Rugby World Cup
Introduction and Rationale
The following Technology Unit Plan was developed by Rebecca Daly while on sole charge as a student teacher. Rebecca is a graduate student at the Wellington College of Education and it was her final assignment for the Technology Education Course. The unit was planned but at this stage has not been delivered as part of a technology curriculum.
The theme for the 4 weeks of my sole charge was determined as Rugby World Cup. My associate was set on a Social Studies unit that was based around fact-finding. I wanted to apply the Technology curriculum and take this theme to a different level, making the Rugby World Cup more relevant to the students in my class. My associate had not done any Technology with this class during the year.
I have developed this unit plan after reading through examples on www.techlink.co.nz and in the Delta series. It's focus is on using the Rugby World Cup as a example of technological practice, exploring all the considerations in organising such an event and determining the benefits and opportunities to different groups/people of this type of event.
The class will consider the opportunity that they have at their school to create their own event and look to experts and examples to help them arrange this. They will learn to develop their own conceptual statement and technological brief to aid them in this process.
The expert is a personal friend and prior to working for the Cancer Society was a secondary school teacher.
This unit uses strengths the children already have (e.g., working in groups), develops specific technological skills (e.g., video editing, ICT) and crosses over to other curriculum areas to provide some rich learning in context (e.g., reading other peoples conceptual statements and briefs during reading time).
I am confident that this unit would extend the children and their thinking and give them a thirst to explore more technological practice.
Note: I have listed the learning experiences and numbered them. I expect that each learning experience would take one section of the day (e.g., from end of lunch to final bell, or from interval to lunch), however the focus on this event would also be able to cross into reading – cases studies of technological practice, and writing – journal writing. As the unit progresses the students will run their own investigations – there are clear expectations around achievement for each group (reporting, diaries). I have four weeks with the class and would expect that the unit would take about three and a half weeks to complete, with the event following one of the last days in the fourth week. I have also planned a visual arts unit which can begin as the students' group work finishes to try to eliminate the problem of some groups being finished earlier than others.
