CP811-Cool-Food

Reference: CP811
Classroom Practice: Year 9
Title: Cool Food
Duration: 18 weeks
Overview: All Year 9 students did a Technology course which incorporated Food, Materials, ICT and Graphics, and involved them working on two units. Each unit was taught by two teachers to two classes, and repeated to the other two classes in the second half of the year. In the Cool Food unit students developed an ice-cream product and packaging, recording group progress through blogging.

Tararua College, Pahiatua, is a decile 4 school with approximately 428 pupils. Food Technology teacher Diana Eagle taught Home Economics at Tararua College for three years, returning in 1996 after time at home raising her young children. Having moved from Home Economics to Design Technology in 1999, she made the transition to Food Technology with the introduction of the new curriculum in 2002.

That same year, Diana made contact with food technologist Carol Pound and worked with her on a trial unit. Their working relationship has continued. Carol helped Diana develop her Year 11 Tararua Chocolates unit, and in 2007 they developed a Food Technology Toolbox, a document to support teachers in their planning, and aimed at providing a progression of Food Technology knowledge and skills from Years 7-13.

'Chunky Choc' student work board

Geoff Craig started his career as a welder, moving to education when he trained as a teacher in 1987. Although his main focus has been Technology, he has taught a range of subjects over the years. Geoff came to Tararua College in 2000.

The Technology department is located in a purpose-built suite, but there was no history of collaboration between the Food, ICT, Materials, Graphics and Electronics programmes.

Diana was unhappy with the fact that the Year 9 Technology programme was being taught in isolated technological areas, and that time constraints limited her to focussing on ensuring students acquired the basic cooking skills they needed. "Although students did work on aspects such as planning and brief development, it ended up being a more glorified Home Economics. Technology needed to be integrated more fully into the course, and highlight progression into Year 10."

'Choc Mint' student work board

In 2006 Diana suggested to her colleagues that, to establish some kind of cohesion in Technology, they could work together on a project, focussing on the same outcome but utilising each teacher's subject knowledge and strengths.

That year the Materials and Graphics teachers each planned and trialled a unit, A Novelty Item, in which each class spent a term on a specific design or technological aspect with one teacher. While this worked successfully for the students who started with design, it obviously didn't work quite as well for the class starting at the materials stage.

After the trial, the decision was made to offer a Technology course which would touch on all the different 'areas'. Students would work on two projects: two teachers in the Materials 'area' would teach the existing A Novelty Item unit, focussing on a one-off solution; and Geoff and Diana would teach a new unit, Cool Food, which would include Graphics, Food, and ICT and focus on conceptual development.

In 2007 the Year 9 Technology classes were all scheduled in the same time slot, giving flexibility in structuring classes and enabling the introduction of team teaching or differentiated learning. Each pair of teachers would share two classes in the first half of the year and repeat their programme with the other two classes in the second half.

"We thought it was worth giving a combined Technology course a go," says Geoff. "It's always interesting to get some variety. We knew that Technology was already a co-operative learning experience and, with the push for differentiated and co-operative learning, wanted to experiment further. A six-month unit is just the right thing and Cool Food really does involve the three areas – Food, Graphics, and ICT – brilliantly."

Diana and Carol Pound had devised a Food Technology Toolbox, a document which provided a framework to support progression in Food Technology knowledge/skills from Year 7-13, which Diana would use with her students for the for the first time in 2007. See the CP807 Food Technology Toolbox case study.

Each student used a clear-file for recording their progress and including their Toolbox - information on the theory and practical skills they would need to complete a successful project.

All Year 9s met the four teachers in an 'Introduction to Technology' period, after which they were placed into two groups, each group to work on a separate unit. Each group was divided into two classes, this providing an opportunity to trial the teaching of girls and boys in separate classes.

The Cool Food group started with a shared lesson, in which students were introduced to the computer suite and the e-learning platform Moodle . Moodle would be used by the students as a blogging tool to share the planning, reviewing, reflections and revision of their practice throughout their projects, through the WeLCom (Wairarapa eLearning Community) site.

Geoff introduced his class to the Graphics room and some of the skills they would need, while Diana introduced hers to the Food Technology lab, where they made ice-cream sundaes and smoothies. Each class then worked through the market research phase of the unit

As each stage was completed, the classes swapped and the lesson was repeated to the second class. The longest teaching block was four weeks, which ensured each class received the knowledge/skills in the same general time frame. See Course Outline: Cool Food Project

Class 1: This class examined current products and looked at product testing, legislation, technological principles such as aesthetics, and the four 'p's – product, price, place and promotion.

