CP817: A Plan for Seamless Technology Learning
Abstract
Reference: CP817
Title: A Plan for Seamless Technology Learning
School: St Margaret's College, Christchurch
Classroom Practice: Years 1 to 13
Overview:
Technology teachers jointly develop a strategic plan to deliver a seamless Technology programme from Year 1 through to Year 13. The application of the plan brings early and positive results. Whole-school Technology literacy is improved. Teacher understanding of curriculum is shared, broadened and deepened. Assessment and reporting becomes simpler and more consistent across the department.
Focus Points: The case study highlights:
Background ...
St Margaret's College is a composite (Years 1-13) independent girls' school in Christchurch, with a roll of approximately 740 students. The Technology department is headed by Claire Wood. Technology is taught at every year level.
Primary School
At the Primary level (up to Year 6), a range of Technology units is delivered by classroom teachers. The planning of these units is usually undertaken in consultation with the HOD Technology. This enables resources to be shared and an overview of Technology teaching in the school to be maintained. The primary school has access to specialist rooms and equipment at the senior school.
Middle School (Years 7-10)
In Years 7 and 8, students study two areas of Technology per year. Year 9 students choose three areas of Technology and spend approximately eight weeks in each. Year 10 students choose two Technology options for half of the year each. Middle school teachers meet regularly to discuss topics being undertaken in Integrated Studies in order to forge links between Technology and the other learning areas students are studying.
Senior Secondary (Years 11-13)
Senior Technology was progressively introduced into the school, as NCEA Technology units became available: Technology Level 1 was introduced in 2002; Level 2 in 2003; and Level 3 in 2004.
Year 11 Technology is taught by three specialist teachers with a class in each of Communication Technology and Materials-related technologies. Students study Communication Technology for a full year with one teacher. The focus of this context is Media and Communications. The Materials-related Technology programme is taught by two teachers with the class swapping teachers after approximately two terms – this approach was profiled in Beacon Practice case study BP606 Teaching as a Team. In 2008, the programme focussed on shelter and fashion design. Achievement standards are used for all assessment.
Year 12 Technology also focusses on Materials-related technologies. As in the previous year, students study each technology for two terms and swap between teachers at the end of term two. The course focusses on Fashion (accessories – bag design and garment construction), and the students are given a variety of contexts in which to formulate their own briefs. Achievement standards are used for assessment. In 2009 Communication Technology will progress into Year 12 and into Year 13 in 2010.
The Year 13 course focusses on materials-related technologies (Fashion) for a whole year.
Assessment is completed using NCEA achievement standards through to Level 3.
The Technology Department at St Margaret's was seen as an early leader in Technology teaching and has been visited regularly by teachers, HODs, Principals and Boards of Trustees from schools around the country.
In 2004, the Technology Department applied for Beacon Practice funding, outlining a number of broad aims:
Another very important aim of the Beacon project was to organise the department and bring a sense of coherence to the school's whole Technology programme, from Year 1 through to Year13. Despite the obvious strengths of the department – its strong staff, delivery of well structured and engaging teaching units, effective recording and assessment systems – and the success and recognition the department had achieved, Claire Wood shared a feeling with the rest of the Technology staff that a sense of progression was missing from the programme.
"Before we started [Beacon] we were all delivering sound Technology programmes but we didn't have seamless progression right through. We sort of did but it wasn't official or logged; we didn't have the paperwork."
Claire wanted to introduce a consistency of approach through the entire Technology programme:
Claire wanted the whole staff to "sing from the same hymn book". The vision she had and shared with her peers was to move from delivering good one-off units to delivering excellent units that linked across and within levels. The pedagogy behind this vision is outlined by John Edwards/Bill Martin, educationalists who have written about the transference of learning between different concepts.
To achieve this vision it was clear that a formal plan was required; a single unambiguous plan to guide all the teachers involved in leading students through the Technology levels. The school's principal Claudia Wysocki endorsed the application, which was granted in October, 2004.
Pre-planning
As envisioned, the programme would be carried out in two phases. The first would involve the Middle School and Senior School Technology teachers, including the Middle School Coordinator. The second would involve the Years 1 to 6 classroom teachers, including the Primary School Coordinator.
Initially, a core group of seven teachers were involved in the project; over the whole programme all of the school's Technology and primary school teachers were directly involved.
