Eaton's Interior Design class is using design skills to decorate spaces throughout the high school. With Eaton still in its first year, staff offices are still in the process of being decorated. This is a great opportunity for students to make an impact by contributing to the visual appeal of their campus while meeting the requirements of their education. Students understand the relevancy of their work when they make connections between the curriculum and other things around them. As part of the Interior Design curriculum, students learn design elements and design principles, which is about balance, unity, and harmony. These topics were previously taught in a lecture format, but this year it was transformed into a design blog project, yielding impressive results from students.
"Because Eaton is brand new, we were given the opportunity to design a room. We were able to take the elements and put them into an actual project that will stay tangible and on the wall forever." -Mrs. Broughton, Eaton Interior Design Teacher
Interior Design students have designed two Eaton offices so far. The first office was a different office at Eaton, their first real-world connection to interior design, with a customer (i.e., staff member), a budget, and a wonderfully designed office as the result. During that first project, students researched design techniques using other people's blog tutorials. Students took direction and inspiration from these tutorials, so a question came up: What if they had their own tutorial, rather than just using others, creating one for themselves? Hence, the second project, the focus of this article, was the opportunity for students to take the project even further. In addition to applying their design skills by decorating an office, each student created a blog tutorial for their individual design piece.
Emily's Design: Ombre Wall Art
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| Emily's final product |
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| "We put how we did it on the internet so everyone can see how to do it themselves." -Emily |
Megan's Design: Floating Shelves
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| "I learned how to put something out there and be more professional about it. I've created blogs before, but now I'm more professional, and I know how to use technology better for school." -Megan |
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| Megan's final product: Floating Shelves (shown with other items) |
Taking it Even Further
Mrs. Broughton used a project rubric for assessing the blog posts, including the student's voice and the content specific to interior design. The goal was for each student to have such a high quality tutorial that they could add it to Pinterest to share with the world. They were successful, and Mrs. Broughton pinned the student products on Pinterest. The pins have since been shared with others in the Pinterest community.
Moving Forward
Students are planning to design another Eaton office and will create more tutorials. Every time they improve, they will gain expertise. In the end, students will have many different tutorials in their blogs, which will be linked in their ePortoflios. Student learning improves over time when they are able to recognize exemplars within their own learning and share it with others, and this project does exactly that. Next time you visit Eaton High School, check out the Tech Room to see the students' design in person!
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