Delivery
Students making the cards using a 'production-line' process
To give the term a focus, the teachers Susan Fisher, Jo Clarke, Michelle Callaghan, Deb Lean, Paulette Double, and Paula Shelda decided on a market day. Besides providing the focus for the projects the girls would complete, the day would also serve as a context for the programme: money raised from sales on the day would be donated to World Vision. The charity became a stakeholder in the success of the project.
As did the girls' parents, grandparents, and caregivers.
At the beginning of the Term 2, a team planning day was held. Beacon Practice Technology Facilitator Grant Miles came along and committed to helping out. Then, the idea of staging a market day had to be pitched to the girls.
Pitching the concept involved appealing to all their senses. A gazebo was set up in the school theatre and a video shown of a local farmer's market. Hot popcorn was handed out and its aroma filled the air. Students were asked to close their eyes and imagine the scene. (Nicky credits the "Mind journey" approach to 'Teaching for Effective Learning' by Julia Atkins.)
It was explained that the funds raised at the market day would be donated to World Vision and that each class had to decide on what they were going to make to sell at the market. The 70 students present brainstormed ideas for saleable items; their suggestions were captured using "Inspiration" software. These ideas were used as starting points for further classroom work to generate marketable ideas. These, at least initially, focused on what the children themselves would like, but eventually they grasped the idea of thinking in terms of the project's other stakeholders and what they would like to buy.
Eventually, it was decided, after some parental/stakeholder input :
- Year 6 would make general gift cards
- Year 5, a Christmas DVD
- Year 4, Christmas decorations
- Year 3, Christmas cards/celebration decorations
- Years 1 & 2, wrapping paper
Stall at the Market Day
Nicky says that some of the staff were concerned the projects wouldn't hold the children's interest for a whole term. Others had preconceived ideas about the whole technology approach itself. Some became fixated on the destination itself, the Market Day, rather than the Technological Practice that would take them there.
All these attitudes had to shift, Nicky says.
"It really helped that everybody was doing the same thing at the same time."
Technology advisor Grant Miles helped the teachers understand how the components of Technological Practice could be applied to their situation and helped them create teaching units around the planned products.
A lot of effort was also put into linking the skills and understandings embedded in the technology programme with other subjects; both as a way of reinforcing the new skills and to create a context for their use. This cross-curriculla integrated learning approach is well established at the St Margarets primary school, so integrating other subjects into the term-long project wasn't a departure for the teachers, Nicky says.
Embedded in the technology project of each class was the "Habits of Mind" learning approach and involves reinforcing 16 behavioural dispositions identified by American educationalists Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick as being crucial for successful learning. The dispositions include persistence, accuracy and managing impulsivity. The approach had been trialled the previous year in some primary classes at the school, and it seemed that it could be usefully applied to the Technological Practice involved in preparing for the market day. The habits were introduced wherever and whenever they seemed particularly applicable in the process of technology teaching. The traits, represented by icons, were extensively used in classroom practice and in workbooks.
Stall at the Market Day
Nicky says the Habits of Mind dispositions were helpful when it came to actually making products for sale at the market day. Producing these in the volumes required, demanded organisation, persistence, and attention to detail from the girls. Some skills, such as guillotining card and ribbon neatly and accurately, had to be practiced before being applied in the creation of high quality products. Repetitive actions like gluing hundreds of pairs of wobbly eyes onto decorative reindeers, required persistence. The complaint "I'm getting a bit sick of this", was heard more than once, Nicky says.
If the pupils were challenged, so were the teachers. In some cases, what appeared initially to be a simple task morphed into a complicated and potentially expensive one. For example, the Year 1&2 class was to design, produce and package Christmas-themed wrapping paper. It was invisioned that this would be a simple question of producing a master sheet and colour photocopying it. Unfortunately, colour photocopying turned out to be much more expensive than anticipated. After research, an offset printer was commissioned to do the work. Similarly, producing the Christmas DVD turned a major production: getting the job done involved many girl-hours, tireless work from the school's performing arts teacher and the volunteer efforts of a local television station.
Help from the senior school was also sought. St Margaret's has a culture of mentoring: the school has a system of tutor groups - vertical groups of 16 students headed by a staff member, who acts as the group's tutor – within these groups, senior students have some responsibility for junior members in a peer support role. This culture of mentoring was put to good use during the term-long technology project. Senior technology students visited the Year 4, 5 and 6 classes in the course of the project, and during these visits, the junior girls saw the 'Big Girls' work, which motivated them and helped them understand the technology pathway.
The printed wrapping paper
Technological Practice has a language of its own. How were the girls introduced to it? How was the question of technological literacy addressed? How were concepts and processes of Technological Practice introduced?
Relatively easily, says teacher Deborah Lean. The children embraced terms and concepts such as 'stakeholder' and 'prototype'.
"It was exciting for them; kids love big words... A good many of them seemed to grasp the meaning and context."
Deborah says the children felt empowered by their new knowledge and obviously enjoyed showing it off at the presentation night. Terms were introduced to the girls on a "needs basis" – when and wherever the appropriate context appeared. Teachers took care to reinforce the use of the appropriate terms at the right time. By the end of the project most pupils could remember the right term and use it in context. Nicky says that a year-on, students have retained at least some of this learning and can remember the contexts, if not the specific term to be applied in that context. As part of its commitment to developing technological literacy, St Margarets is creating a three level technological glossary. Funded, at least in part, by the Beacon programme, the glossary defines commonly-used technology terms at three levels – primary, middle, and senior school and is mounted on the school's intranet.
To deliver their teaching units, teachers developed a series of workbook/templates, based on those used in the senior school. These guides were used for both individual activities and whole-class work.
Nicky is enthusiastic about the templates as they provide a clear pathway from step-to-step guide to the technological process. Gantt charts were also used to keep students on track.
The assessment matrix used was based on the year 9 assessment matrix but 'primified' for use in the junior school.
The " Indicators of Progression" used in the assessment matrix, embodied the three Components of Practice – Brief Development, Planning for Practice, and Outcome Development and Evaluation. Primary teachers were first introduced to the COPs at the "Teachers Only" day. The teachers found the indicators established clear goals "learning intentions" and priorities for not only themselves but their students as well. Some teachers felt the assessment process couldn't accommodate their "gut feelings" about a student and tended to collect more information on skills mastered (or not) rather than achievements along the learning pathway. The teachers familiarised themselves with the assessment process and standardised their approach by undertaking a "moderation task", which involved all of them examining the same student work and comparing their assessments.
