Project Cheer – electronic badges
Level: Year 8
School: Pakuranga Intermediate
Teacher: Melissa Coles
Category: Teaching strategy
Download Badges Circuit PDF (348kb)
Electronics students at Pakuranga Intermediate who developed electronic badges as gifts for hospitalised children were in no doubt as to the success of their work – their client asked the school for more badges because they were so popular.
Teacher Melissa Coles planned the Project Cheer unit to engage Year 8 students and to involve them in an authentic project with a client. Students had the opportunity to make their own game in Year 7, and she wanted them to move on to working with their local community [see the Key Competencies (.pdf) in The New Zealand Curriculum (2007)]. "Students might be working on projects that appear to be meeting a need but, in reality, until you have a real stakeholder who's driving the quality of what they're trying to do they're never really going to appreciate that their product has an impact on people and that it's got to be made to certain specifications", she says.
Technology teachers (Electronics, Hard Materials and Food) have three rotations of students over a year, which includes seven Year 8 classes. The specialist teachers teach intermediate students from Monday to Thursday, client school Stanhope School on Friday morning and work with students requiring extra literacy or numeracy help on Friday afternoons (Melissa teaches music during this time). Melissa's classes are single-sex as she is timetabled with Performing Arts which has girls-only or boys-only classes.
The Technology team has designed a Year 7/8 programme (.pdf, 104kb) around student progression. All teachers focus on the Technological Practice strand in the first part of the year, and they will continue with one or more of those Components in the second and third parts of the year. They will also, at that stage, teach the Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology strands. These have been divided up so that each teacher covers different Components, and over their two years at the school students should have experienced each Achievement Objective twice.
Students in Melissa's Year 8 class learnt about Characteristics of Technology, looking at how technology has developed rapidly over a century and discussing the related moral and ethical considerations. Each student chose a technological development to follow up through inquiry-learning and wrote about their findings. The class then moved on to developing their own Technological Outcome.
Melissa decided to make the Project Cheer unit more manageable for her by giving students a group client and brief. 'Develop and construct an electronic game or gift which can be used to cheer up sick children at Kidz First Hospital'. She discussed the local children's hospital – Kidz First – and the particular needs of children who are hospitalised for long periods, suggesting possible opportunities for the class to help them. The students decided to work with children who had burn injuries or could only use one hand and Melissa contacted Kidz First Play Therapist Robyn Maria who suggested they develop steady-hand and hand-eye coordination games. Robyn talked to the students about the specifications for hospital toys – no sharp edges, circuits concealed, easily cleaned to meet health standards, easy access for batteries and the use of rechargeable batteries to make the costs more sustainable for the hospital.
The students mostly worked in groups to develop their games and were, Melissa says, very engaged in the project. They put a lot of effort into their work, including a lot of time after school, and even those who weren't usually interested in painting things or making them look nice tried really hard with this project. The students were given the success criteria and only the outcomes which met the criteria were donated to the hospital. However, some students returned in their own time to complete their games so that they could still be given to the patients.
Although the unit was successful, lack of time was a real issue. Melissa decided to have the students work individually on the same project, to make it more achievable for them and more manageable for her. The students were enthusiastic about the suggestion they make electronic badges to cheer up children in hospital and decided they wanted to work with cancer patients at Starship (Children's Hospital). Melissa organised a stakeholder to visit and talk to the students about the process her daughter had been through after being diagnosed with leukaemia, and to discuss the particular health issues around this disease.
The Starship play therapist was delighted with the proposal, telling the students that their gifts would be used during Christmas celebrations and offered to children undergoing some of the more demanding medical procedures, such as chemotherapy. (Contact was via phone and email, and the badges were posted as the students weren't allowed to visit.) Melissa notes that learning about the experiences of cancer patients helped students in developing empathy and concern for others.
When the students started sketching their design ideas, the issue of empathy came up again: when considering wording for the badges the class had an interesting discussion about their brief where they concluded that sick children shouldn't be ordered to 'be happy' or 'be strong' and that their designs should show support or sympathy for the children instead.
The class was divided at this point, with half the students working on the electronics component of the badge, while the rest used the computer to create their image. The unit plan involved students learning skills with Melissa and becoming 'experts', then passing on their knowledge to their classmates in the second group. The first groups were allocated three lessons (and Melissa ensured the less-experienced students were put into the first Electronics group) while the second groups had a shorter time as they had their 'buddy' to teach them – and a teacher "hovering" to help anybody having difficulties. Melissa points out that it would be much easier to just teach the same lesson twice, but she believes that having students teaching students is important in reinforcing processes for the 'expert' and developing students' communication skills. "I want them to learn to participate, contribute and learn how to understand the process they've been through. Teaching the students how to explain something is developing communication skills and literacy."
Students had already learnt to solder and had modelled and tested circuits in Year 7, and in this unit learnt to read a circuit plan and to spot-solder, to connect the components to vero board. Although familiar with computers, a lot of the students didn't know some of the specific skills they needed, such as fitting an image into a circle and putting text into it. Many didn't know Windows 7 and couldn't, for example, email their work as an attachment so, depending on the student, Melissa taught a range of IT skills as the students developed their badges. The students used PMI as a thinking tool and worked through a series of questions, getting feedback from classmates before finalising and printing their image. When the class swapped over, the 'experts' taught their 'buddies' the skills they had learnt, while Melissa discussed aspects of their project with individuals as they constructed their badges.
As the students worked on the electronics component of their badges, Melissa talked to them about costs, explaining that each product cost approximately $6 and estimating how much the whole project would cost if every student lost or damaged an LED. Melissa has a badge-press machine on her 'wish-list' but the cost of hiring one for each rotation was alleviated by a $500 donation from local firm Trustees Executives. Students made a second badge for themselves but, to save money, these didn't include the electronic circuit.
The students made little gift cards, wishing the recipient well, to go with their badges and sterilised everything as much as practicable before packing the badges in plastic bags, to prevent germs infecting already vulnerable children. The unit was very successful in terms of student learning and satisfaction, and the client was very pleased with the badges. Melissa comments how well the project worked in making links with the community – "the warmth from the community has been encouraging" – and plans to continue developing such relationships.
In planning her programme, Melissa is mindful of student progression after intermediate. Many of her students will go on to Pakuranga College where they will continue with Electronics in their Technology programme. Melissa obtained a copy of the Electronics programme so that she can ensure her students learn the knowledge and skills they will need in Year 9.
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