Building Resources
Student comment: "Carol helped broaden my understanding of technological processes. She helped me to see how scientific methods and concepts (particularly chemistry) were the underlying framework of a sound technological process or product. In particular she keep me on track, with making sure the scientific knowledge and methods I used and developed were accurate."
Although in its first year the Tararua Chocolates unit was kept deliberately simple ("The students were all new to Food Technology, as I was," says Diana), it has become more sophisticated over the years. Carol has introduced students to the use of planning and production tools and testing procedures and protocols, such as Gantt charts, HACCP and flow charts. She introduced the concept of focus groups and showed students how to get meaningful feedback from them to enhance their technological practice.
"Each industry has their own set of tools to help them manage a project - tools that can be very helpful when teaching senior technology classes. It's really basic stuff that teachers really need help with - how to tackle a project and keep it on track, and how to steer students so they're not hanging around. In some of the projects I see in schools, students are just spinning around because the teacher is not sure where to send them next. A technologist is managing this sort of situation every day and can pass on simple techniques that can help."
"The Food Technology teachers I'm working with are asking me to teach them more tools so they've got more things they can do with the students. So instead of saying 'do some brainstorming', they can say 'today we are going to generate new ideas by doing some comparative market analysis or some attribute listing or some problem inventory analysis."
Student comment: "Carol was amazingly good. She helped me set out my plan and the way I was attacking it and making sure that all my technological practice and scientific input was correct and factual. She made sure I kept all my references so that it was professional. She made sure that I thought about ethical factors and social implications and all the sorts of things that didn't really occur to me at first. She made sure I got my head around everything and was beginning to think about the product as more than just a product... if someone ate it how would it affect them, so thinking about safety and HACCP flow sheets. She made sure that I declared exactly what was in it, especially when I was doing consumer testing. And that my consumer testing was appropriate for the results that I wanted to get."
The continuing success and longevity of the unit is largely due to Carol's ongoing input, Diana's evolving teaching practice and improved confidence and the continuous process of developing and modifying of teaching resources, driven by the needs of particular classes of students. "Each year the unit produces a different kind of achievement, but the same sense of satisfaction for me as a teacher," Diana says.
Diana has also found it very useful to have Carol's input when choosing teaching resources. "There are many Australia and British books and videos that are useful, but can confuse as to what is best practice to teach New Zealand students. Many texts also appear to be contradictory." Carol's advice on these resources based on her real-life experiences in New Zealand industry has been invaluable to Diana building a best practice framework for her students.
