What next?
A student's finished skateboard
Given the successful outcomes and positive response from all involved in the project, Alexia says she would 'absolutely do it again', though with some key changes. This was Alexia's first year of teaching and obviously the first time doing a project of this nature, so it was a just as new an experience for her as for her students. And while some experiments paid off, others provided valuable lessons on how to approach the unit differently in future.
"One thing I would definitely do next time would be to reduce the group sizes to pairs or threes. There were roughly five people in each group and dealing with such a number of different personalities was one of the most difficult and frustrating parts of the project for the students and they found it really hard to find common ground. I also wouldn't worry about using industry materials so much and encourage more flexibility, allowing cheaper, heavier and easier to obtain materials to be used."
Due to the scope of the project, Alexia would also like to have a little more time for it, possibly using some of the first term of practical for planning and design of the skateboards and leaving a full ten weeks for construction, with the possible inclusion of the design and construction of a skateboard ramp to tie the whole unit together.