Before work could begin on plotting out the framework of the strategic plan, several preliminary actions had to be taken and others set in motion. In some cases these were relatively simple and clearly-defined; others were longer term, requiring shifts in attitudes or teaching approaches; still others are on-going, in which the process has become an end in itself.
External Facilitator Cliff Harwood came in to guide and oversee the process. One of his earliest steps was to establish a professional learning community in the department. Before the teachers could develop and share a common vision for change, Cliff believed that a climate of professional trust and respect had to be established among the participants.
Establishing a professional learning community required the commitment of the teachers to a new level of professional interaction based on a genuine respect for the professional abilities of their peers and for their contribution to individual student learning.
"They got down to having professional conversations, as opposed to social or administrative conversations, where they actually talked about student learning," said Cliff.
Before work could begin in earnest on developing the strategic plan, it was necessary to establish a baseline of common understandings of Technology amongst the group, Cliff interviewed each teacher to establish exactly where he or she was at in terms of their understanding of the Technology curriculum and undertook an audit of what they were teaching.
Implementation
Development of the strategic plan proper began with the teachers clearly defining what they wanted to achieve in their teaching of Technology. Cliff Harwood believes that this early step is a critical one: "Establishing that common vision up front is very important. It's got to be a shared understanding, a shared belief around the importance of where you are going and what you are doing."
Defining and establishing a common vision requires common understandings of the language of Technology and Technological practice. It became obvious early on that jointly creating a glossary of Technology terms would be a good way of achieving this.
Putting the glossary together was a no small undertaking, Claire says. "It took forever to develop. We brainstormed all the words and set things up so we had Primary, Middle, and Senior School definitions. We went away with ten words each, then got back together and discussed each word. We decided in the end to have a single definition."
The process was also invaluable in terms of exploring one's own understanding of Technology terms and concepts, Claire says. "It really made people think, and the discussions that ensued were great."
The group also shared understandings of what constituted effective learning and achievement, through general discussions and the sharing of teaching strategies and consequent student learning outcomes. 'It's one thing to look at a student's portfolio and do a joint moderation exercise, but it's another thing to understand how a student got there and the teaching strategies that were used to enable it," Cliff says.
The teachers listed the outcomes they wanted to achieve. Besides the key competencies outlined in the Technology curriculum, and the NCEA and International Baccalaureate qualifications, the list included the values outlined in the school's vision statement and the qualities listed by the Habits of Mind (HOM) programme which was in place throughout the school.
The plan was also to embrace a number of other positive but intangible qualities. Independent education consultant Dr Julia Aitken was invited along to speak to the staff, and she posed the question: 'What did the teachers want the Year 13 students to be like when they left school?' The answers provided further criteria for the developing framework.
Over the course of several full-day meetings, the group cut-and-pasted the attributes and goals on to a long roll of paper and developed headings and categories around them.
Initially, the group planned to simultaneously develop the framework for the Year 9, Year 11, and Year 13 levels. However, the group started at the Y13 level and 'reverse engineered' their way backwards, asking themselves: 'If that's what we want students to achieve at Year 13 what do we have to teach earlier to make that possible?' The results of this brainstorming were transferred to computer and further refined into a guide.
Cliff believes that a strategic plan should not only be clearly understood by everybody concerned but should also provide clear pointers about how to proceed:
"It's important to break the statement down so people don't just see it as a piece of paper on the wall but come to see it as something that is actually achievable; something where they can see the incremental steps required to turn it into a reality."
The detail of the plan was refined until it consisted of numerous discrete steps.
Outcomes
The strategic plan that emerged from the process serves as a road map shared by all of the technology teachers at St Margaret's to take their students on their journey toward Technological literacy. The plan provides teachers with clear information about where the students have been and where they should be heading, and what they should gain along the way. For each year level of that student's development, the plan clearly outlines achievement targets. Targets include the achievement objectives outlined in the Technology Curriculum, assessment criteria (both for NCEA and IB) and a range of positive values and personal qualities.
At Year 7 students purchase a Technology Kit, which contains an A4 workbook. This is used by students to record all the technological practice undertaken
in the various modules of Technology throughout the student's Middle School
education (Years 7-10). This four-year record of a student's planning, development
and evaluation of their technological outcomes enables Technology teachers (the students and their parents) to clearly see an individual student's progression in technology. It also helps to establish appropriate pathways for future learning.
