foolfillment: the blog

I’ve said this before, but in introducing 2 year Highers at Ross High there is scope to move from teaching the course as a ‘two term dash’ to having time to further explore the parts of the courses that otherwise get glossed over or missed altogether. In the Product Design course the pupils spend their 4th year working through whole projects and then making the product.

We are getting towards the end of the first project now and my thoughts are turning to how it is to be assessed. In a normal Higher you teach some content then assess with a NAB, a centrally set test. In this project though the aim wasn’t to pass an Outcome, but what was it? Sure, there are some aims like gain an understanding of vacuum forming, develop a better understanding of the design process, but looking back I wonder how well as a department we have shared these intentions with the classes - I know I haven’t done this particularly well. And what about specific Learning Outcomes?

Then thinking about how to assess the projects I’m pretty keen to get the pupils involved. A big part of the Product Design course (and design generally) is to analyse and evaluate existing stuff, so to me it makes absolute sense that the pupils should evaluate each other’s designs and folios. It would also steer them away from wanting a grade.