Substitute Teacher Guide • Grade 11 • Unit E.5: Extension & Enrichment (Optional)
Running a Focus Group: Testing Design on a Real Audience — Day 2 of 2
Today's focus: Running the Focus Group
✅ Before Students Arrive
- Materials needed today:
- A finished piece from an earlier Client Project (logo, ad campaign, or style guide)
- A written question guide (one per interviewer)
- Notecards or a shared doc for recording responses
- Most students keep their class notebook at its usual spot in the room and use it every day (see routine below) -- but it's each student's own notebook, so a few may bring theirs from home instead. Either way, everyone should have one out.
- Write today's Do Now on the board before the bell rings (see below).
📓 Daily Notebook Routine (students already know this)
Keep this going every day, in your class notebook: date today's entry, jot your Do Now response, add any new vocabulary word(s) from today's Key Vocabulary section (word + a quick picture + a simple definition in your own words), and take 60 seconds to sketch something connected to today's topic. This notebook is yours to study from, reference on projects, and pull evidence from later for your portfolio.
📁 Portfolio Update Reminder
Once a week (e.g. every Friday, or your class's last meeting of the week), add your best finished or in-progress work to a running portfolio folder with a 1-2 sentence caption: what it is, what skill or standard it shows. This becomes your formal Google Sites portfolio in Unit F -- keep it current all year so you're not scrambling right before your PBAT and portfolio review.
🗣️ Opening: Do Now
Write or project this, and have students start immediately:
“Swap question guides with a partner and flag any question that still sounds leading. Focus group (25 min): in small groups, take turns being the "audience" reacting to a classmate's finished piece using the question guide, while the designer takes notes without defending or explaining their choices. Debrief (15 min): each designer identifies at least 2 concrete changes the feedback suggests that a peer critique hadn't already caught, and writes them down.”
📋 Class Plan (step by step)
-
Step 1 — 25 min
🗣️ Say: "Here's what we're doing next." Then read the instructions below to the class.
📋 Focus group (25 min): in small groups, take turns being the "audience" reacting to a classmate's finished piece using the question guide, while the designer takes notes without defending or explaining their choices.
-
Step 2 — 15 min
🗣️ Say: "Let's hear from a few people before we move on."
📋 Debrief (15 min): each designer identifies at least 2 concrete changes the feedback suggests that a peer critique hadn't already caught, and writes them down.
🔑 Vocabulary Introduced Today
- Usability
- How easily a real, untrained person can understand and use a design without extra explanation.
- Bias
- Letting a designer's own attachment to their work quietly steer the questions or the notes taken during feedback.
✅ Wrap-Up: Exit Ticket
A few minutes before the bell, say: "Time to finish your exit ticket."
“What did a real audience notice about your design that you, as the person who made it, had completely missed?”
Collect exit tickets (or have students leave them in the usual spot) for the regular teacher to review.
⏳ If You're Short on Time
Protect the Do Now and the Exit Ticket above all else -- those are how the regular teacher tracks daily progress. If a step above is optional/homework, or is a "share out"/discussion step, shorten or skip it first.
⏳ If Students Finish Early
Have them keep working in their notebook: add extra detail to today's vocabulary sketch, review previous vocabulary, or -- if this is a portfolio update week for this class -- work on their portfolio. Early finishers should never be idle or distracting to classmates still working.
📝 For the Regular Teacher (fill in ahead of time)
- Regular teacher's name / how to reach them: ______________________________
- Where finished work / exit tickets go: ______________________________
- Front office extension / emergency contact: ______________________________
- Anything else this class needs to know today: ______________________________