MYP Design Command Terms in Design Notes

Command Terms: The Verb Decides What Gets Credited

1. A command term is the instruction verb in a task or in a criterion strand, and it tells you what kind of work will actually earn marks.
2. The MYP fixes the meaning of these verbs across subjects, so "describe" asks for the same thing in design as it does in sciences.
3. Criterion strands are written with command terms, which turns them into a checklist: if a strand says "develop", a page of listed ideas will not satisfy it.
4. Missing the verb is the commonest way to lose marks while still doing hours of work.
5. Two verbs in one strand means two jobs, so "explain and justify the need for a solution" wants the reason and then the evidence for your position.

The Short Answer Terms: State, List, Identify, Outline, Summarise

1. State means give a brief answer with no explanation attached, such as "the target user is a Year 7 student".
2. List means give a sequence of short answers one after another, with no reasoning.
3. Identify means pick something out and name it, like the three features of an existing product you plan to borrow.
4. Outline means give a short account of the main features, enough to recognise the thing without the full detail.
5. Summarise means compress something longer into its main points, which is exactly what you do to your research before writing the specification.
6. These five are quick to write and quick to mark, so pages of them will not lift a criterion on their own.

Describe, Explain, Justify: The Three That Decide Your Level

1. Describe means give a detailed account of what something is like, with no reasons in it.
2. Explain means give a detailed account that includes reasons or causes, answering why the thing is the way it is.
3. Justify means give valid reasons or evidence for a choice you made, answering why this option and not the others.
4. Describe is about the thing, explain is about the mechanism, justify is about your decision.
5. A justification needs a comparison, so a paragraph with nothing rejected in it is usually just an explanation wearing the wrong label.
6. Justify also needs evidence you collected, which is why weak criterion A research makes criterion B justification impossible.

The Doing Terms: Annotate, Design, Develop, Create, Construct, Present, Test

1. Annotate means add brief notes to a drawing, and in design those notes carry material, size, joint and the specification point being served.
2. Design means produce a plan, drawing or model of something before it exists.
3. Develop means take an idea further by adding the detail that makes it buildable, which is the entire job of criterion B.
4. Create means make the thing, and at criterion C that includes following a plan and recording what you did.
5. Construct means put something together from parts, whether that is a model, a circuit or a flowchart.
6. Present means set out information in a form that suits the audience, so folder layout, labelling and image quality all count.
7. Test means run a set procedure to find out whether something works, and record what happened including the failures.

Analyse and Evaluate: The Two That Carry the Most Weight

1. Analyse means break something into its parts, show how those parts relate, and finish with a conclusion.
2. Analysing an existing bike light means going through it feature by feature: beam angle, mount type, battery life, waterproofing and price.
3. The conclusion is the part most students leave out, and without it the page is a description with headings on it.
4. Evaluate means make a judgement using evidence, weighing what worked against what did not.
5. An evaluation with no limitations in it has not made a judgement, because every product fails something.
6. Both verbs need data underneath them, so they collapse quietly when the research or the testing was thin.

Matching the Verb to the Criterion

1. Read the criterion strand before you start the page, and underline the verb in it.
2. Work out what evidence that verb needs, then decide which page of the folder will carry that evidence.
3. If you have written three paragraphs and none of them does the verb, the page is not finished yet.

Reading the Task Before You Start Making

1. The verb tells you how deep to go, so "outline the need" and "explain and justify the need" are very different amounts of work.
2. In a timed class task the verb also sets the length, since "state" takes a line and "evaluate" takes a page with data in it.
3. The verb sets the shape of the page too: a list for "list", a labelled drawing for "annotate", a results table for "test".
4. The design cycle stages are named after their own command terms, which is why developing ideas asks for development and not just more sketches.
5. Before you hand the folder in, do one pass where you read only the verbs and tick off each one you have actually done.