Students in the 4th year of the MYP Design course should be moving away from teacher-directed products to working with the the problem and a given type of user (such as an adult in the community) with whom they need to work to solve an authentic problem.
Students should be familiar with both the strands and the criteria to a degree where they are comfortable moving back and forth between stages and parts of the cycle as needed to create a successful product.
At this stage, students should also be specializing in a particular type of design, allowing them to build on the specific skills required for that field that will allow them to reach the higher bands of assessment. Students who are still switching between different types of design will not be able to develop the skill fluency required for success in the course.