Developing a New Biscuit
Class: Year 10
School: Carmel College
Teachers: Annaliese Seedall and Sandy Goonan
Category: Teaching strategy
Year 10 Food Technology students worked in groups to design and develop a new biscuit product, with packaging and labelling, for a specific target market.
The New Biscuit unit
Food Technology teacher Sandy Goonan developed the New Biscuit unit as a vehicle for introducing her students to the technological process as used in industry. Through working in a similar team-based approach, students could more easily appreciate the relationship between what they were doing in the classroom and industry practice. To emphasise that New Product Development (NPD) involves more than designing a food product, the students developed labelling and packaging for their biscuit.
Sandy modified and taught the unit again in subsequent years. In 2011 Annaliese Seedall joined the school and took responsibility for Food Technology in the second half of the year, when Sandy was working on a Royal Society Fellowship. She also adapted the New Biscuit unit when teaching the two Year 10 classes.
Background
Planning for the Year 10 Food Technology course includes the need to teach subject-specific knowledge and skills which would normally be taught in Year 9. But, due to timetable/workroom constraints, Carmel College students take Food Technology in Years 7/8 but not in Year 9. However, many of the students have taken Year 9 Technology and bring this experience and knowledge to the Foods area.
The structure of the Year 10 course is partly determined by the need to reintroduce students to concepts they last covered in Year 8 and teach them the basics of Year 9/10 Food Technology, while also preparing them for Year 11. The course is divided into five units, delivered in three 50-minute lessons per week of which one is a practical lesson. These progress from basic workroom management through to Level 2-4 work in Term 4:
- Knowing your stuff – hygiene, safety, etc
- Kick-start your day – breakfast, healthy eating for teenagers
- Design a burger
- Ethnic explosion – investigating food from different countries
- What's cooking, good looking? – developing a new biscuit product
The fifth and final unit combines knowledge and skills gained from the first four units: hygiene and safety from Unit 1; packaging and labelling from Unit 2; the design process from Unit 3; and types of food suited to specific target markets from Unit 4.
Development
The project is based on teamwork, with students put into groups of four. The students are given an overview of the specific roles of product researcher, product developer, packaging designer and marketing manager, reflecting NPD organisation in the food industry. As a group, the students allocate the roles depending on individual strengths. A student who is artistic, for example, might be suited to the packaging designer role. Annaliese notes that the work enforces the key competencies of Managing Self, Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing.
Annaliese developed the unit further by breaking the project into detailed steps with specific tasks and responsibilities for each step. This enabled the students to more easily understand the project as a whole and how their individual roles and responsibilities fitted in to it. She also provided templates for both group and individual tasks to help the students as they worked through each step of their development.
Annaliese notes that students haven't done group work to this extent before and don't realise how important their individual contribution is to the project. She finds, however, that once they realise that they are completely responsible for their part the students work together very well. Annaliese adds that some students might start the project thinking that others in their group won't work as well as themselves, and some might think others are better and will 'carry' them. This attitude changes, however, when they're asked "Are you doing your job?" at the beginning of each lesson. Annaliese identifies exactly what each individual role should achieve for that lesson, noting that this clarity helps students see the detailed requirements for their roles and realise that everyone has to work hard. She modified the assessment schedule to reflect the importance of individual contribution – students are given an individual mark for their achievements as well as a group mark. This, again, helps the students appreciate that their work is part of a joint effort.
To further support the students in their product development, Annaliese provided worksheets which showed the design process to be used in more depth. The packaging designer, for example, could see that, in addition to other tasks, she had to research packaging and labelling, come up with ideas, make mock-ups, organise resources, construct the final outcome and evaluate it. Annaliese says that students need support at this stage. "You can't just say 'do it', you have to show them how to do it. But once the students were shown, they did a really good job".
Annaliese and Sandy discussed some of the industry knowledge Sandy was gaining on her Fellowship placements and, as a result, Annaliese included more detailed work on specifications in the unit – students had to consider in detail their specifications for product colour and size. Students enjoying this, knowing it made their project more authentic.
Delivery
Although Year 10 students work on the New Biscuit unit each year, they are given a different range of scenarios. Annaliese compiled an exemplar for the students to use as a guide, using an example of developing a Valentine's Day biscuit. Having seen this, each group was then allocated a scenario with a different target market:
- A healthier biscuit product for a child's school lunch box
- A new biscuit product that could be sold at the college tuck shop
- A biscuit that could be given as a birthday/Christmas gift
- A sweet treat for gluten-intolerant young people
- A treat to be taken and eaten on a day tramp
- A new biscuit for the zoo cafe
- A biscuit that could be sold as a fundraiser on the school's cultural day
The students were given basic biscuit recipes, with each group baking and then evaluating their biscuits. They brainstormed concepts for their own biscuit product and discussed how each person would approach their individual tasks. Each student developed a mood-board for their theme, and began work on the jobs assigned to their particular roles. Sometimes all or just some of the group worked on a task, while at other times everyone worked individually.
The students researched existing products, sketched concepts for their biscuits, labels and packaging, and trialled their biscuit recipes. After evaluating their biscuits in Trial 1, the students developed their recipe further according to their specific scenarios and trialled it again. At this stage there was a focus on the colour, size and flavour specifications. Students were expected to have completed their final recipe by the end of Week 3, collated all their documentation, made the labels and organised packaging resources, and made any resources required for the product launch.
During Week 4 (organised to coincide with the end-of-year exam timetable) the students made and packaged their product during their 1.5 hour practical exam, and worked on their product launch and completing their folder work. During Week 5, each group presented their product to the rest of the class and the unit concluded with a fun Master Chef Mystery Challenge for the last practical lesson. Each group was given a mystery box with suitable leftover pantry ingredients and developed a biscuit.
- Unit plan (61kb, PDF file)
Curriculum Links
The unit focussed on a number of Components from the Technology curriculum, with students generally working from Level 2-4:
- Technological Practice
- Brief Development – Level 3
- Planning for Practice – Level 3
- Outcome Development and Evaluation – Level 4
- Nature of Technology
- Characteristics of Technology – Level 2
- Characteristics of Technological Outcomes – Level 2
- Technological Knowledge
- Technological Products – Level 2
- Technological Modelling – Level 2
Outcomes
The students enjoyed the unit and finished with an appreciation for how the technological process operates in industry. Annaliese says it is interesting to see how each group takes the basic biscuit recipe and develops it to suit their scenario, and that it is very rewarding as a teacher to see students with differing talents and abilities work together as a cohesive unit. Students enjoyed taking on roles which suited their strengths (and sometimes personalities) and extended them.
What next?
Reflecting on the unit, Annaliese says that in 2012 she will make a few more changes. Students will initial the pages that they were responsible for completing, to make assessment easier and ensure that the student in a particular role did actually write-up their own pages. Annaliese decided that the product launch could be improved, and student feedback reinforced this – the marketing managers felt that they needed more work in their role. Annaliese will also give them more guidance on how to launch their new product successfully.
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