Welcome to the Triple A Learning blog for DP Design technology. The most recent blog posts are listed below and you can access the blog archive by following the appropriate link in the panel on the left.
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Often it can seem in the small world IB Design Technology teaching that you are on your own – compared to the vast cohort of other IB Science teachers around the world. This however is untrue as the number of schools offering the wonderful IB Design Technology course increases and more and more of these teachers are very willing to place their work and resources online to help both their students but students from around the world.
The James Dyson Award is a fabulous award to show your students especially those thinking through Major Projects in DP2, or just starting the course and getting an idea for the wonderful world of design.
Whether the elegance or Curve a seat for cycles specifically designed for females…or Kwikscreen a way of dividing rooms easily and efficiently to maximize space wins remains to be seen as the judgement countdown suggests 16 days until the winner is announced but a great resource nevertheless. You could even ask students to decide which design they would choose and why – a great way to analyse products for their effectiveness.
I know for many that running a Design Technology course without a specific textbook to back up the content and understanding for students has been problematic. Most of us have worked with the very comprehensive “Advanced Design and Technology” written for AS and A level courses, however it often comes across as a little too much and too heavy for IB Diploma students. So it will probably be good news to hear that IBID press from Australia are publishing a course specific book in September: -
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So from last weeks post – I left you hanging regarding a couple of definitions. Well to help just in case you had not found some great resources here is a quick post this week to help - regarding Morphological Synthesis and Attribute Listing then look no further than the links below :-
One grumble I often have is students refusing to take notes – or just writing those notes poorly or in a very disorganised way. One way to get around this is to simply use the syllabus and specific sections from each unit outline which gives a table like the one shown below :-
The problem with this table is that in some instances the IB has filled in the definitions and examples in others it has not. I find if you are able to copy and manipulate each section and make it blank then you can hand out copies either digital or on paper of each section / definition outline and then students have to neatly fill in and find, research or note down the specific information. If they do this at the end of each Unit – they can then build up a library folder or digital folder with the main revision notes they need. Simple but I have found very effective – the important thing is to make sure that the students are active and filling it in – rather than passive and just reading photocopies.
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Are you thinking about a 3D printer for your Design Technology department – as we are at our school and have for a while. But were always unsure if the investment was too much. So to begin with we tested the water by buying one of the Open Source RepRap versions available that are very cheap and cost effective and at least give students an insight to the world of 3D printing. There is a great video at the BBC here – showing one version of the RepRap in action and also see one of the machines printing a chess piece below -
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One problem students often have is that they get so busy that they end up not reading around any of their IB subjects and this is often to the detriment of a specific subject. It is strangely most true of Design Technology – as we all know trying to design in a vacuum is almost impossible and to be honest in this day and age almost reprehensible when you consider the amount of information so readily accessible. However all that information does lead our students to information overload so I often show students ways of getting information pushed to them rather than having to go out and collect information.
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Well the summer is almost fully upon us – and thoughts maybe turning to Internal Assessments and projects that we can change or run through next year. One excellent IA which can bring in a number of unit areas including :-
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Those final May 2011 examinations seem far away now – but thought it was useful to quickly review Paper 2. Unlike some of the questions on paper 1 – I found paper 2 to be well worded in most senses and used some interesting stem designs.
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What did we all think to Paper 1 this year – some have suggested a little more difficult than usual. But often it is in the way these questions are worded and as usual it can be very tricky for students to carefully think through and logically answer these questions. I always make sure that for exam technique in multiple choice questions that students do go through the process of crossing out those that they know are incorrect in order – even if the answer at first seems obvious to them.
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