Strategies for Change
From late 2005 and through the 2006 year, the group focussed on changes in a number of specific areas, including:
- developing comprehensive course workbooks for Years 10, 11 and 12
- improving student documentation
- developing a glossary of terminology
- teaching technological practice
- improving student product design
- improving student software design
- Implementing Moodle – an online learning environment
- Implementing structured personal consultations
The group also did extensive work on developing general teaching strategies to help produce quality outcomes for students.
Comprehensive course workbooks for Years 10, 11 and 12
A major focus, particularly for Bill, was the collation, structuring, editing, writing and rewriting of previous materials used in the classroom and on the web, into complete and comprehensive workbooks for Years 10, 11 and 12. There was a particular focus on the materials previously developed for the Year 11 Power Supply Unit project and the Year 12 Micro-controller projects – see below, and Delivery: Year 11 and Delivery: Year 12.
Strategies for improving student documentation
A major focus within the Year 11 workbook was to establish good documentation habits. Bill developed extensive templates to provide structure and direction for this to ensure students covered all the important steps in their practice.
The templates are not wholly prescriptive, and, while most students come from the school's enhanced class and 'A' band classes, and are capable writers with good critical thinking, it was found during 2006 that some other students needed more guidance. The group is considering a more detailed template with sentence stems (starting phrases for sentences) for these students.
All students at all levels also had access to a digital camera and colour inkjet printer in the classroom, and were to be encouraged to photograph each major process and explain it in their journal. Generic photographs of the classroom environment, tools, machinery materials, and processes such as PCB making were also made available on the website for students to use with their own written descriptions.
Developing a glossary of terminology
The group reflected at length on the terminology used by technologists, and at words often found in the Achievement Standards such as 'describe', 'explain' and 'discuss'. The group adapted definitions for these terms developed by the school's science staff, thus establishing valuable cross-curriculum linkages with science. The group also reviewed the department's 2005 definitions for 'flair', 'elegance' and 'innovation' as used in the current version of AS90050. A new glossary was developed for the whole department.
Teaching technological practice
One area of interest over the last three years has been how students learn about technological practice – what it is and how to carry it out. Bill discussed this issue with colleagues in other schools and was surprised that few teachers appeared to teach the components of technological practice, simply allowing students to undertake the process and expecting learning to occur implicitly.
Since 2003, technological practice at Mt Roskill Grammar has been the first topic of study for Year 11 Electronics students. In 2005 this topic was reviewed and extended in 2006 and some exercises were changed. A comprehensive model and template for technological practice has been under development for three years and time was spent at the beginning of 2006 critiquing and reviewing this.
The teaching of technological practice as a topic in itself in 2006 included the model, an exercise on a case study, an assignment to interview someone, and a copy of the published version of the Techlink Components of Practice on the Techlink website for student comment.
Improving student product design
The Year 11 and 12 Electronics projects already incorporated many industry recognised practices such as component choices, soldering reliability, PCB design and PCB making. Work on identifying areas where student outcomes could be improved led to two key issues: overall product design and software design.
During 2006, the group reviewed areas of processes, materials and tools, and a range of opportunities and ideas were explored and implemented around producing quality end products.
The 2005 Year 11 project included functional modelling of circuits using breadboard techniques, before developing CAD-based schematics and printed circuit boards. Students producing their power supply solutions developed cases for their projects using materials such as acrylic and wood. "These were not ideal outcomes and (Beacon Practice Professional Facilitator) Cliff Harwood challenged us to look into product design further," says Bill. Metal was chosen as the ideal material, and although this caused many challenges, as outlined in Delivery: Year 11, the high-quality finish of the student outcomes justified this choice.
Improving student software design
The Year 12 workbook takes the form of a textbook/workbook, with a strong focus on establishing excellence in software design. Design, says Bill, is the most essential step in programming. In a rush to reach a solution, students tend to reach for the keyboard rather than a piece of paper. "Its akin to jumping into electronics circuit board design without trialling a circuit first," says Bill. "Students often resort to 'quick and dirty' or 'kludge' software solutions for their projects. Pedagogically, these are unsatisfactory behaviours."
While some time and thought had already gone into this learning issue in 2004 and 2005, Bill was determined to find solutions for 2006. After a good deal of research early in the year – on the web, through journals and textbooks, and consultation with a lecturer at AUT and a software developer – the group developed planning methodologies that could be used by Year 12 and 13 students to implement 'quality' embedded software solutions for their micro-controller projects.
