Outcomes
Student outcomes from all 2006 Electronics classes showed significant improvement. "By the end of 2006," Bill said, "I was very comfortable with the initiatives that were put in place so far in the Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 programmes."
The personal consultations initiative was very successful. All Year 11-13 Electronics students participated, which, with 56 students at 10-15 minutes each, took around 15 hours contact time over six days. These sessions enabled teachers to focus on one student at a time and ensure they understand the feedback given. Feedback is also documented using a template, and its implementation later checked when portfolios are collected. The template for feedback is now being used with other Technology classes.
The year 2006 was also successful in its links with bringing outside experise into the classroom. An electronics technician volunteered a great deal of time helping students with projects. A former student in his last year of BEng at AUT also spent some time with students in class. The department technician spent time with a number of individual students. "The input of the department technician has been excellent," says Bill. "He interacts a great deal with other technology (Hard Materials) classes and has a valuable understanding of the role of the teacher in facilitating learning – something that many visiting technologists do not understand."
But the year's success is most appropriately, and eloquently, evident in the experiences of the students themselves:
Year 11 student
"In Electronics I learned soldering and designing boards so they were more compact and reliable. One circuit that I invented for a current limit with a switch that only went two ways that worked so well that most of the projects in the class ended up using the circuit I designed. I did some research on it, but it took me a while to think it out . That was probably the most satisfying part of it for me.
"Electronics is a lot of fun – you get to learn a lot of new skills that you wouldn't learn anywhere else. You get to learn about yourself as well – you have be determined to get the job done and to finish things exactly the way that you like it. I think the quality of the finish is pretty important. If it looks good it'll get used, and looking at it now I think I would have gone back and redone the labels if I'd had time.
"I'm probably looking at becoming an engineer – studying at AUT or Auckland Uni. So I'll be keeping Electronics on till the end of Year 13."
Year 12 student
"I'm becoming comfortable with the process because I've been through it a few times now. It's definitely becoming easier. Planning's what I find to be the most difficult part – because you get those unexpected things coming into play. Your planning has to be rigid enough to follow but flexible enough to accommodate the unexpected.
"I kind of like the challenge this subject gives you. It's the only subject where I can get up and walk around and make something that works. I quite like it when you finish the project and it works like you wanted it to. You don't get that in other subjects – there you tend to get a result, here you get to see your result coming. And I just like the chance to make things.
"We really do like being able to help each other. It's a small class and we mostly know each other at the start of the year and if we don't, we get to know each other quickly. And it helps everyone to help each other. Other subjects like maths and science can be relatively competitive but this is less so. Personally I'm not someone who goes about it as a competition unless I'm actually entered into a competition! We help each other in physics and chemistry too but there are often test conditions, here we are always helping each other."
Year 13 student
"The last four years have taught me practical basic electronics. At engineering school we're going to be using the chip I've already dealt with, so I've got a good base for that. And I won't have to learn about AVR from scratch like students from other schools – I'll have done it for two years.
"In Year 13 we did a lot of stuff in Physics that we'd covered in Electronics. Like this year we've done Kirchhoff's laws and we did that back in Year 10 Electronics. In Physics its much more just writing things down and I'm lucky I've already done all the practical testing in Electronics. In Physics we do small experiments but that doesn't really help. In Electronics you get to do more practical stuff, test out all the theory, get your hands on it and learn why thing go wrong.
"In Electronics we help each other and we learn stuff that way. If Alex, say, was working with motors, and I'm not and have to do something with motors I'd go to him and ask what he thinks and he'll teach me about it. Even in classes like graphics there's not same level of interaction – because everyone is basically just drawing and its not like you can teach someone else how to draw.
Electronics is not easy! You can see how much I've struggled getting all this to work. I could have just quit and changed my subject – there's lots of easier ones around. Every day in electronics is different and you learn different stuff each day. In electronics we get a chance to play with all this cutting edge technology – its not easy, but its fun. As you say there are no 'right answers' in the back of a text book, its always trialling and testing. And in the end, you can't beat the feeling of actually finishing a project and seeing it being used by a client."
