Tairawhiti cluster
Gisborne Girls' High School and Lytton High School
Beacon Practice Professional Support Facilitator Cliff Harwood working with Heather McIntyre and Wendy Webb on a joint project at Gisborne Girls' and Lytton Schools
(Photo: Gisborne Herald)
This initiative in the Tairawhiti region involved three key technology teachers from the two participating schools. The schools have diverse student populations with a high proportion of Maori students and a significant number coming from small rural communities.
The focus of the project was to improve the confidence and capability of the three teachers in delivering technology education programmes that reflected the specific learning needs and interests of Tairawhiti students.This was done by strengthening the teacher's knowledge and understanding of technological practice, and their ability to support student progression through components of practice. Through smarter delivery of a broadening range of technology programmes Heather aimed to increase student participation and overall technological literacy.
Wendy Webb: "In 2005 we organised some teacher PD, where we met up with a couple of people in town through the Chamber of Commerce and discussed their businesses and what their work looked like -one was a fairly big regional trust and another an engineer who was developing a piece of machinery. That was an excellent session and we're going to follow it up by videoing one of the people talking about planning tools."
The project was supported by a range of outside facilitators, including Cliff Harwood for components of practice. There was additional help from practicing technology teachers with expertise in areas unfamiliar to the three lead teachers. In 2005, these teachers ran block programmes for a small number of students from both schools so teachers and students could experience different approaches to technology education, including areas such as fabric dyeing, machine embroidery, moulding, working with different materials used in jewellery making, and natural cosmetics.
A major focus of the project was the examination of the practice of local technologists in relationship to components of practice and the nature of technology. Workshops using outside experts working with a small group of students were initiated in areas such as embroidery and herbology, using their newly refurbished technology area which includes a pod of computers with machine embroidery software all linked to the one machine in the classroom.
Wendy Webb: "When you think 'industry links', you normally think 'field trip' - not the easiest things to organise – quite gruelling and not something you want to do a whole lot of. An alternative strategy is to use newspaper articles in the classroom. For example, I got a Year 10 class to examine an article on what Karen Walker was doing with Swandri industry and another about Swandri and how it developed. Then I got one of the students to email Swandri and ask them about planning tools."
Interviews were done with key technologists involved in local enterprises, which included bio-related technologies, control technologies, food-related technologies, material-development technologies, and structural and dynamic technologies. These interviews were videoed and edited for classroom use.
In 2006, the project focused on guiding the practice other technology teachers in the schools using the experience gained by the lead teachers.
During 2006 the emphasis at Lytton High School continued to be on incorporating Technology achievement standards into the assessment programme for senior Graphics courses. Teacher Anna Taumanu will be joining the programme in 2007
At Gisborne Girls' High School teacher Wendy Webb focused on developing skills in materials manipulation mainly at a senior school level but also in her junior technology classes. "We took the components of practice and indicators of progression," says cluster coordinator Heather McIntyre, "and used the draft achievement objectives from the curriculum project to help us identify and monitor their progress. This helped us in terms of our planning – rather than putting an emphasis on the different experiences students have to have, we're using the components of practice as a way of focusing on progression. It also helped teachers to think about the teaching and learning that's going on in their classroom.
"We also put more emphasis on trailing experimenting and evaluating within the classroom, and to provide more opportunity for students to do meaningful practical work outside the classroom and at home," Heather says. "And we looked at how we can reduce written work by using different alternatives for the recording, such as templates, digital cameras, video, smart boards and computer applications such as Inspiration."
A major focus in 2006 for Heather was also on enhancing the quality of the junior courses at Girls' High School, incorporating aspects of the new 'Technological Knowledge' and 'The Nature of Technology' strands. In 2007 teacher Sue Bristow joined the programme and the cluster experimented further with the restructuring the junior technology programme to improve the 'enjoyment factor' for students and so enhance the retention rate of students moving into the senior technology courses.
Work of the Tairawhiti Cluster schools can be seen in the following case studies:
Gisborne Girls' High School
Classroom Practice: BP617 Time Capsule | BP616 Kiwi Made
Student Showcases: Mosaic table and seat | Student booklet | Jubilee clock
Enterprise Links: The Gisborne Girls' High School / Basically Bush Link
Lytton High School
Classroom Practice: BP618 Cell Phones