Tech decks and Technological Modelling
Level: Year 8
School: Tauranga Intermediate
Teacher: Jo Young
Category: Teaching strategy
The Technology team at Tauranga Intermediate had developed a programme of learning in which the components of the three strands were covered over two years by all or some of the team – see Techlink Teaching Snapshot Creating a Programme of Learning. Multi-materials teacher Jo Young used a variety of strategies to teach her Year 8 focus area, the Technological Modelling component of the Technological Knowledge strand.
Skateboarding provided a high-interest context for the ten-session (80 minutes each) unit. Jo gave her students a scenario for their work – 'The local council is considering providing another skate park at an existing recreation area; this is an opportunity to build a Tech Deck fingerboards skate park to show the council your idea' (Tech decks, or fingerboards, are miniature skateboards 'ridden' using the middle and index fingers as 'feet'). The students' final outcomes would be scale models of skate parks and communicative models to share their ideas with the council. Their models were also technological models because they provided the students with information to assist their decision-making. When teaching technological modelling concepts Jo made the most of links to the students' own modelling but also ensured they explored technological modelling outside of their own practice.
Jo knew that, as well as learning about different types of models, her students would need to learn additional vocabulary used in the Technological Modelling component such as prototype and mock-up. The Tauranga Intermediate Technology teachers each have a Technology 'word of the day' as part of their school's focus on literacy and try to make use of this strategy when teaching their focus Technology component. Jo used modelling-based 'words of the day', to teach the correct definitions and matched each word with what she was focusing on that day.
To introduce the class to what technological modelling is and why technologists do it, Jo showed her students a YouTube clip about wearable technologies which included some prototypes created by designers. The video provided a good opportunity to introduce some of the definitions of technological modelling, such as prototype and mock-up. Jo also led a class discussion about the difference between functional modelling and prototyping – see Techlink Curriculum Support page Technological Modelling – Level 1.
The class looked at a range of images (PDF 841kb) of different kinds of technological models such as clay models, sketch models, cardboard mock-ups, patterns and circuit diagrams. Jo also displayed models that previous students had created, such as a mock-up and prototype sails from a Skateboard Sail unit. She used questions to generate class discussion and the students considered each type of model in reference to a particular product, discussing, for example, how a clay model might be used in designing a car or a circuit diagram for a cell phone. They were also asked what specific kind of modelling was done and why the designers had done that. Jo found that the students didn't give much detail or were not specific enough, so she didn't get the answers she had expected, such as "creating a clay model car would show how the curves look and feel in 3D".
Jo has changed the questions and trialled some new strategies to encourage students to be more specific when identifying the evidence a model provides. In addition to asking what the model can tell them, she now asks the students "'What does the model test?", "What doesn't this model test?", and "What what other model would be better?" so that they can see the benefits and limitations of model types – see Technological Modelling – Level 3. Through these questions, Jo hopes to get responses along the lines of "When creating a car, a sketch model tells me about shape and colour but not size; a full-size line drawing will tell me about size."
To help her students understand that there can be many forms of modelling for one product, Jo gave them an activity (PDF, 886kb) based on cell phones. The students looked at lots of images of different kinds of technological modelling – sketch model, plasticine mock-up, cardboard mock-up, circuit diagram, exploded view, rotatable 3D CAD of the lens only, prototypes of possible future cell phones – that might be done when designing a cell phone. Jo gave them very specific questions about what information a designer/technologist needed to know to ensure they developed a cell phone that was fit for purpose, and how this information could be gathered:
- How many buttons should it have?
- What materials will we need?
- Does it work? (called fitness for purpose)
- Is it strong?
- What stuff (called components) will the electronic circuit need?
- What shape will it be?
- What colours should it be?
- What is the best size?
- Will it fit in the hand of the people using it? (called ergonomics)
- How high will the buttons/keys be?
- What will each button/key do?
- Is it safe?
- How will the buttons/keys be laid out?
- How will it feel?
- Will it last a long time? (called durability)
- What will it cost to make?
- Does it meet our stakeholders' needs?
- Does it meet our stakeholders' wants?
- What impact will it have on the environment?
- Do our stakeholders like it?
Next step
To encourage her students to understand the importance of technological modelling in industry, Jo plans to use a Futures Channel video clip about the modelling practices of a technologist creating sunglasses. (See also Techlink Resource Review The Futures Channel) This clip is particularly useful for showing the many different types of technological models used in the design and development of a new Technological Outcome.
Jo collects her students' technological models, including sketches, mock-ups and prototypes, and uses these with new classes. This collection is a valuable resource when focussing on Technological Modelling, no matter what the context of the unit is.
Facilitator comment
Selena Hinchco, Resource Development and Facilitation Year 7-10 Technology Project
Jo planned for her students to undertake their own technological modelling as part of their Technological Practice. However, her students came to understand the purpose and importance of technological modelling because she did more than just getting them to do some models. She knew that her students would not gain the conceptual understandings within the technological modelling component just by doing some technological modelling as part of their Technological Practice. Instead, she planned deliberate acts of teaching to teach her students the role technological modelling has in the development of a new Technological Outcome, and she shared with her students the modelling practices of real technologists using products they were familiar with. [For more information about deliberate acts of teaching, see Effective Literacy Practice in Year 5 to 8 (Learning Media, 2009)]
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