Mt Roskill Grammar School
As a Phase 2 Beacon Practice school, Mount Roskill Grammar targeted programmes that support learning in technology education from Years 10-13, with a focus on electronics and control technology.
"From the work undertaken in 2006," says teacher Bill Collis, "it became clear that when students struggled with their work it was often because they had been allowed to 'over reach' with their projects – they had not been scaffolded through the learning processes well enough."
A number of strategies implemented during the year proved beneficial:
- more formal recording of formative assessments;
- structured and planned programmes of work;
- templates to help students who need more structure;
- a single place to find all the course materials;
- consistent definitions of technology terminology.
A number of areas were identified for further development work.
- Pre-testing of a student's skills, knowledge and understandings is an important area only touched upon in 2006, and would help teachers and students identify strengths and weaknesses before projects progress too far.
- Further development work on high end technological literacy in the Year 13 course, and more structured techniques for preparing students for scholarship.
- Looking at how students develop and retain (or not) a generic technological knowledge from one year to the next in technology.
"Work on restructuring the Year 9 and 10 technology programmes was started in 2006 and is continuing through 2007," Bill says. "The aim is to capture more students into technology and develop a consistent vision for technological literacy across the spread of technology areas in the school. This is looking promising, with buy-in from most of the technology areas."
Bill Collis was seconded as the Senior Subject Advisor in Technology for the Auckland Northland region for 2007.