The Design Lab by Brandon Seane

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 02:16:03 UTC

By the end of this session, teachers should be able to :

Have an overview of what is Design Lab.
Integrate pedagogy, assessment, & digital tools into an organised design lab.

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 02:21:36 UTC

Participants will be successful if they can :

1. Turn educational plans into active, hands-on, and real-world learning experiences.

Introduction

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 03:28:04 UTC

A Design Lab acts as a creative testing ground where educators and students co-create learning tools. It uses design thinking—a problem-solving framework based on empathy, prototyping, and testing—to transform static study plans into dynamic action

Choose

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 03:34:46 UTC

Listening
Speaking
Reading
Writing
Grammar
Language Arts

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 03:51:44 UTC

Empathy Mapping: Teachers look at the curriculum through the student's eyes to identify confusing or boring parts.
Prototyping Lessons: Instead of just writing a lecture, educators build small "alpha" versions of activities, games, or digital projects.
Learning by Doing: Shifting away from passive memorization toward hands-on projects, maker spaces, and iterative feedback loops (similar to an architectural design studio).
Local Context Integration: Grounding abstract concepts in local stories, community issues, and real-world challenges rather than generic textbook examples.

Example: Form 1 English Lesson

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Topic: My Holiday
Level: CEFR A2
Focus: Speaking + Writing

1. Curriculum: Identify the relevant content and learning standards for speaking/writing.

2. Learning Objective: Pupils can talk about their holiday and write a short paragraph about it.

3. Pedagogy: Use modelling, scaffolding, pair work and collaborative learning.

4. Learning Activities: Picture discussion → vocabulary activity → pair speaking → guided writing.

5. Assessment: Teacher questioning, observation, peer checking and a short writing task.

6. Feedback: Pupils identify mistakes and improve their sentences.

7. Reflection: Pupils assess what they can do and what they need to improve.

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 05:03:43 UTC

Curriculum says:
Pupils need to develop their English language skills.

⬇️

Teacher designs:
A meaningful task based on pupils' experiences.

⬇️

Pupils do:
Talk about their own holiday with a partner.

⬇️

Teacher supports:
Provides vocabulary, sentence starters and examples.

⬇️

Pupils produce:
A short written paragraph.

⬇️

Teacher assesses:
Checks whether pupils can communicate their ideas effectively.

brandonsenae — 2026-09-07 05:08:11 UTC