Delivery
Trialling of the Toolbox was done in Jacquey's Year 7-8 classes and Diana's Year 9-11 classes. The first test, however, was to look at Jacquey's programme to see where her units fitted into the framework. Once it was established that they fitted perfectly, Diana and Carol were able to level the rest of the Toolbox. They then rechecked her programme to ensure that everything was being taught and at a reasonable level, and how the Toolbox might apply. Jacquey doesn't teach anything on ethics and this doesn't come into the Toolbox until later, so discussion on these aspects helped confirm that the Toolbox was pitched correctly.
Jacquey notes that she found it very empowering seeing where her programme fits into the Toolbox framework – it confirmed that she was already covering all those sections and providing a good range of activities. She has constructed a table showing where each of her units fits into the Toolbox, colour coding each topic; thus food chemistry (in orange) shows as being covered in each unit in a different way. In the Food Preservation: Space Nuggets case study, the class looks at what happens during dehydration and tests for pH levels in food. The table serves as a reminder to cover certain things in a unit, although Jacquey now has it committed to memory.
Year 9 classes worked on a Technology unit (instead of Food and Materials Technology) taught by Diana and Hard Materials teacher Geoff Craig. Diana incorporated the Toolbox into the section of Cool Food that she taught.
Diana, trusting that this new approach to curriculum delivery would benefit her Year 11 and 12 classes, decided to implement the Toolbox at the beginning of 2007. Rather than starting a project and working the skills and knowledge into it, she would spend the first two terms teaching students the knowledge they would need for the year. This meant anything they would have need of, whether it related to technological practice, Food Technology knowledge and skills, or ensuring students were equipped for NCEA assessment. As the Year 12s obviously hadn't done all this the previous year, there was a little bit of catch-up built into their programme.
The Year 11 class worked on a Lunchbox project, in which each student designed a food product to meet the needs of a particular target market. See the Student Showcases Delight in a Bite and Spud in a Tub.
In the Food to Fit project, Year 12 students had to identify an issue related to a key food or health trend and develop a food product to suit this.
Each student had a book in which file all their Toolbox paperwork, so later in the year she could tell them to go to their Toolbox when they needed to concentrate on a particular feature, such as sensory, or processing.
