Teachers notes – Initial ideas Background – We enjoy teaching and guiding our pupils through design work, but we have found that their work improves if we explore some design strategies with them. Most of the strategies have evolved through years of teaching and, some by an off the wall idea while teaching a class how to design. In the bag unit we have highlighted five such strategies. Other design strategies will be highlighted in the units related to hats and cushions. Background – Highlighted here are the five designing strategies offered in this unit.. We do not teach all of them, morphing and proportion are always taught, but we select from the others according to time restraints or our situation. We often use the last three strategies to extend our abler pupils.

Background – This is a page from the pupils booklet related to design task 1 – Morphing. Possible teaching/discussion point - The presentation has a number of “stops” to allow for discussion or predictions as to what will happen next or what would they could do next to the shape. We have used this design strategy for a number of years, but it works far better digitally because it can be run on a loop sequence to reaffirm learning or serve as a re-cap. It would also work well on an interactive white board – a bank of shapes could be stored and pulled down as the suggestions are made by the pupils. We’ve not got an interactive board yet but working on it. Background – To develop the outline shapes of the bag. The task only relates to the outline shape of the bag. We ask pupils to think about the little clay ball that changes into the “Morph” character. We highlight that the step from one shape to the other has be a “gentle” change i.e. the shape cannot suddenly morph from a circle to triangle. Pupils sometimes like to add detail to the inside of the bag, this they can do later, when they have finished the outline shapes as it blurs the focus of this strategy. The strategy can be used across the department in nearly all the material areas. For example it is taught in Textiles and used in RMT when they are designing clocks.

Possible teaching/discussion point - Again the stops have been put in place to allow for prediction or discussion. Background – This is a slightly more detailed version of the first morphing strategy presentation slide. Possible teaching/discussion point - the grey star backgrounds features, act as highlights to the bag shapes. No animation has been placed on this slide. Background – This presentation slide may be more suited to older pupils or used to extend able pupils. The morphing is related to the outline shape of a sports bag.

Possible teaching/discussion point - The illustration shows a range of bags made from a combination of two materials in varying proportion. Half and half, one – third or two thirds etc. The task is to ask which is the most preferred bag in appearance, and to attempt to discover why? The one third – two thirds proportion is not always the most popular bag – but it can be discussed. The same exercise is repeated with the sports bag. Background – This is an interesting one to test with pupils, as you can never predict how pupils will respond to the division of three test. The background to this is that a number of products look their best in a one third – two third proportion. It is not a hard and fast rule just a guide, and a concept to think about when designing and evaluating.

Possible teaching/discussion point - These bags illustrate how dividing the bags into various divisions of three, gives a pleasing aesthetic appearance to most of the combinations. The fourth section gives an indicator that this guide could influence where logos or large decorative features could be placed. Background – This takes the concept of the proportion of thirds further, and is applied horizontally, vertically or diagonally on a hand bag style product. Background – This takes the concept of the proportion of thirds further, and is applied horizontally, vertically or diagonally on a sports bag product. Possible teaching/discussion point - These bags illustrate how dividing the bags into various divisions of three, gives a pleasing aesthetic appearance to most of the combinations. The fourth section gives an indicator that this guide could influence where logos or pockets could be placed.

Background – We have started working more and more from stimulus sources to inspire design thinking. Sometimes pupils bring in what interests them, or we have a collection of images that we simply loop digitally for inspiration. As you can gather a power cut or a dead bulb in the projector is a major hazard for us by now! A visit to Cardiff Bay was the source for inspiration for the bag designs on the next slide. Possible teaching/discussion point - The animated version works best for this as pupils can see how the words are extracted from the Millennium Centre, and changed into fashion orientated words, and how the various handbag shapes develop. This is a more demanding input but it will act as a stimulus to most pupils and possibly be an extension task to able pupils. An unanimated version is also available for printing out.

Background – We have a saying the department you need “to push a design to destruction” by that we mean, you need to consider unusual or off the wall ideas too. Some of these off the wall designs may contain a small element that can be toned down and developed further. As an analogy we explain how, clothes that appear on the catwalk shows of leading fashion designers are often totally over the top. But they are a source of inspiration to others, and often appear in high street stores in a much toned down version. Background – This page has been included to illustrate the above point, that some pupils really enjoy the challenge of thinking out side the box. As a team we have mixed feelings about this page, some did not want it included but we have left it in for you to decide to use it or not.

Possible teaching/discussion point - Step by step approach of this slide is nearing a self guide for the pupils. We originally completed this task using hand sketching with pupils, but this could also be completed using a CAD programme or as an extension task to the Drawing with WORD unit. Background – This is a strategy we have only recently started to use and is proving to be successful with the pupils. Again the Flash version of this is engaging. Possible teaching/discussion point - Pupils are asked to evaluate and discuss the illustrations and comment on the effectiveness of the 2D to 3D technique, and identify how shading can give a further 3D effect.. Background – As we all have found, pupils like to look at other pupils’ work. We scan or photograph pupils work and ask them to identify it’s strength and weakness.