"Our work in this area, and in product design, was seen as direct implementations of the new curriculum," says Bill, "specifically in the areas of Technological Modelling ranging over Levels 1 to 5 and Technological Products ranging over Levels 3 to 6."
Implementing Moodle – online learning environment
An online collection of materials was initially developed in the department in 2002. In 2006 the whole school implemented the online learning environment Moodle as the basis of their intranet/extranet. Most of the Electronics course materials were moved over to this and some redevelopment of previous online exercises was undertaken. Students now have 24/7 access to a wide range of materials. New materials are immediately available and can be updated when required. To ensure maximum useability of this resource, the group trialled any of Moodle's additional features with students, including tests, quizzes and having students create their own Wikis to record their project work.
Implementing structured personal consultations
All Year 11-13 Electronics students each receive personal consultations to discuss their individual practice, during the school's two exam breaks, in terms 2 and 3. In 2006 this took around 15 hours, over six days – 56 students at 10-15 minutes each. This initiative was very successful. It 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.
General teaching strategies for quality outcomes
The group extensively considered the concept of 'quality'. Early on they rejected definitions that drew purely from characteristics such as aesthetic attributes, manufacturing tolerances, specifications or particular features. "While these were seen as important to an outcome, the need for a particular look, tolerance, specification or feature can only relate to an item within its intended situation or in the hands of its end user," says Bill.
Research into quality outcomes unearthed six prescriptions to encourage students to do quality school work, as outlined in William Glasser's "The Quality School Teacher":
- Provide a warm supportive classroom environment;
- Ask students to do only useful work (connecting their work to reality);
- Ask students to do the best they can (and give them time to do it);
- Ask students to evaluate their own work and improve it
- Quality feels good (brings satisfaction),
- Quality is never destructive (harming yourself or others – relates to societal responsibilities).
The following ideas, as distilled by Bill at the end of 2006, were also explored, and subsequently developed throughout the year:
- Issue choice is vitally important to outcome quality, and a student's achievement grade.
- Promote an error-free attitude and be careful what you teach. For example, if a teacher says a solder joint with a hole in it is 'OK', the student learns that a hole is OK, not that the hole in that particular joint is OK. It is better to set criteria that promote zero errors and do not send mixed messages
- Have great expectations of students. But remember, expectations of quality can be both a motivator and de-motivator, depending on the approach: "Come on you can do better than that" is a motivator for some, a de-motivator for others.
- Scaffold learning by using wider margins of error early on in students practice. For example, when getting students to design a circuit board, set minimum size pads for components and reasonable spaces between tracks. This allows inexperienced students a 'safer' environment to learn to solder, it will not detract from their work, and sets them up to achieve, not fail.
- Know your own level of expertise and don't overreach your own capabilities in a workshop. Students quickly realise the level of a teacher's expertise and will respect it (or not).
- Good things take time. Rich learning experiences may be lost in the haste to complete a sizeable or complex project. Students pushed into advanced work too early may produce good outcomes, but do not have the time to become reflective practitioners.
- Monitor the 'high cost' items closely. Some aspects of a project are so critical that if the student gets it wrong then the outcome may not be realisable. For example, in PCB design, schematics should be checked for errors by the teacher before the board layout is designed, and similarly the layouts should be checked before the boards are made. Such checkpoints improve students' chances of success and minimises the effort required by the teacher later in the project.
- Be well prepared and model outcomes wherever possible to minimise risk of failure/non-achievement.
- Give students a broad education. A narrow range of experiences confines student knowledge to specific contexts; the more experiences they have the more opportunity they have to see the similarities of knowledge across different contexts, enabling them to transfer knowledge from known to unknown contexts possible.
An example is when students are taught a piece of software which reads a push button switch, and in the next exercise they write software to read a mercury switch. If students are then asked how would a program look that reads a magnetic switch we hope that they can transfer the knowledge without being told explicitly how to do it – most can after one example, some after two examples and some need more. - Place practical constraints on student directions – 'Less is more'. With a class of 26 Year 11 students in 2006, for example, all needing cases for their electronic circuits, I let them design a range of solutions that include shape, size and colour, but kept them to a single material then they can focus on one set of skills in detail and increase their chances of completing a well made and professional looking case.
- Students should reflect on their own work. To encourage critical thinking an exercise in reflection was developed for students.