While the strategic plan is unambiguous, it is not tightly prescriptive – rather it leaves teachers with enough flexibility to make their part of the journey an interesting one. Its transparency enables teachers to ease progression through the levels through interaction. One of the Technology teachers in the Middle School, for example, is actively encouraging her peers in the Junior School to ease student progression into Middle School Technology by adopting similar, teaching approaches. For example, the use of scrapbooks is encouraged in the Junior School to record Technology work, with the idea that this will ease them into the concept of visual diaries. Claire would like to see this sort of interaction increase, not only within the department but also across other departments.
The plan also serves as an auditing tool that all teachers can use to evaluate their teaching units and identify gaps in their coverage of the curriculum. When Claire first used the strategic plan to examine one of her Year 10 teaching units, for example, she identified the need to improve her coverage of the Practising Technologist requirement.
Working to the plan has helped establish and maintain consistency of assessment across the whole department. In part, this consistency is a result of the process involved in establishing the plan. To participate in any meaningful sort of way, each teacher was required to gain a clear understanding of the curriculum, the achievement objectives and their Indicators of Progression. The cross moderation of student work done during the development of the plan helped to develop this understanding as well as assisted teachers to establish the assessment consistency required.
Assessment is embedded in the teaching and learning process. In the senior courses formative comments are recorded, following one-to-one conferencing, in a notebook. These comments are often referred to by the students, to check what was discussed and to plan the next steps required in their practice. This information is also used by the teacher to inform the writing of school reports and when speaking to parents and caregivers.
The reporting system allows access, by subsequent Technology teachers, to a student's module achievements and their formal school report. Reports are curently based on learning outcomes derived from the Components of Practice. In Years 7, 8, 9 and 10, reports are written at the conclusion of each Technology module. In the senior school, formal school reports are written twice a year with an Interim report summary after the first six weeks of the new school year.
Besides being a tool for providing unambiguous guidelines for planning and evaluating teaching units, aiding the consistency of teacher judgements on student achievement, the framework provides benchmark criteria against which the Year 9 entrants to the senior Technology course may be assessed. Each year, around 65 students enter the Year 9 programme at St Margaret's. Of these, about 50 have done Year 8 Technology at the school and are well versed in the process and the language of Technology. The remainder come from feeder schools in Christchurch and small area schools outside the city. The strategic plan enables teachers to assess where these students are at, and helps them adjust to the new pathway relatively quickly, says Claire.
The Beacon Practice project has resulted in a culture change in the department, Claire says. "The sharing and awareness of each other's practice achieved has been great. Now we know what's going on in the different areas at all the different levels, whereas before we were all just working in our separate Technology areas."
A teacher commented to Claire that the increased understanding brought about by the strategic plan enabled her to speak with confidence at a parent/teacher evening about what was going on in the different areas of the technology department. The teachers can now use examples from previous technology contexts when teaching in their own contexts. For example, a teacher may say to his or her class: "In Food technology you wrote specifications, how can you apply that knowledge to materials?"
Key factors for success
The success of the programme has come about through a combination of factors.
Beacon funding was 'absolutely critical' to the success, Claire says. The funding allowed teachers to meet regularly and focus exclusively on the development of the strategic plan/teaching framework, rather than becoming bogged down in the usual quotidian administrative details that derail many meetings.
"Although we were all getting on as a department, we weren't having as much professional conversation as we would've liked. We would meet regularly, but meetings would be more administrative than PD."
Strong leadership, both from outside the department and within it was important. Cliff credits much of the success of the programme to Claire's leadership as HOD.
"She had the willingness to take the extra step and the determination to force change along, but allied with this is a requirement for professional respect. Claire had earned that respect through the results she had been obtaining in NCEA and Scholarship.
"You may have the drive, the passion, the vision, but you also have to ensure that you have people alongside you. There's no point in just presenting information, or templates, or a programme to people. You have to take people with you. You don't so much lead from the front, as lead from alongside. It's as much about this as it is about providing a sense of direction."
Outside facilitation was also key. Cliff is clear about his role: "As a facilitator your job is to push people's boundaries and show them the next step. Not in a way that says: 'you have to do this' but more in the way of saying: 'Have you considered this?' The facilitation role as I see it involves confirmation as well as challenge. Not all challenges will be acceptable. Sometimes you put unrealistic challenges in front of people and you have to realise that. A good facilitator will challenge the group he or she is working with, be honest, and be encouraging."
