Trudi Barrow - Design Education

The introduction of blended learning into my classroom and then the abrupt switch to a virtual learning curriculum has had a huge impact on how I now assess students through both formative and summative assessment. I’m very interested in exploring how digital tools can help alleviate the time pressures and work load of marking on the teacher whilst providing students with personalised, targeted feedback that leads to exceptional progress. “feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students; and it should be more work for the recipient than the donor. Indeed, the whole purpose of feedback should be to increase the extent to which students are owners of their own learning,” ― Dylan Wiliam,  Embedded Formative Assessment KS3 Digitally Marked Scheme of Learning The majority of formative assessment during a KS3 DT rotation has historically been in the form of handwritten comments. I’ve also tr...

Exam boards no longer have a section of marks students can achieve for their presentation skills. My personal opinion is this is wrong as it has lead to pieces of coursework in KS4 and 5 being text heavy with often little teaching attention given to how to present ideas clearly and effectively. In professional design industries, design boards, models and portfolios are centre stage to group discussions and client pitches. To be able to effectively communicate visually is essential and goes hand in hand with creating excitement and engagement from the client. I talk about the 'wow' factor in my lessons and spend time discussing the need to 'attention grab' with the quality of presentation of design drawings. This is something students are often very confident with when using CAD but I fear hand sketching skills are taking a back seat. In my department we have recently invested in pro-markers and I have taught rendering skills to KS5 students. Not only has the presentatio...

It is a huge belief and passion of mine that the learning environment should be dynamic and exciting for students to learn in. Since re-joining the staff at Sandringham I have endeavoured to create interesting and exciting displays that above all are inspiring. This September I have taken stock of what I have managed to produce recently and am making plans to create more displays for the department over the next academic year. 

Perseverance CLICK here for Year 9 Perserverance Assembly on Loom I really enjoyed making this assembly on the character trait of perseverance through looking at NASA's Perseverance Rover mission to Mars. I learnt a lot about NASA's space program and project Artemis I really want to return to this again in DT lessons. There could potentially be lots of cross curricular link opportunities and I was really impressed with the learning materials on NASA's website. 

 A small STEM week due to lockdown timing This year's STEM week at Sandringham School was smaller than it would have been due to it coinciding with the return to school after the second school closure of the year. I took a lead on planning the DT lessons for year 7&8 and liasing with the overall project lead. It was a shame we could not implement some of our whole school ideas but I look forward to next year!  Using padlet to create a competitive gallery This year's theme was biodiversity.  In DT students were asked to choose from 3 design briefs to  competitive design section of the lesson. The DT lessons were all tied together across the department using padlet. There were 5 simultaneously taught classes for half a year group at a time totaling 20 classes.  When all classes were complete and all students had uploaded their work an overall winner was chosen. The 3 padlets produced were full of work and students were able to see a live gallery and work being...

A fantastic resource to be used in many different ways. In my lessons as a DT and Art teacher I very often use Padlet as it is a fantastic resource for showcasing visual work. I have also used Padlet to aid with peer assessment, to play ‘guess who’ games, and to offer a forum for quick fire questions with 6 th form. I have also started using it for starter activities within a google meet; posing a question that students can respond to whilst they wait for others to join the meet.   Here are some examples: ·         A year 8 Art Padlet. This Padlet was used for peer assessment . Students were to follow the assessment criteria also posted on the page. https://padlet.com/barrowt/y14ullp1gjc1h2ke ·         This is the same class playing a guess who game. Each student posted their final piece of their bedroom and then the others are guessed who it belonged to based on clues within the piece. From a project abou...

A project to say thank you with a visual collage from as many students as possible. Sandringham Students across all year groups joined together to create an artwork honouring and thanking our heroes in the NHS. I organised this in collaboration with both the Design Technology and the Visual Art Faculties, The project was organised as a starter activity in lessons. Students were asked to make a heart to thank the NHS. The only rule was that it was to be blue, but they were encouraged to use a wide range of materials and tools, which included traditional fine art techniques, photography, CAD, lego, textiles, digital methods and even snow. All of us involved were very impressed with the variety of designs submitted, and the passion from the students. It was so touching to see how much they wanted to thank NHS workers and our frontline heroes. For some students it was much closer to home with a family member on the front line they really wanted to thank. I delivered some A3 laminated print...