Teacher Guidance Level 1

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 1, teachers could:

• provide students with a range of technological systems to explore and guide them to identify system components and how they are connected
• guide students to identify the inputs and outputs of technological systems and recognise that a controlled transformation has occurred.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Identify the components of a technological system and how they are connected.

Provide simple systems that students are familiar with (eg, a simple mechanical toy) and explore how the components that make it up are connected together.

Have students:

• describe what they see when the system is complete in terms of how they think the components are connected
• disassemble the systems to see how the different parts are connected together.

Consistently use, and encourage students to use, technological language to describe components, and transformations, eg, inputs, outputs, power, sound, receiver.

Identify the input/s and output/s of particular technological systems.

Provide simple systems that students are familiar with and talk about how the components work together from the input to the output.

Have students:

• describe what they see when the system is complete in terms of the inputs and outputs
• disassemble the systems to identify the components that are inputs and those are outputs.

Identify that a system transforms an input to an output.

Provide simple systems that students are familiar with and talk about how the components work and the transformations that occur between inputs and output.

Have students describe the transformations that occur between the system's input and output.

Teacher Guidance Level 2

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 2, teachers could:

• provide students with a range of simple technological systems to explore and guide them to understand the role of each component and to identify the changes that are occurring in the transformation process. Simple technological systems are defined as systems that have been designed to change inputs to outputs through a single transformation process.
• guide students to understand that sometimes transformation processes may be difficult to determine or understand and these can be represented as a 'black box'. (A black box is a way of depicting a part of a system where the inputs and outputs are known but the transformation process is not known.)

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Describe the change that has occurred to the input to produce the output in simple technological systems.

Provide simple systems that students are familiar with and explore and identify what happens to make the change from input to output.

Teachers explain the changes in simple terms (eg, flow chart) using technological language to describe component parts of, for example, a simple mechanical toy, a hand egg-beater or a pasta maker.

Introduce non-electronic systems.

Technology student website - Mechanisms

Technology student website - Gears and pulleys

Students arrange photographs of component parts of a simple system into sequence.

Identify the role each component has in allowing the inputs to be transformed into outputs within simple technological systems.

Students disassemble a simple system (like a pen) to identify each component and what it does.

Teachers assist students to make links to the technological products activities at Level 2 and use the appropriate descriptive language for systems.

Teacher Guidance Level 3

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 3, teachers could:

• provide students with the opportunity to investigate a range of technological systems and guide them to understand that technological systems do not require further human design decision-making during the transformation process for the inputs to be transformed to outputs. That is, a technological system will produce particular outputs in an automated fashion once the inputs have initiated the transformation process.
• provide examples of technological systems that contain unknown transformation processes (black boxes) and support students to understand the role these play in terms of the advantages and/or disadvantages for developers and users.
• provide students with examples of how technological systems can be represented and guide students to interpret the specialised language and symbol conventions used.
• provide students with opportunity to use specialised language and symbol conventions to represent technological systems to others.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Describe what a 'black box' is within a technological system.

Students compare two systems, one that has obvious components and one where the components are more hidden.

An example could be a torch and a cell phone. Students explore what they can see and explain and what is hidden or unknown.
Teacher questions could be:

• What is a system?
• How does this system work?
• Are there parts of the system that you don't know about or are hidden?
• Why do you think they might be?

Introduce the term 'black box'.

Teacher supplies a range of technological systems that do not require intervention to transform their inputs into outputs. Identify:

• the purpose of a black box system
• the function the black box performs in the system (eg, in a phone the transmitter sends the message, receiver accepts the message).

Show pictures of black boxed technologies'
See photographs of technological systems:

• Cigarette machine
• ATM machine
• Toy truck

Discuss as a class

• could the picture of the technological system be real?
• how do you know that it is/is not real?
• if the technological system were black-boxed do you need to know what is happening?
• what tells us what the technology does?

Identify possible advantages and disadvantages of having black boxed transformations within particular technological systems.

Teachers use a PMI chart with students to identify possible advantages and disadvantages of black boxes in technology.

Use a visiting technologist to talk about the concept of black boxes.

Discuss topics such as:

• Do we need to know what's in the box?
• When would it be useful for you to know what's in the box?
• When is black boxing a system useful (an advantage)?
• When is it not useful (a disadvantage)?

Describe technological systems using specialised language and symbol conventions.

Draw a flow chart using systems symbols and language to communicate a system's inputs, transformation processes and outputs.

Match circuit component symbols with their symbols.

Technology student website – basic circuit component symbols

Technology student website – more advanced circuit component symbols

Introduce resistor values. Calculate using resistor code posters, resistor colour wheels or online convertors.

Teacher Guidance Level 4

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

• provide students with the opportunity to investigate a range of technological systems and support them to identify how transformation processes are controlled
• support students to understand that control mechanisms can work to in ways to enhance the fitness for purpose of technological systems by maximising the desired outputs and minimising the undesirable outputs.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain how processes are controlled to enable the inputs to be transformed to outputs.

Use the interactive video from How Stuff Works, focusing on examples such as the thermostat on a heater and a tap (to control water).

Students to focus on identifying:

1. how the process is controlled
2. the purpose of the process.

Use basic circuits as examples of processes are controlled to enable the inputs to be transformed to outputs.

Technology student website – basic circuits

Describe examples to illustrate how a technological system's fitness for purpose was enhanced by the use of control mechanisms.

