The Technological Practice Strand Explanatory Papers Updated May 2010
Brief Development
Junior Primary (NE-Year 4)
Learning experiences
The following learning experiences have been provided to support teachers as they develop their understandings of the Brief Development component of the Technological Practice strand. There is no expectation that these would form the basis of any specific unit of work in technology. The learning experiences have been summarised from classrooms across New Zealand, and provide examples of student achievement across a range of levels. This stance reflects the majority of classrooms within which it is expected that students will demonstrate a range of levels of achievement.
During a discussion about a lunchtime 'toilet' incident, students in this class identified that there were problems with regards to the toilets. There was general agreement that the toilets were unpleasant to use, and from this the teacher and students decided they should do something about them. They worked with a number of experts from the local community to make changes that the whole school would benefit from. For details of this unit please see the Nicer Loos case study.
Students achieving at level 1 could:
- describe the improved toilets they worked to develop; and
- identify attributes that a toilet environment for girls and boys in a school would need to have to be nicer to use.
Students achieving at level 2 could:
- explain the new toilet environment in terms of colours and fittings, and how the toilets would need to be cared for to make sure they continued to be nicer to use than the old ones;
- describe the attributes required for toilets to be more pleasant for girls and boys to use, in terms of creating the environment itself (colours, the selection of fittings), as well creating systems to ensure the maintenance of the toilets in the future (cleaning systems and education of users); and
- describe specific attributes they identified for their part of the project in a way that allowed them, and their teacher, to evaluate their progress and final outcome.
