Essential Learnings.

I have chosen to use in assessment tasks 1&2...

Knowledge and Understanding.

"New products and technologies are designed and developed to meet changing needs and wants of intended audiences, and include artefacts, systems, environments, services and processes" and "Product design and production decisions are influenced by aspects of appropriateness and by
detailed specifications, constraints and standards of production" (Technology, Essential Learning’s, Knowledge and Understanding, p.g 2, 2007).

I intend to introduce new information and use a design journal with my intended assessment tasks. This will be used as a formal representation of Knowledge and Understanding, and as a time line of progress made through class lessons, as well as a reflective tool on knowledge gained and shared toward the task criteria.

Progress toward design reasoning for production decisions will be displayed in the journal and used as a student centred blue print for research assessment and practical application.

Ways of working
Students are able to:

• investigate and analyse specifications, standards and constraints in the development of design
ideas
• consult, negotiate and apply ethical principles and cultural protocols to investigate, design and
make products
• generate and evaluate design ideas and communicate research, design options, budget and
timelines in design proposals
• select resources, techniques and tools to make products that meet detailed specifications
• plan, manage and refine production procedures for efficiency
• make products to meet detailed specifications by manipulating or processing resources
• identify, apply and justify workplace health and safety practices
• evaluate the suitability of products and processes against criteria and recommend improvements
• reflect on and analyse the impacts of products and processes on people, their communities and
Environments.
• reflect on learning, apply new understandings and justify future applications.

Some examples of linking the Ways of Working descriptors with Blooms Taxonomy (2010) actions words would be:

Investigate and anylise - match Blooms action words definition of - Break down objects or ideas into simpler parts and find evidence to support generalizations.

Consult, negotiate and apply - matches the Application definition - Apply knowledge to actual situations.

Generate and evaluate - matches the Evaluation definition of - Make and defend judgments based on internal evidence or external criteria.

The Technology Ways of Working align in reverse contrast to the Revised Blooms Taxonomy Higher Order Thinking Table. Working down the Ways of Working is targeting the same outcomes as working up the arrow of Blooms table (slide 10 of, Kurwongbah State School PowerPoint presentation).


Technology, being a practical based subject area, encourages Students to demonstrate evidence of their learning over time in relation to the following assessable elements:

• knowledge and understanding
• investigating and designing
• producing
• evaluating
• reflecting.

This process allows students to develop knowledge and understanding of introduced tasks and concepts, investigate and design through research and reasoning, and then practically develop what has been investigated. I think this is a KLA characteristic only really shared with perhaps HPE and Manual arts subjects. This structure for delivery allows for constant review for understanding and is a structured scaffold for implementing higher order thinking through tasks.


Best

Shaun.

Reference.

Technology, Essential Learning’s (2007), Viewed 18th July, 2010, at http://www.qsa.qld.edu.au/downloads/early_middle/qcar_el_technology_yr9.pdf

Bloom’s Taxonomy Action Verbs (2010), Viewed 18th July, 2010, athttp://www.clemson.edu/assessment/assessmentpractices/referencematerials/documents/Blooms%20Taxonomy%20Action%20Verbs.pdf