Teaching Snapshot: Creating a Programme of Learning

Left to right: Phil Appelman,
Jo Young, Warren MacDonald,
Raina Urwin (Click image to enlarge)

Class: Years 7-8
School: Tauranga Intermediate
Teachers: Raina Urwin, Jo Young, Warren MacDonald, Phil Appelman

Every Technology department's Programme of Learning (POL) may have common goals, but each is also very individual and reflects that school's circumstances and issues.

During 2009 the Tauranga Intermediate Technology team, as part of the Year 7-10 project, created a POL for 2010-2011.

They had three main goals when creating their POL – they needed a programme that:

made the Technology Curriculum manageable
ensured coverage of the eight Components and their achievement objectives while still allowing flexibility
allowed them to track their students' progression during a year, and over the two years

A student soldering
(Click image to enlarge)

During this extensive and lengthy process the team became aware of two key considerations to keep in mind – the need to:

explore, understand and trial the new strands of Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum (Technological Knowledge/Nature of Technology) and their Components before developing a POL
appreciate that no single POL will suit everyone – it has to meet the needs of the school, students and teachers

Preparation for creating a POL

Students working on their outcomes
(Click image to enlarge)

In 2009 the team – Raina (Food), Warren (Hard Materials), Phil (Electronics) and Jo (Multi Materials) – trialled the new strands from the Technology curriculum and a range of new teaching strategies. The knowledge gained from these trials was essential in helping them create a proposed POL for 2010, specific to their school and focussed on Year 7 students progressing into Year 8 in 2011.

The team recognised that a successful programme of learning covers, where possible, all the year levels at a school and should integrate with students' previous and future schooling, to ensure a seamless progression in Technology education. The teachers had links with their contributing primary schools and in 2009 they further developed their relationship with Tauranga Girls' and Tauranga Boys' Colleges, investigating their POLs and considering how these would fit with their own to enable a seamless progression for students. The team will trial and review their POL during 2010 and plans to share it with their contributing primary schools and local secondary schools.

Meeting the school's needs and structures

Warren and his class
(Click image to enlarge)

When developing a POL, a team needs to consider school structures, timetables, culture and the school environment. This can be as simple as deciding what to call the POL – whether 'overview' (as at Tauranga Intermediate), 'scheme', or 'programme' the term should be consistent with what is used in the rest of the school.

A school's Technology classrooms, environment and resources can also shape a POL. The Technology rooms at Tauranga Intermediate (purpose-built in 1999) all connect to a central teaching area – this allows for easier team teaching across learning areas, something Phil and Warren often do throughout the Hard Materials/Electronics course. The ease with which they can work together across rooms allowed the Tauranga Technology staff to plan for team teaching within their POL.

However, the team decided that they wouldn't specify within their POL each technological learning area's specific context/unit, other than the broad school-wide big idea. Each teacher often has several different units being taught at one time and they wanted the flexibility to continue doing that.

Jessica modelling her bag
(Click image to enlarge)

The school curriculum also needs to be taken into account when developing a POL, including the school's mission statement and vision, values and approach to key competencies. The Tauranga Intermediate school curriculum encompasses these essential elements and also emphasises the integration of literacy and numeracy into all areas of school life, including the specialist subjects. The school has a school-wide 'big idea' each term – such as Whakawhanaungatanga: Bringing Families Together in Term 1, 2010 – which the Technology team uses as their context.

A comprehensive POL also recognises the special character of a school and a team needs to consider the cultures, backgrounds, languages and interests of their students, as well as school-wide programmes and community events. Tauranga's sunshine and beaches means that many teachers and students share a common enjoyment of surfing and beach activities. This has led Jo to explore issues in Multi Materials Technology such as surfing and kite sailing.

Student Progression

Paige holding her clock
(Click image to enlarge)

The Tauranga team was aware that, in order to provide a comprehensive report of their students' learning progression, they needed to focus on some components in common over the two-year POL.

After discussing their students' strengths and weaknesses they decided to have a major, team-wide focus on the Outcome Development and Evaluation (ODE) component. Teachers would focus on and assess ODE in every unit of work, using collectively created team-wide assessment criteria which would provide evidence of student achievement. Student progression in ODE would therefore be tracked across the different teaching areas within a year and over the two years. At the end of 2010, during a review of the POL, the team plans to revisit the focus on ODE and possibly change their team-wide focus.

Although the shared focus would be ODE, the team also wanted to ensure coverage of all eight Components over the two years, so they spread them across their four disciplines. Distributing the Components across the team was a challenging process that involved discussions around a range of aspects, as described below.

Coverage of components: Repeating components over two years

In addition to their focus on ODE, each teacher would also focus on and assess two or three other Components. The team tried to repeat each Component twice over the two years, and achieved this with all except Characteristics of Technology. Although they are not currently tracking student achievement for these components, their repetition over two years means there is an opportunity to track progression in the future.

A food technology outcome
(Click image to enlarge)

The team also wanted to ensure that any Component being repeated was done in a different context or course so that, for example, students don't have their only experience and understanding of Technological Modelling as part of Food Technology. An obvious illustration of this was when Phil explored and trialled Technological Systems in the Electronics room – he quickly realised that students often identified technological systems as only electrical products, due to the context of that environment.

The team did, reluctantly, finish their POL with Technological Systems as only a focus component in the Electronics programme. However Phil is aware of this concern, and when he introduces this component to his students he has an initial discussion on technological systems that are mechanical in nature (such as a pen, egg beater and stapler) before introducing technological systems that are electronic.

Coverage of components: Teacher interest and understanding

Technological Modelling Display
(Click image to enlarge)

During their trials the teachers found certain Components matched well with their individual interests, skills or understanding. Warren already has his students undertake a lot of technological modelling as part of the Hard Materials course, so it seemed logical that introducing the concepts of technological modelling (such as purpose of modelling, evidence from models) should be covered in his room. Jo has a particular interest in the Characteristics of Technology Component (such as: What is technology? What is not technology? Technology across cultures/societies/time) so she will cover this in her class.

Coverage of components: Major and minor focus areas

When the team considered the distribution of the Components in their POL, there was a lot of discussion regarding the importance of all three Technological Practice Components and the belief that these are essential for good Technological Practice and should be included in all units of work. They needed to balance this philosophy with workload when creating their POL and compromised by having major and minor focus areas – the latter being areas that were taught and reinforced but did not require evidence of student work and would not be assessed by that teacher.Jo, for example, doesn't have Planning for Practice as one of her major focus areas in her Year 8 course, so she will teach it as a minor focus area.

Coverage of components: Links between the components

Afa with his sail
(Click image to enlarge)

During their exploration and trialling of the Components the team gradually identified the links between all eight components. Raina, for example, trialled the Characteristics of Technological Outcomes Component and her students looked at the physical and functional attributes of a range of Technological Outcomes and the links/relationships between these attributes. She found that this helped her students come up with the physical and functional attributes for their own Technological Outcomes, as part of their brief development. In the team POL she now has both these Components as her focus areas.

Summary

All Year 7/8 Technology students at Tauranga Intermediate will be working within the trial POL in 2010. The team will review the POL throughout the year and anticipates making changes for 2011.

Without fully exploring and trialling the newer strands of Technology in The New Zealand Curriculum (Technological Knowledge/Nature of Technology) and their Components the team feel the process would have been extremely difficult. They advise other teams undertaking this process to remember that there is no 'one size fits all' Programme of Learning and that the process of developing one is of as much value as the finished product.