Teacher Guidance Level 4

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Modelling at Level 4, teachers could:

• support student discussion about the importance of using modelling to explore whether an outcome should be developed as well as whether it could be developed.
• support students to examine examples of extensive and diverse functional modelling practices used to support particular technological developments – both within their own and other's technological practice.
• guide students to gain insight into how design decisions are justified with regards to both feasibility and acceptability. Such justifications will rely on the synthesis of evidence gained from diverse forms of modelling seeking multiple perspectives.
• support students to identify and examine examples of prototyping from both within their own and other's technological practices
• support students to gain insight from examples of how evidence gained can be used to justify an evaluation of a technological outcome's fitness for purpose or its requirement for further development.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain why it is necessary to consider both what 'can' be done and what 'should' be done when making design decisions.

Student investigation of what they consider an unfavorable outcome.

Students investigate an existing technological outcome that they believe 'should not' have been made (weapons? nanotechnology? cell phones?), and present their justification as to why it 'shouldn't' have been created.
Students could:

• answer the question: At what model/stage of development did/should the technologists have asked  "Yes I can do it, but should I do it?”
• possibly link with alternative functions, eg, across different cultures?

Class creates a bank of questions that need to/should be considered when developing a technological outcome, for example:

• Who will use it?
• How will it be used?
• Who may be harmed if the outcome is developed and implemented?
• Will any natural resources be depleted if the outcome is developed and implemented?
• Who will benefit if the outcome is developed and implemented?
• Who may be harmed if the outcome is developed and implemented?

Explain why different forms of functional modelling are needed to fully explore possibilities and different types of data.

Weird or unsuccessful products that did not fully explore possibilities and different types of data.

Explore weird or unsuccessful products that did not do enough functional modelling before production. This meant that all possibilities and issues were not fully explored before they were developed and implemented as technological outcomes (eg, McDonalds McDLT flop).

Introduce and explore what CAD is and discuss what kind of data it provides as a functional model.

Technology student website – CAD

Discuss examples of prototyping to explain how evidence gathered provided justification for evaluating a technological outcome as fit for purpose or in need of refinement.

Bad designs/prototypes.

Students find examples of bad designs/prototypes and discuss their intended fitness for purpose (Bad designs site). Students to look at:

• Why are these designs 'bad'?
• How do they need refining?
• How could earlier modelling have avoided these problems?

Weird or unsuccessful products where the prototyping stage could have provided information about fitness for purpose.

Weird or unsuccessful products where the prototyping stage could have provided info re fitness for purpose. This meant that they did not fully explore all possibilities and issues prior to them being developed and implemented as technological outcomes (eg, McDonalds McDLT flop).