AQA Design & Technology KS4 Y10 Research Unit Project History of Products, Designers, Movements

So, I used this with a group of Y10 this year as an independent research task into the suggested designers, companies, movements etc from the AQA Specification.

It's very open, in that after it is explained to the students, the teacher acts very much as a facilitator.

Over a six week half term we spent two weeks on each of the topics: Person, Movement, Company. I normally get six one hour lessons in a fortnight. In this way four of the six lessons they were taught were spent on each one (we do exam prep or a skills lesson in the other two per fortnight).

So, for each theme, four lessons were spent with them individually researching and presenting one from the selection. I left it up to them how they wanted to present it, with suggestions including models, sketchbook, posters, powerpoint etc, so that lower ability learners created a simple powerpoint and the higher ability researched in more detail and produced models. Some stayed after school to complete as four lessons wasn't enough for the ones who wanted more detail.

At the end of the term each student had then created three presentations of a different sort on three design related themes. By reviewing their peers and helping each other and talking about them at the beginning or end of each lesson, the class as a whole had a very wide range of design history and we were able to create a display of the various histories studied. In this way the class were able to produce more than they could individually and created their own 'bank' of research material to draw on in Y11 and for exam revision later on.

I printed the slides onto A3 in colour so each student had a clear understanding of what was expected and could select according to their own tastes.