The willingness of people to engage with proposed change was also critical Cliff believes. "People must see benefits in what they are being asked to do. Any changes must come from the people directly involved in the programme the key to facilitation is to get them to believe in what they are doing."
Part and parcel of cultivating this engagement is having everybody, jointly create a common vision statement up front, and then maintain that guiding vision throughout, he says. "It's so important to break down the vision statement into incremental achievable steps as early as possible, so that people don't just see it as a nice theory, or a piece of paper on the wall. They must be able to see the pathway required to turn the vision into reality."
Another factor in the success of the programme was the very strong support coming from the school's senior management and the obvious belief in what the Technology Department was attempting to do. Claire and Cliff agree this support was critical, and in particular single out the support offered by the principal of the school at the time-Claudia Wysocki.
Before she retired from the school in 2007, Claudia recorded an interview expressing her enthusiasm for Technology as a subject and the reasons behind her enthusiastic support for the Beacon Project in the Technology Department.
"I think they know that they are supported, that what they are doing excites me. And they know if they have ideas, they can come and talk about them, and if we can make them work we will make them work. And if we can't, we say: 'Well OK let's modify it and figure out how we can do it now," says Claudia.
"I haven't done it, they've done it. But they've done it with my support, because what they're talking about, I believe, is the education of the future, and that excites me.
"So I see the development of Technology, particularly through the Beacon project, as a valuable role model for other curricula areas. Particularly with Beacon, because the way that has developed with shared learning of staff, the way that they share their best practice and the way that they are open in discussion to talk about what has gone well for them and what hasn't gone well, the way they support one another, visit one another's classes, and really are developing the model of reflective practice, has had a huge impact on this school."
What next?
Success breeds success. Claire and her staff work hard to maintain the momentum created by the Beacon project, and Claire anticipates the whole-school programme will gain a momentum of its own as students make their way through the years equipped with increasingly deep levels of understanding about Technology.
One of the challenges they will face will be preparing for and coping with inevitable changes in staff. Claire has future-proofed the department to a certain extent by ensuring the programme is embedded so thoroughly that it won't disappear if its instigators move on. By so doing, the programme is formalised and the institutional knowledge of the department is preserved.
Less formally, the momentum of the programme will be protected by hiring new staff with the understanding, attitude and willingness to commit to the programme and its underlying philosophy.
New staff are not subject to a formal period of PD about how the department works but instead are embraced as members of the department's professional learning community immediately. Learning is by immersion. The culture of the department – of openness and sharing at all levels – facilitates this.
The plan is a work in progress, subject to constant refinement as circumstances dictate, Claire says. "It's a working document, a work in progress. If you think you've finished something like this then it's time to go."
Change can be accommodated because the strategic plan is process-based rather than context-based, which gives it an inherent flexibility.
At present, the department is reviewing the plan with an eye to the introduction of the two new strands of the Technology curriculum – Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology. This isn't as onerous a job as might be expected, Claire says, and involves to a great extent formalising what often is present within the teaching programme, accounting for it within the strategic plan and where gaps are identified ensuring that they are addressed.
Terry Wood stresses that review of the strategic plan is an ongoing process that involves the whole department constantly reflecting on their teaching and the students' progress, rather than an intermittent process.
"We are evaluating our units of work regularly and the new strands now form part of our units and are constantly being referred to. An audit has been carried out and discussions will evolve about any gaps.
"The programme is developed by using a combination of the strengths the teachers have and the curriculum objectives. The curriculum is flexible enough to enable this to happen."
The development of the strategic plan was followed with interest by other departments at the school. At least one of them – Physical Education – is starting to move in the same direction. Claudia Wysocki was particularly keen on this aspect of the programme: she recognised that it was a fine and readily transferable model for in-house professional development.
Work continues on the glossary. All the teachers have a hard copy and are trialling the use of definitions with their classes throughout the year. This will be discussed again at the end of the year to check on its usefulness.
"We are still learning a lot from the discussions. I'm not sure that it's in the right format yet."
Claire believes the process of developing the strategic plan has taken the Technology Department at St Margaret's from "strength to strength" and has prepared it to cope with the challenges of the future.
And what advice does she offer for HODs contemplating a similar journey? "Be open in your discussions."