MYP Design

From curiosity to code, circuits, and prototypes.

I teach IB MYP Design across Years 1–5, with units built around Arduino electronics, coding, sustainable design, and community-centred problem solving. IB MYP Design Category 2 trained.

Lesson plans Differentiated assessment Student work MYP 5 ePortfolios

Lesson plans and interactive classes

Lesson plans

Unit and lesson plans

Lesson plans from my MYP Design units, with objectives, activities, and assessment.

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Lesson plan 1
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Lesson plan 2
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Lesson plan 3
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Lesson plan 4
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Simulation-based interactive classes

Ardu's Lab — interactive coding simulations

Interactive lessons I built to teach coding through everyday stories: variables as labelled lunchboxes, if decisions, and for loops, plus a night light, a parking sensor, and a predict-the-robot game. The Arduino code highlights each line as it runs, and students guess what happens next.

Ardu's Lab parking sensor simulation with highlighted Arduino code

VariablesIf statementsFor loopsArduino

Open the lab

Differentiated assessment

MYP 3 · Criterion A

For the MYP 3 unit Sustainable cities and communities, I created three levels of the Criterion A (Inquiring and analysing) template, each with a matching task-specific clarification. Every student works towards the same criterion, with scaffolding that matches where they are.

First page of the Level 1 Criterion A template

Level 1 · bands 1–4

The most scaffolded version, with sentence starters, guiding descriptors, and hints for each strand.

ScaffoldedSentence starters

Template Task-specific clarification

First page of the Level 2 Criterion A template

Level 2 · bands 5–6

Students explain the need for a solution for a specific client or target audience and plan their research, with some guidance.

GuidedClient focus

Template Task-specific clarification

First page of the Level 3 Criterion A template

Level 3 · bands 7–8

Minimal scaffolding. Students explain and justify the need, present proof of the problem, and build a detailed, prioritised research plan.

IndependentJustify

Template Task-specific clarification

Student work

Click any image to enlarge

Projects from my MYP Design classes. Student names and faces are always hidden.

MYP 1 — Electronic board games

Students designed quiz-style board games with a simple circuit: touch the probe to a matching pair and the light comes on. The back of each board shows the wiring they planned and built.

CircuitsGame designMYP 1

Geo-Matcher board game matching countries to monuments — Geo-Matcher — countries and monuments

Back of the Geo-Matcher board showing the wiring, student names blurred — Geo-Matcher — wiring on the back

Maths board game with questions along a path and answer tiles — Maths quiz path game

Back of the maths board game showing wiring between questions and answers — Maths game — wiring on the back

Flag Dash board game matching flags to country names — Flag Dash — match the flag to the country

Back of the Flag Dash board with battery and wiring — Flag Dash — battery and wiring

IDU with Individuals and Societies — Light up a culture

An interdisciplinary unit with Humanities. Students researched a culture and created an artwork that lights up, soldering LED circuits into their designs.

IDUSolderingCulture

Painting of Japan with Mount Fuji and lanterns lit by LEDs, student faces hidden — Japan — lanterns lit with LEDs

Drawing of Apollo with a lyre lit by LEDs, student faces hidden — Ancient Greece — Apollo's lyre lights up

Students soldering LED connections on a canvas board, faces hidden — Soldering the LED circuit

Robots, boats, and sensors

Hands-on electronics units where students built and tested line-following robots, remote-controlled boats, and Arduino sensor prototypes.

RoboticsMotorsSensors

RC boats on the test tank (video)

Students testing RC boats in a water tank, faces hidden — Testing the RC boats

Line-following robot on a taped test track — Line-following robot on the test track

Arduino circuit with soil moisture sensors in soil samples — Arduino soil moisture sensor prototype

Soil samples labelled healthy and unhealthy beside an Arduino circuit and a Tinkercad model — Comparing soil samples with the sensor

Debug the System — faulty circuit challenges

ATL focus: critical thinking (analysing, debugging, and troubleshooting systems). Students received Arduino circuits with deliberate faults in Tinkercad and had to find and fix the errors in the wiring and the code.

ATL: Critical thinkingTinkercadDebugging

Challenge sheet for the running lights faulty circuit, student name blurred — Challenge 2: Running lights

Tinkercad showing highlighted code errors to fix — Reading the compiler errors

Student fixing highlighted errors in Arduino code — Fixing the code line by line

Student working on an Arduino LED circuit in Tinkercad — Tracing the circuit

Student debugging a two-LED circuit on an iPad — Debugging a two-LED circuit

Student testing a corrected four-LED circuit — Testing the corrected circuit

MYP 5 Design ePortfolios I guided

eAssessment · May 2025

Excerpts from MYP 5 Design ePortfolios by students I supervised: the table of contents and the opening pages of Criterion A. Names and candidate codes are removed.