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.
A simple introduction to Google Sketchup. Pupils go through the basic features of the software with a differentiated hand-out to create a model toothbrush. This lesson observation was graded as ‘outstanding’.
The lesson consists of a starter activity, step-by-step instructions for each tool, clear assesment criteria and a review.
Also included is a homework task and teacher example.
In this lesson, students explore the various needs, wants, interests etc of a target market and how designs can use this information to influence their design decisions, then are given a specific target market to explore through a creative exercise. They then consolidate this information to present their findings to the rest of the class. This lesson can be used for KS3, 4 or 5 in a variety of lessons around the ideas of user-centred design and entrepreneurship.
The only materials required are large sheets of paper and marker pens. Also included are 2 students examples.
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 a piece of ‘positive advertising’.
In this third lesson, students are tasked with personifying a letter, so that collectively the class can create a personified typeface. This typeface will then be used in later lessons to form the text for a piece of ‘positive advertising’. 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.
This lesson is an excellent, accessible introduction into wood theory or KS3, 4 or 5. It is essential that design technology and/or product design students know this as part of their theory, ready for assessments.
The lesson covers hardwoods, softwoods and manufactured boards, wood examples and their respective properties and manufacturing (felled, formed and finished) through various activities. Included is also a video on plywood production, worksheets and home learning tasks.
Your students are most likely already using ChatGPT but are they using it honestly? Do they understand it? Do they understand the alternatives?
To teach students about the risks and opportunities of AI and academic integrity, this research lesson and activity teaches students to compare and debate sources to determine which answer is the real truth. What better way to teach students about AI than for them to practically demonstrate how it works vs other traditional sources?
Included is a lesson that explores:
What is ChatGPT?
How does it work?
Is ChatGPT a tool or a cheat?
How does it differ from other sources?
How do we know the truth?
What are the other ways we could find an answer?
Which are more reliable and why?
Students are then set a group research task where they research different debatable questions from different sources before ranking by reliability. They then summarise by determining which answer is the truth.
Included:
Lesson presentation.
Structured student presentation template sorted by the different sources.
Interactive teacher CPD presentation that explains the student lesson.
Lesson plan.
The content has been planned for 2-3 lessons.
L1 presentation.
L2 Group Research.
L3 Group presentations and debates.
A visual starter for Product Design where students demonstrate their understanding of key words and/or it can be used to gauge prior understanding in the subject. Students can effectively differentiate and choose their own task or extension. Included is the original .ai file so that the resource can be adapted for different products/materials/key words etc.
If you enjoyed this free resource, please kindly leave a review/rating.
NEA Assessment Objective Bible AO Product Design Technology
Invaluable, measurable assessment Objective advice/guidance for students, which can also be used as explicit success criteria for portfolios. Students can reflect on their own work and highlight areas that they need to address.
All I ask, is that you please review this free resource in return. Thank you.
