Tell Me about it: What is Design? Creating a Design Workshop (Part 2)
By Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, September 20, 2007
Grade Level
- Middle School
Category
- Other
Subject Area
- Arts
- Language Arts
Lesson Time
Introduction
National Standards
Level III. 1. Uses reading skills and strategies to understand a variety of informational texts (e.g., electronic texts; textbooks; biographical sketches; directions; essays; primary source historical documents, including letters and diaries; print media, including editorials, news stories, periodicals, and magazines; consumer, workplace, and public documents, including catalogs,technical directions, procedures, and bus routes)
Level III. 5. Uses content, style, and structure (e.g., formal or informal language, genre, organization) appropriate for specific audiences (e.g., public, private) and purposes (e.g., to entertain, to influence, to inform)
Level III. Benchmark 2. Knows how the qualities and characteristics of art media, techniques, and processes can be used to enhance communication of experiences and ideas
Objectives
Students will:
- analyze the components of the design process
- view and analyze design videos
- respond to journal prompts
- participate in small-group and large-group discussion
- work collaboratively in small groups
- create a design workshop
Resources
- “Design Workshop” handout (attached)
- Internet Web sites
Materials
- Computer with Internet access
Procedures
The purpose of this activity is to provide students with an understanding of basic design concepts by viewing two videos.
1. Review the following steps of the design process with your class:
• STEP ONE: Identify the problem. Brainstorm ideas.
• STEP TWO: Analyze the elements you will need to solve the problem.
• STEP THREE: Create your design plan and presentation.
• STEP FOUR: Evaluate your design. Share your design and ask for feedback. Discuss how you might make changes and improvements to your design.
• STEP FIVE: Communicate. Share your design plan.
2. As a class, watch the video entitled “Quick Peek: Paper Bridge Challenge” at
http://ditc.missouri.edu/designTasks/paperBridge/index.html.
Ask your students what they learned about design from this video.
3. Watch the following video entitled “Scrambled or Over Easy?” and think about how you can incorporate it into your workshop
http://www.cooperhewitt.org/EDU/av_edu.asp?v=1.
Ask your students what they learned about design from this video.
4. Lead a class discussion comparing the information in the two video clips.
Activity Two: Reflecting On Design
The purpose of this activity is to help students reflect on their understanding of the ways design is defined.
1. Ask your students to respond to the following quotations in a writing journal:
• “Design is both a verb and a noun.”
• “Design allows us both to respond and invent.”
“The act of designing is carried out in many different ways, from the personal choices we make when we set the table or plant a garden, to the collective decisions made in the marketplace or at city hall.”
• Design education encourages your students to see themselves as designers in their own right as they engage in the design process through active observation, critical discussion, hands-on activities, visual communication and presentation, and critique.
2. Invite students to share their responses to each of the quotations. Compare, analyze, and discuss students’ thoughts.
Steps for Learning
The purpose of this activity is to give students an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned about design.
2. Have students share their design plan with the class.
Assessment
Create a class rubric to evaluate the students’ workshop design. Use the following guidelines to help create the rubric.
- Rate the effectiveness of your workshop in conveying information about design concepts.
- Rate the effectiveness of your overviews of five fields of design
- Rate how effectively your workshop incorporates the People’s Design Award Web site as a tool for learning about design.
- Rate the effectiveness of your hands-on design activity.
- Rate the effectiveness of your group’s brainstorming in generating ideas.
- Rate how effectively you analyze the information you used to identify your problem.
- Rate the effectiveness of your solution.
- Rate how clearly you communicate your solution.
- Rate your creativity.
- Rate how well your group is able to collaborate.
Enrichment Extension Activities
• http://www.cityofneighborhoods.org/
• http://www.cityofneighborhoods.org/about.html
• The most important component of design education is instilling in students the ability to see themselves as designers.