My House

TIPC Ratings

IDEAL/TARGET – Students are to use a variety of resources including (but not limited to): Internet, Google Earth, books, magazines, encyclopedias, video conferencing, email, and personal interviews for research of the design. They will identify the appropriate resources needed to acquire the information necessary to complete their project. The project encompasses designing a house in a different country for the average blue collar worker. This will cause the students to research the economy in their country, economic status of a blue collar family, climate, availability of construction materials, and other influences. Students also had to draw upon prior knowledge when considering “green” designs. By focusing on an area of their choosing or native country, this made the “My House” project relevant for students and was based on real-world data.

IDEAL/TARGET -Students are required to gather a variety of resources in which one of them is a family member that has knowledge of the country for the design. They will communicate with face-to-face interviews, video conferencing, email, and other methods both within and outside the classroom. Collaboration is achieved through reviews with parents, relatives, and fellow peers to create new solutions to being more environmentally friendly and less fossil fuel dependent. Students are required to communicate and collaborate with other students to gain feedback on designs that they have completed for the project. Students are also required to have feedback from parents or relatives of their chosen country to evaluate their three designs for accuracy. This feedback will be used for the students to critically redesign and to ultimately create the fourth design. The fourth design will then be evaluated in mini groups where students will gain experience in presenting and also encourage team evaluation of the design. Ultimately, students will be creating a unique 3-dimensional model of their house.

IDEAL/TARGET – This house project was based on an open ended question about factors that influence the design of houses in various countries with no one right answer – “How can home design reflect socio-economic factors, environmental influences, and cultural attributes of a given location?” Students had to use higher level critical thinking skills to research what these influences were. They had to evaluate climate, economic conditions, and “green” initiatives. This often led to the students to formulate new questions and investigate further. They used multiple resources such as Internet research and family interviews to support the design of their house. They were also required to document a variety of resources to gather information for this project. This documentation is expected to conform to MLA works cited format. Students will also have pictures and information that will be shown via PowerPoint, Prezi, Adobe, Glogster, etc. in their presentation to the entire class. This information must include the real world situation of designing a house for the average Blue Collar family. Throughout the process were opportunities for students to evaluate and self-reflect on their design. Through both the mini groups and the full presentation students will be expected to answer questions that other students have. These questions must be answered and defended based upon the research and knowledge that student has gained through the process.

IDEAL/TARGET – Students will use a variety of personal and electronic resources to gain knowledge and elicit feedback throughout the entire process. This design is ultimately targeted to the average blue collar family of the chosen country. Students will have to creatively draw and then design a 3-dimensional model of a house. They will also have to create an original presentation to share with their mini group. The electronic resources used for these presentations were based on student choice. Some chose to use power point, others used MovieMaker, Prezi, Adobe, Glogster, etc. Each product and presentation was unique.