Teachers should establish if students have developed robust level four understandings and are ready to begin working towards level five achievement objectives for technological knowledge and plan learning experiences to progress these as guided by the level five Indicators below.

Technological Modelling

Technological Products

Technological Systems

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Understand how evidence, reasoning, and decision making in functional modelling contribute to the development of design concepts and how prototyping can be used to justify ongoing refinement of technological outcomes.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Understand how materials are selected, based on desired performance criteria.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Understand the properties of subsystems within technological systems.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to develop understanding of technological modelling at level 5, teachers could:

• provide opportunity for students to identify practical and functional reasoning underpinning technological modelling. Functional reasoning provides a basis for exploring the technical feasibility of the design concept and the realised outcome. That is, 'how to make it happen' in the functional modelling phase, and the reasoning behind 'how it is happening' in prototyping. Practical reasoning provides a basis for exploring acceptability (including socio-cultural and environmental dimensions) surrounding the design concept and realized outcome. That is, the reasoning around decisions as to 'should it happen?' in functional modelling and 'should it be happening?' in prototyping.
• provide opportunity for students to explore how informed and justifiable design decision making relies on both functional and practical reasoning and draws from evidence provided from modelling
• guide students to analyse examples of functional modelling practices to explain how these were used to gain evidence to justify design decisions with regards to both technical feasibility and acceptability. Such justifications will rely on the synthesis of evidence gained from modelling that sought feedback from different stakeholders.
• guide students to analyse examples of prototyping to explain how results were to used justify an outcome as fit for purpose or requiring refinement.
• provide opportunity for students to understand that maintenance requirements can be identified through prototyping and guide them to identify that maintaining an outcome can involve controlling environmental influences and/or undertaking ongoing refinements of the technological outcome
• support students to gain insight from prototyping examples into how testing procedures can provide information regarding maintenance requirements of a technological outcome. Examples should include the modelling practices of technologists and should include instances where refinements to the prototype were required to meet specifications.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to develop understanding of technological products at level 5, teachers could:

• guide students to understand that the composition of materials determines what performance properties it exhibits. Composition relates to such things as the type and arrangement of particles that make up the material;
• support students to analyse examples of how materials have been selected to gain insight into how this selection relies on understanding the composition of the materials available and using this knowledge to help decide which materials in combination would provide the best 'fit' with the product specifications. Examples should include the material selection practices of technologists.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to develop understanding of technological systems at level 5, teachers could:

• guide students to understand that the properties of a subsystem relate to its transformation performance and its level of connective compatibility and that additional interface components may be required to ensure a subsystem can be effectively integrated into a system;
• provide students with the opportunity to analyse a range of examples of complex technological systems that contain at least one subsystem. Complex technological systems are those designed to change inputs to outputs through more than one transformation process;
• guide students to identify subsystems within technological systems and explain them in terms of their properties;
• support students to use examples to gain insight into how the selection and interfacing of subsystems relies on understanding the transformation and connective properties of subsystems to ensure the best 'fit' with the required system specifications. Examples should include the subsystem selection and interfacing practices of technologists.

Indicators

Students can:

• identify examples of functional and practical reasoning within design decision making
• explain how evidence gained from functional modelling was used to justify design decisions
• identify examples of functional and practical reasoning underpinning prototype evaluations and the establishment of maintenance requirements
• explain how evidence gained from prototyping was used to justify outcome evaluation as fit for purpose or in need of further development.

Indicators

Students can:

• discuss examples to illustrate how the composition of materials determines performance properties;
• explain the link between specifications of a product and the selection of suitable materials for its construction;
• discuss examples to illustrate how decisions about material selection take into account the composition of the material and the specifications of the product.

Indicators

Students can:

• identify subsystems within technological systems and explain their transformation and connective properties;
• discuss how transformation and connection properties of subsystems impact on system layout and component selection;
• discuss examples to illustrate how interfaces take into account the connective compatibility between subsystems and other system components.