Teachers should establish if students have developed robust level six competencies and are ready to begin working towards level seven achievement objectives for the technological practice components, and plan learning experiences to progress these as guided by the level seven Indicators below.

Brief Development

Planning for Practice

Outcome Development and Evaluation

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Justify the nature of an intended outcome in relation to the issue to be resolved and justify specifications in terms of key stakeholder feedback and wider community considerations.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Critically analyse their own and others' past and current planning and management practices in order to develop and employ project management practices that will ensure the effective development of an outcome to completion.

Achievement Objective

Students will:

• Critically analyse their own and others' outcomes and evaluative practices to inform the development of ideas for feasible outcomes. Undertake a critical evaluation that is informed by ongoing experimentation and functional modelling, stakeholder feedback, and trialling in the physical and social environments. Use the information gained to select, justify, and develop an outcome. Evaluate this outcome's fitness for purpose against the brief. Justify the evaluation using feedback from stakeholders and demonstrating a critical understanding of the issue.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake brief development at level seven teachers could:

• provide a context that offers a range of issues for students to explore
• guide students to select an authentic issue within the context. An authentic issue is one which is connected to the context, and allows students to develop a brief for a need or opportunity that can be managed within the boundaries of their available resources.
• support students to identify a need or opportunity relevant to the issue
• support students to understand the physical and functional nature required of their outcome
• support students to justify the nature of their outcome in terms of the issue it is addressing
• support students to develop specifications and provide justifications for them drawing from stakeholder feedback, and wider community considerations such as the resources available to develop the outcome, ongoing maintenance of the outcome once implemented, sustainability of resources used to develop the outcome and the outcome itself, disposal of the developed outcome when past its use by date.

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake planning for practice at level seven teachers could:

• ensure that there is a brief against which planning to develop an outcome can occur
• support students to critically analyse a range of planning tools and project management practices that have been used in past technological practice
• support students to select and use planning tools to make  effective planning decisions and establish and manage all resources (including time, money, stakeholder/s, materials, components, software, equipment, tools and/or hardware etc). Effective planning decisions enable the outcome produced to successfully meet the brief.
• support students to select and use planning tools which will allow for the efficient recording of justifications for key planning decisions made.
• support students to ensure appropriate resources are available (stakeholder/s, materials, components, software, equipment, tools and/or hardware) suitable for their outcome

Teacher Guidance

To support students to undertake outcome development and evaluation at level seven teachers could:

• ensure that there is a brief with attributes against which the outcome communicated by the conceptual design can be evaluated, and that there is a more developed brief with clear specifications against which a developed outcome can be evaluated;
• establish an environment that supports student innovation and encourages critical analysis of existing outcomes;
• support students to critically analyse evaluative practices used within functional modelling;
• support students to develop drawing and modelling skills to communicate and explore design ideas. Emphasis should be on progressing 2D and 3D drawing skills and increasing the range and complexity of functional modelling;
• support students to explore a range of materials/components, and to develop the necessary knowledge and skills to evaluate and make effective use of them;
• support students to undertake prototyping to gain evidence that enables clear judgments regarding the outcome's fitness for purpose and determine the need for any changes to enhance the outcome;
• support students to gain targeted stakeholder feedback and understand the implications of the physical and social environment in which the outcome is to be located.

Indicators

Students can:

• explore the context to select an issue
• identify a need or opportunity relevant to their selected issue
• establish a conceptual statement that justifies the nature of the outcome and why such an outcome should be developed with reference to the issue it is addressing
• establish the specifications for an outcome using stakeholder feedback, and based on the nature of the outcome required to address the need or opportunity, consideration of the environment in which the outcome will be situated, and resources available
• communicate specifications that allow an outcome to be evaluated as fit for purpose
• justify the specifications in terms of stakeholder feedback, and the nature of the outcome required to address the need or opportunity, consideration of the environment in which the outcome will be situated, and resources available.

Indicators

Students can:

• critically analyse existing planning tools and project management practices to inform the selection of planning tools appropriate for the technological practice to be undertaken, and for recording evidence to support any revisions to planning
• use planning tools to set achievable goals,  manage all resources, plan critical review points, and revise goal and resources as necessary to ensure the effective completion of an outcome
• use planning tools to provide evidence for any revisions made at critical review points and justifies the appropriateness of planning tools used.

Indicators

Students can:

• generate design ideas that are informed by research and critical analysis of existing outcomes;
• develop design ideas for outcomes that are justified as feasible with evidence gained through functional modelling;
• critically analyse evaluative practices used when functional modelling to inform own functional modelling;
• undertake functional modelling to evaluate design ideas and develop and test a conceptual design to provide evidence of the proposed outcome's ability to be fit for purpose;
• evaluate suitability of materials/components, based on their performance properties, to select those appropriate for use in the production of a feasible outcome;
• undertake prototyping to gain specific evidence of an outcomes fitness for purpose and use this to justify any decisions to refine, modify and/or accept the outcome as final;
• use stakeholder feedback and an understanding of the physical and social requirements of where the outcome will be situated to support and justify key design decisions and evaluations of fitness for purpose.