Class 2: This class concentrated on labelling, advertising and packaging. Students used design principles to evaluate current market products, and also considered product, price, place and promotion. As part of their skill development they worked on the use of colour and texture, typography and white space, this being likened to a 'hook, line and sinker' for getting consumers to look at and buy a product.

The classes combined for two periods to consider brief development. They brainstormed target niche markets within the teenage market sector, and in groups of three or four chose a niche market for which to develop an ice-cream product. Each student completed a survey in which they explored their own opinions and identified likely consumer requirements.

'Nerdilicious' student work board

Each class spent four weeks with one teacher developing technological knowledge, and then the classes swapped for the next four.

Class 1: This class worked in the food lab and considered ice-cream formulation, production and preservation. They had to think about both the manufacturing process and HACCP requirements for these products.

Sensory attributes testing on ice-cream products currently in the market is always a popular activity, and this was no exception – especially with the boys!

Students developed their ice-cream using a variety of recipes - based on evaporated milk, condensed milk, custard, and as a semi freddo version. Diana covered basic skills such as separating eggs and each group trialled recipe variations. Sensory attributes testing was done on these home-made formulations, focussing on smell, appearance, texture and taste. Students compared each dessert to commercial products and considered which formulation would appeal to their target market.

Students also considered ice-cream inclusions and why some ingredients are particularly suitable while others should be avoided. They then trialled an assortment of inclusions (fruit, biscuits, lollies, apple crumble, cordial powder, cheese cake, rocky road) which each focus group commented on and ranked. The class also created new flavours of ice-cream, trialling different additives with a commercial vanilla ice-cream base.

Creating the perfect ice-cream didn't stop there! The class worked on adding some 'crunch' to their dessert. They used basic recipes, sometimes incorporating their own variations, to make waffle cones, maple syrup cones, chocolate chip biscuits, brandy snaps, chocolate brownies and almond tuiles .

This was followed by the making and testing of sauce formulations – fudge, chocolate, chocolate coconut, butterscotch, and toffee. For their sauce formulation testing the students made three batches of each sauce; one was stored in the fridge, one in the freezer while the third was to be sampled immediately. Sensory evaluation was performed to rank each batch on appearance, smell, texture and taste.

Class 2: This class had to consider the importance of packaging and labelling in both a general context and for their own project. Geoff found the online pac-it resource helpful in teaching students about packaging – the video showing how early Māori wrapped muttonbirds in kelp and flax and the vast array of packaging available in the 21st century, led to a good class discussion on the subject.

Geoff reviewed existing ICT skills and taught the new ones that the class would need to use for their labelling. After reviewing what they knew about design sketching and freehand design skills, he taught the students to use 2D and 3D freehand design sketching techniques, including orthographic projection .

After drafting their designs the students were introduced to CAD (Computer-aided design) and the use of SketchUp in modelling their work. They also had to make a physical model of their label.

Class 1: This class concentrated on generating ideas for an ice-cream product, keeping in mind their key factors and the results of their survey. Each group took their best idea and generated a revised brief.

Class 2: This class looked at ideas for packaging and labelling of their product, again considering the key factors and survey results, and using their ideas to produce a refined brief.

During the three weeks of product development both teachers covered the same process with their classes. Students included conceptual modelling of the packaging and labelling for their product when they made their prototypes.

After refining and completing their final brief, each group prepared a presentation of their product using a mock-up, story board display or PowerPoint presentation.

'Chocolate Coconut' student work board

Each group presented their product to the class, giving out samples and explaining its features, its proposed place in the marketplace, price, and how they would promote it.

Diana and Geoff photographed all the project presentations and chose 20 for display at the school's options/careers night and Year 8 open night.

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!

Outcomes

'Caramel Crunch' student work board

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.

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.

'Luxury Chocolate Caramel' student work board

Diana says that while Geoff and she did the unit this way, another teacher could have a different focus – perhaps covering a little of everything or do more in the Food, Graphics or ICT areas. Using video clips from current events programmes, as she did, may help, she says.

Diana has taken time out from teaching although, as well as working with her husband on the family farm, she is still involved with NZQA, revising and moderating standards.

Rachael Hutchinson moved from Palmerston North Girls' High School to take up the Food Technology position, and is currently working with Geoff on the Cool Food unit.

As acting-HOD in term 1 2008, Geoff was busy teaching in one room and running to another to help the reliever, so opted to drop the blogging component. However he intends to have the second-half classes use blogging to plan, review, reflect and revise.