Outcomes
Geoff Craig:
"The unit went really well and is a good model for how Technology should be taught, although it may have looked like chaos when kids were surging back and forth between the three rooms!
The timetable change had allowed Diana and Geoff to incorporate differentiated learning into their unit. They had decided to split the classes by gender, as each felt that girls and boys learn in different ways, and rely on each other in certain activities. They had found in the past that the boys would leave it to the girls to clean up in the foods room, while the girls, often less confident with the machinery in the materials room, would get the boys to use the machines for them.
Diana says this was particularly effective with the boys – there were fewer problems with them being separated and she used a more 'sergeant-major' approach, to which they responded well
In the second half of the year, classes were again split by gender, but this didn't work as well for these students, so the group was streamed instead, which was more successful.
This group was initially keener to be in the Food area, which led Geoff and Diana to swap between classes more, although once students started using Sketch-up they enjoyed the other class more and this wasn't such an issue.
Diana and Geoff note that the first ICT segment didn't go quite as well as planned – students had difficulty with incorrect passwords and understanding the systems set-up. The second group was given more instruction and practice so they had the required understanding.
'Caramel Crunch' student work board
(click to jump to gallery page)
Geoff decided that next time he would use computer modelling rather than CAD, on the grounds that many students didn't have the fine motor skills to make a "top notch job of it" and that it took up a lot of time which he'd rather use on other aspects of the unit.
Diana had originally planned for her students to case study some technologists, based on the Futureintech website, but time didn't allow this. However, she did use short video clips relating to ice-cream to engage and inform the students, and says there are often items on current events programmes which can be used for this purpose.
