Rethinking those Investigations – some great Resources DT IB teachers share…

Well I hope everyone is enjoying a relaxing summer vacation – recharging the batteries for the new year of teaching and Design and Technology students bursting with ideas and projects.

I have been trawling the web and am always amazed at what fellow colleagues share openly to help Design Technology teachers and students both new and old. One question that is always asked early on by new teachers of the Diploma Design Technology syllabus is regarding what sort of investigations and how many should I do to cover the syllabus. The answer is a difficult one as everyone teacher has different methods and favourites that are personal to them and their students. However the following two schools have shared some interesting task sheets showing the investigations they choose: –

• From A. Pybus on his Design technology wiki – he has shared the Investigations and Assignments/IA’s that he has used with some often used ideas but I particularly like his Sort Project which is a really interesting problem solving investigation.
• From Wellington College in the UK – there is an excellent Intranet site with updates weblog and also some great resources again for those IA’s, I especially like the House for Modern Living investigation and the way the investigations are structured will help new and existing DT teachers alike.

So thank you to both of these school and teachers for sharing resources, if you know of any others then please comment or even better comment and post on the OCC.