Albany Senior High School/Coursebook/1PRD

What is this course about?
What is Product Design? Product design is an umbrella term which encompasses activities where the focus is on designing and developing outcomes or products within specialist areas. Transferable skills and abilities are essential to success (ie research, problem solving, literacy, graphics practice, practical skills and knowledge). Underpinning common processes involves a problem solving approach leading to intervention by design. This requires students to work from given or student developed design brief through which they follow a recognised process in order to produce a solution which is fit for purpose.

The Level 1 Product Course



What will I learn?
Successful product design involves learning from other designs which have features similar to the ones students want to reflect in their product. An essential skill therefore is that students are able to evaluate the quality of a product against a set of recognised criteria and that they are able to identify the features of a product that make it either a success or failure. This approach is essential in providing a good framework within which students can start to develop their ideas with confidence gained perhaps from studying the work of a successful designer, design movement or a particularly successful product. What were the reasons for the movement? (often driven by societal needs), What impact did the designs have on society? What impact did society have on the designs? This develops the idea that we do not design in a vacuum, a design be it good or bad will have an impact on the user, how do we ensure that ths will be positive? When students justify their own design decisions their approach is from a standpoint of adopting ideas from other successful outcomes and they are able to explain why these designs were successful and therefore what the likely strengths, and weaknesses of their own design may be. Product Design therefore has a foundation in literacy and understanding of the place of Technology within society at its centre.

Desired skills and dispositions of a Product Design student at ASHS

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Students develop their skills at seeing problems from different angles and formulating their own solutions. To practice this, teachers present students with situations in which they need to develop individual solutions – where skills that they have already developed can be drawn upon and applied to help them to work through a problem.

Adaptability Students need to be comfortable with the idea of change and be willing to adapt to the changes around them. Teachers need to create a dynamic environment within the classroom. Varying the teaching strategies, the setup of the classroom, the ways that learning is demonstrated by students, and the guidelines for peer work relationships or homework can help students learn to adapt.

Co Contruction There is an understanding that teachers are willing to listen to student ideas about improving the classroom. Students have the opportunity to discuss ideas and put them into practice – even if an idea may be failing students tend to adapt their thinking very quickly in this situation and things can improve quickly. There can be a valuable lesson here on how to analyze their  `live` responses with a view to thinking about their meta cognitive processing and how it could be refined or improved.

Effective Oral and Written Communication We aim to teach our students how to speak confidently and clearly through presentation of ideas, class, peer or teacher discussion. Written communication needs continuous formative assessment with guidance given where required. Teachers need to continually emphasize vocabulary, meanings, problem solving strategies and reviewing previous work to ensure continuity.

Accessing and Analyzing Information Accessing information is easy, but accessing good information tends to be more complicated. Students need to be taught how to find what they need (and be able to trust what they find). Using a reciprocal teaching approach teachers can model by ‘think-aloud’ reading strategies, we can think-aloud Internet searching strategies. Project your screen on the board and learn about a topic with your students.

Curiosity and Imagination Product Design students are generally naturally curious. Their imaginations often creating practical and impractical things. Our task as educators has less to do with teaching them how to be curious and imaginative, and more to do with not taking that away from them. We need to continue to encourage them to develop these skills, as well as teach them how to apply them creatively and purposefully.

What sorts of things will I do?
Product Design at ASHS is made up of five specialist subject areas which are :

Food Technology, Design and Visual Communication, Textiles Technology, Digital Technology, Hard Materials Technology. The things you will do is dependent on which of these options you decide to specialise in although there are opportunities for taking your project across the Product Design department for example if there was a fabric aspect to your chair design. General activities for each of the specialisms are as follows:

Food Technology - Study food designers such as Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay, Peter Gordon (NZ). You will create food design outcomes which reflect the style of these designers. At the beginning of the course you will develop a set of foundation skills and knowledge which will be assessed through practical application.

DVC - You will develop skills in graphic techniques such as three dimensional freehand drawing, rendering using a range of media and instrumental drawing. There will be an introduction to computer based graphic skills and you will develop an understanding of the history of design and how it has influenced society. Projects will cover architectural drawing, designing products and model making.

Hard Materials - You will develop competence in the work shop covering health and safety, use of hand and machine tools, measuring and marking out. You will have the opportunity to develop your own design in terms two and three and this will be supported by the development of subject specific vocabulary and study of influential designers. This is a projects based course and there will be two significant practical outcomes as well as skills building practical exercises.

Textiles - You will develop foundation skills and understanding based on pattern making, stitch types, machine sewing and embriodery using a range of fabrics. You will develop an understanding of the history of fashion design studying you chosen designer in depth and then reflecting those design ideas in your own fashion outcome. You will also look at non apparel items such as necklaces, earrings and belts acting as accessories to your design.

Digital Technology - In digital technology there are a range of options for a design outcome which can include leaflet, poster, booklet design, technical drawing, digital drawing and animation, website design and control type outcomes such as robotic control or traffic system control.

Frequently asked questions:
Are there any prerequisites for this course?

No.