21st Century teaching in the secondary school

Paul Snape

The technological process is closely aligned to the inquiry process which is recommended as a key approach to develop 21st century skills. How much of this is happening in secondary schools? Technology teachers can help lead this development with their understanding of the technology process.

Bi-cultural perspectives in technology education

Ann Bondy

Investigating ways of making technology more inclusive of bicultural perspectives in English medium classrooms.

Confidence and Competence of First and Second Year Primary Teachers, Graduated from Victoria University of Wellington, in Teaching Diverse Learners in the Curriculum Areas of Physical Education, Technology and the Arts.

Bruce Granshaw (Dr Louise Starkey)

This project is part of an over arching research agenda that will critically examine the Victoria University of Wellington’s Faculty of Education, Initial Teacher Education Programmes for espoused and enacted practices related to equity and social justice in teaching and learning situations. The project looks to establish how confident and how competent graduates, who are in their first or second year of teaching, are at teaching the specific curriculum areas of physical education, technology and the arts.

Cores as tools in promoting PCK development for early career secondary teachers in science and technology.

John Williams, Chris Eames, Anne Hume and John Lockley

This research addresses the key area of early career teacher education and aims to research the use of a CoRe (content representation) as a planning tool to develop early career secondary teacher PCK (pedagogical content knowledge). The study is designed to examine whether such a tool co-designed with expert content and pedagogy specialists can enhance the PCK of early career science and technology secondary teachers, and whether the use of CoRe-informed PCK can enhance student learning outcomes in schools

Keywords: CoRe (content representation), early career teacher education, student learning outcomes

Digital representations of authentic student performance for reliable assessment.

John Williams (proposed research)

This research will investigate the representation of student practical performance in digital forms in order to deliver authentic and reliable assessment. The forms of assessment will be structured to align with appropriate pedagogies and so will enhance both teachers planning for learning, and student reflection on their own learning.

Students will create digital records of their application of knowledge to practice by filming, photographing, audio recording and scanning the processes they follow and outcomes they achieve. This will be organized in a Process Portfolio in such a way as to provide evidence of their capabilities. The digital portfolio will be used by teachers as the basis for formative assessment and ultimately summative assessment, and by the students to facilitate their metacognition.

Effective use of online resources to enhance teaching and learning in technology

Jenny Mangan (Mike Forret)

Working with a group of teachers using TPCK model to develop effective ways to use online resources to enhance learning and teaching technology.

Enhancing Decision Making: Exploring the impact of Technological Modelling within technological practice

Cliff Harwood (Jenny Poskitt and Vicki Compton)

Research focused on identifying if, when students’ knowledge of technological modelling is enhanced, are students better able to provide justifications that their developed technological outcomes are ‘fit for purpose’.

Enterprise Ed in Secondary Schools

Ghada Hebaishi: masters student (Kerry Lee)

Investigating success factors when developing and implementing a school enterprise education program

Food for thought

Wendy Slatter (Bev France)

Food literacy for the 21st Century (A Delphi methodology to identify the components of food literacy from experts, educationalists) stage One

Graduating Teacher confidence and competence in catering for diverse students in technology education

Ann Bondy

Measuring competence and competence 1st and 2nd year teachers in catering for diverse students in technology education.

Hard materials: technological design and problem -solving

Patricia Potter (Bev France)

How do experiences with hard materials influence the development of learning in the context of technological design and problem -solving (the components of experiential learning identified form technologists, hard materials teachers) and observation of senior students

How does teacher professional development support and improve technology teacher practice?

Bruce Granshaw (Dr Louise Starkey)

This research is based on an examination of the nature and characteristics of effective professional development for technology teachers. It used a qualitative, interpretive design and gathered data by interviewing a group of ten technology teachers and heads of technology departments from different schools in one region. The interview data were transcribed and sorted using inductive content analysis in order to categorise them and draw conclusions.

Inquiry Learning and Technology

Paul Snape and Wendy Fox-Turnbull

This research investigates the nature of inquiry learning and how it fits with technology education. Literature review currently being undertaken.

Learning food technology outside the classroom

Beatrice More (Mike Forret)

A study of a secondary class visit to a live historical village.

Linking traditional Pacific Island practice to contemporary New Zealand technological ideas

Kerry Lee, Fagolele Karanikolaou, Judy Kalopa, and Ulu Waqavanua

Investigating ways Pacific Island practice and ideologies can be utilised in technology education