October 22, 2010

By: James I. from St Paul, MN
Comments: 17

Posted By: James Iliff
On: 9/18/2008 8:26:30 PM

So, my school is heightening its expectations for extended lesson plans. Here is my dilemma.... My students and I are working on a design project. We are designing a collapsible homeless shelter. We are currently in the research phase of the project and I am having my students take over. They will be finding resources in the community that can help us in our quest to improve our designs. When I try to lesson plan for this there are big holes in my immediate future. How can I lesson plan for an undetermined course of action?

Posted By: James Iliff
On: 9/20/2008 9:04:54 AM

I recently got my hands on a copy of I.D. Magazine. It was full of really creative project ideas that one could build units around. It may be a bit expensive though.

Posted By: Juliana James
On: 9/21/2008 11:21:45 AM

Sometimes we need to think about the most obvious resources available at our fingertips. When I googled collapsible homeless shelter this website came up: /www.shellhouse.org/ and I thought it had fascinating pictures on it of collapsible cardboard shelters. The question I would like to propose is how do we create original designs without googling what we are trying to plan first?

Posted By: Juliana James
On: 9/21/2008 11:21:48 AM

Sometimes we need to think about the most obvious resources available at our fingertips. When I googled collapsible homeless shelter this website came up: /www.shellhouse.org/ and I thought it had fascinating pictures on it of collapsible cardboard shelters. The question I would like to propose is how do we create original designs without googling what we are trying to plan first?

Posted By: Lori Baucom
On: 2/18/2009 10:25:32 AM

I run across this same problem. The students don't want to think about it first. They just want to copy someone else's idea. We have a teacher at my school who has the students design a chair. They were much more creative before the students had access to the internet. I guess I am not answering your question but adding to it.

Posted By: Daniel Nelson
On: 2/23/2009 6:31:58 PM

James and I had students working on similar design problems; a portable, collapsible shelter. With a couple exceptions, my students produced "nothing but tents" as solutions. I brought in two sample lightweight, portable, tents that could be manufactured for under $80.00 and asked "How does your design improve on these samples"? The internet provides a means for students to explore what what has been done before and what is available in the market place. Our job is to let them know that copies are not design. My students scored very low with their solutions.

Posted By: James Iliff
On: 2/23/2009 7:24:39 PM

Thanks, I have a ton of resources around the project. My question had more to do with lesson planning student-led curricula. I have been struggling to create detailed lessons when my students are taking over.

Posted By: Sarah Rooney
On: 11/29/2009 11:19:19 AM

I had students choose a product to re-design, and I have to say that I was impressed with how many completely original ideas many of my students came up with! One reason I believe students were able to do that was because I had them research on the internet (google, yahoo, etc...) different ideas before coming up with their own. They knew that if it popped up, it was aleady taken. The students were also challenged to change a product that we use everyday, so if it was something that already existed, someone in their group would have known about it. Some examples of re-constructed products were outdoor toilets, pregnancy shirts (built in measuring to make sure the woman is gaining appropriate weight), hand-sanitizer ties, and several cleaning improvement products. I feel that we are in a new "be clean" frenzy right now, and many of the students products centered around being extra sanitary and/or "going green."