other countries. ✎
♥ After using this product please leave a rating and comment.
♦ If there are any issues with the product please contact me (via the Ask a Question tab) before leaving feedback.
Lesson includes objectives, keywords, engaging activities, videos and current real-world examples that students can relate to. Lessons culminate in a task where students consolidate and apply the key theory that they have learnt so that they are prepared for any IB assessments.
↠ Projects work in Powerpoint or Google Slides. This file may be zipped. Once downloaded right-click the file and select ‘extract all’ to open. ↞
✎Please note I am a UK seller and unless otherwise stated the product uses standard English. This should not affect the use of this product in other countries.
♥ After using this product please leave a rating and comment.
♦ If there are any issues with the product please contact me (via the Ask a Question tab) before leaving feedback.
Lesson includes objectives, keywords, engaging activities, videos and current real-world examples that students can relate to. Lessons culminate in a task where students consolidate and apply the key theory that they have learnt so that they are prepared for any IB assessments.
↠ Projects work in Powerpoint or Google Slides. This file may be zipped. Once downloaded right-click the file and select ‘extract all’ to open. ↞
✎Please note I am a UK seller and unless otherwise stated the product uses standard English. This should not affect the use of this product in other countries.
♥ After using this product please leave a rating and comment.
♦ If there are any issues with the product please contact me (via the Ask a Question tab) before leaving feedback.
