Phase 1 Schools: Hillcrest / Katikati

Katikati College and Hillcrest High School

From left, Karllie Clifton and Jenny Baker of Hillcrest High School, and Malcolm Howard and Steve Graham of Katikati College

The Beacon Practice partnership between Katikati College in the Bay of Plenty and Hillcrest High School in Hamilton focussed on teaching technology in an ICT context. The project involved two teachers from each school – Jenny Baker and Karllie Clifton from Hillcrest High School, and Malcolm Howard and Steve Graham fromKatikati College –with external input from experienced technology education and ICT/computing personnel. Links were established between the schools and tertiary institutions and local ICT enterprises.

In 2004, lead teachers Malcolm and Jennyhad each received Royal Society of New Zealand Teacher Fellowships – the Beacon Practice project enabled them to build on the links they established then to continue working with many of their tertiary and industry contacts.

"The aim of the project was to improve courses, teaching methods, and assessment practices by bringing in the latest research and knowledge about teaching and assessing in technology using our 'experts'," says Malcolm. "We wanted to create something that other computing or IM teachers thought might work for them too. The computing/ICT/IM community was very fragmented with many teachers choosing a unit standard approach. In some cases this may have been because they are not sure how to implement technology in an ICT context. Maybe our project could exemplify how it could be done."

2005

The first year of the project concentrated on Years 11-13. "We learned some major lessons in our first year," says Malcolm. "The first was that NCEA comes second. Over the previous few years we had concentrated too much on assessment. We now teach the aspects of Technological Practice we think students need to know, then we give the big picture, give out a project, discuss what the issue is and explore the practice required. A few weeks into the project we discuss the specific assessment criteria. So rather than look on the criteria as artificial hurdles that the students have to jump, the tech practice is embedded in the project and the standards are what they want to do anyway in their practice.

"The second lesson was that we needed time to teach. We've now gone to one big project rather than the two we did a couple of years ago, and we rate the quality of outcome very highly, so we spend a lot of time in skill development. We also think it's critical to teach tech practice. In the past we just assumed that students would have the skills to identify and consult with stakeholder, refine a brief, carry out an evaluation, etc. So we've built time to teach these aspects of tech practice into our teaching programme spread through the year, with the ICT skills coming at the beginning of term 1.

"The third lesson was about components of practice (COP). Neither of our schools were involved in the early research on these – we picked up on it as part of the project and found COP to be a very useful way to plan and organise our units, and for assessment. It also gave the students themselves a structure for thinking about their own practice.

"The fourth was about encouraging creativity – to develop imagination and originality in the projects students are doing. We built in more time to encourage the students to spend more time in developing their concepts.

"Number five was to 'hook them young'. With senior courses as options, you have to get students interested at Year 9 and Year 10. Its all about getting that balance right – between giving students a really fun programme and the firm foundation in Technological Practice which you obviously need to be teaching in Year 10.

"Lesson number six was to do with assessment. We were looking at how could we minimise the assessmen and different ways to collect the assessment. In ICT, students have access to computers all the time, and we now get lots of students to give their evidence totally electronically – maybe with the addition of a visual diary or something for concept development.

The next lesson was when to assess. We finally worked out that he best way to do it is at the end of the year rather than at the end of each term – so we now gather the evidence as we go through the project.

The other lesson was about external assessment. We leave term 4 for external portfolio presentation, focusing on getting things right for the portfolio, and not leaving that to chance – with the teachers showing students what they need to do to prepare things.

Finally, we developed nine new assessment schedules that incorporate verbal responses – there's a real case for a one – or two-minute discussion that can get the evidence that five written pages can't seem to get.

2006

In 2006 work continued on the development of alternative assessment schedules to simplify and improve assessment against nine of the technology achievement standards. Thealternative assessment schedules proved highly successful, with all students' work and grades passing moderation on submission.

A diagram to visually represent Technological Practice was trialled in some classes and modified for wider use.

Significant success was also achieved in getting the balance 'right' between time spent on skill development and ICT domain knowledge and on time spent undertaking and documenting Technological Practice.

in April 2007 four ICT case studies were published on Techlinkcovering the work done by the Schools during 2005-06: BP628 Junior ICT Programme; BP629 ICT Programming; BP630 Multimedia CD-Roms; and BP631 Year 13 IT (Applications) Course. "These were a significant milestone for our project," says Malcolm "marking the culmination of the first two year's work and containing all our key findings from the project at that point".

2007

The final year of the project saw consolidation of the cluster's Beacon Practice initiatives and a number of emerging issues addressed. The alternative schedules developed in 2006 were fully implemented. Industry liaison and incorporating a practicing technologist perspective were a priority in 2007 programmes. The need for ongoing professional development and support to encourage experimentation with the new strands in technology in The New Zealand Curriculum 2007 was identified and begun to be addressed. It was also recognised that it was critical for successful technology education programmes that teachers received constant upskilling in ICT. Work was done on developing alternative ways to deliver content (particularly to Year 13 students) so they could work with a wider range of software to solve a wider range of issues.

Also in 2007, experimental work with Technological Knowledge and Nature of Technology (TKNoT) was used to add depth to student's Technological Practice. The benefits are already apparent: less 'artificial' written work for the sake of assessment;students modelled each idea and prototype with stakeholders first, so there was less trial and error; briefs evolved naturally; final solutions are of a much higher quality than previous years; and here was greater student satisfaction overall. "By slotting the new strands into our work," says one of the students,"we have expanded our practice, really understand what were doing, and how it shapes what we can do."

With all teachers in the technology faculties at both schools involved in the development of a shared understanding of Technological Practice in the junior school, there has finally been agreement on the use of one diagram throughout the schools to illustrate the process in their classrooms. "This has been a huge achievement," says Malcolm.