Use interactive video from How Stuff Works to explore one of the following: an electrical circuit and resistors; flow charts; a thermostat on a heater; or a tap (to control water).

Students to focus on identifying how the control mechanism enhances the system's fitness for purpose.

Teacher Guidance Level 5

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 5, teachers could:

• provide students with the opportunity to investigate a range of technological systems that contain one or more subsystems both from within their own and other's technological practice.
• support students to identify subsystems within technological systems and describe them in terms of their properties. The property of a subsystem refers to the role it provides in the technological system as a whole and can be established by examining what has happened to the input to become the output at the subsystem stage.
• support students to understand that interfaces between subsystems have an important role in enabling the technological system to work effectively as a whole.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Identify subsystems within technological systems and explain their properties.

Using examples from How Stuff Works have students identify the subsystems in a product.

Provide a range of everyday technological products/appliances that students can disassemble and identify the subsystems within them, eg, toasters, jugs, whiz sticks, laptops, phones etc.

Use examples from How Stuff Works to assist students to verify that they have identified the subsystems.

Discuss examples to illustrate how interfaces between subsystems support the way the technological system works.

Dismantle products/appliances to look at the connections the between subsystems that make up the product.

Students explain what they believe each subsystem does and how they connect with other subsystems to enable the product to function in the way that it does.
Students draw a sequence/flow diagram to show how the subsystems interface with each other.
Students use How Stuff Works to verify/assist them with their explanations.

Teacher Guidance Level 6

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 6, teachers could:

• provide students with the opportunity to investigate a range of technological systems that contain one or more subsystems both from within their own and other's technological practice.
• support students to use examples to gain insight into how the use of subsystems can impact on system design, development and maintenance particularly in relation to the development of self-regulatory systems.
• support students to understand that subsystems can allow the design of complex technological systems where some subsystems are 'black boxed' for development and or maintenance purposes. This can result in both advantages (eg, reduced need to understand all aspects of the system, ability to replace faulty subsystem without disrupting the entire system) and disadvantages (eg, trouble-shooting can be difficult).
• support students to understand the role of subsystems in reducing malfunction and/or system componentry damage through such things as 'back up' or 'shutdown' subsystems.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain the implications of using subsystems, for the design, development and maintenance of technological systems.

Class discussion using a range of videos and/or other resources.

Find video clips showing the use of subsystems within a system, eg, ENIAC computer, or a module in a modern computer.
Discuss the implications of using subsystems for the design, development and maintenance of technological systems.

Investigate a system the students have made themselves.

Either make or mock-up a system or use a system that students have made previously. Identify the subsystems within the overall system. Explain:

• the advantages of using subsystem at the design stage of a systems development.
• the implications of using the subsystem at the development (manufacturing) stage.
• the implications of using the subsystem at the maintenance stage.

Describes examples to illustrate how control and/or feedback subsystems allows for the design of self-regulatory technological systems.

Class discussion on everyday examples of control/feedback systems.

Discuss a range of everyday systems using control/feedback. Discuss how the control/feedback works and how it allows a self-regulatory technological system to be achieved.

Worksheets.

Provide students with the diagrammatic representation of a range of systems. Ask them to annotate the diagram showing what parts of the system provide the control and the feedback.

Describe examples to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of subsystems employed in particular technological systems.

Case study of a selected technological system.

Students choose a system and research the advantages/ disadvantages having it designed around interconnected subsystems.

Teacher demonstration of a system.

Teacher sets up a system involving a number of subsystems. Students identify the advantages and disadvantages of being able to describe a system in terms of the subsystems that make it up.

Black box activity.

Teacher explains the concept of black boxes. Students use one of the systems looked at previously and discuss how parts of the system could be regarded as a black box.

Teacher Guidance Level 7

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 7, teachers could:

• support students to identify and examine a range of technological systems both from within their own and other technological practice.
• support students to understand the concepts of redundancy and reliability.
• support students to use examples to gain insight into issues associated with how redundancy and reliability have impacted on system design, development and maintenance.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain the concept of redundancy and the implications for the design, development, and maintenance of technological systems.

Class discussion: What is redundancy?

Use examples from the internet to illustrate the concept of 'redundancy', such as the members within structures of, for example, a bridge.
Establish a class definition for 'redundancy'.
Using examples to illustrate points made, discuss advantages and disadvantages of redundancy in the design of development, and maintenance of technological systems.

Case study of a chosen system.

Students select a system both within their own practice and from the practice of others. Examine how redundancy has been incorporated into the system and how this has impacted on system design, development and maintenance.

Design Exercise to incorporate redundancy.

Teacher provides diagrams of a system that does not incorporate redundancy. Students design a way to incorporate redundancy.

Explain the concept of reliability and the implications for the design, development and maintenance of technological systems.

Class discussion: What is reliability?

Use examples such as power supply to illustrate the idea of reliability. Reliability in technological systems refers to a system's ability to perform consistently and maintain its expected functions when operated within a specified manner.
Students identify and describe other examples.

Case study of a chosen system

Students select a system both within their own and other practice. Examine how reliability has been incorporated into the system and how this has impacted on system design, development and maintenance.

Teacher Guidance Level 8

To support students to develop understanding of Technological Systems at Level 8, teachers could:

• support students to identify and examine a range of technological systems both from within their own and other technological practice.
• support students to understand operational parameters and the role these play in the design, development and maintenance of technological systems.
• support students to use examples to gain insight into operational parameters and explore how they influence and impact on system design, development and maintenance.
• support students to understand the difference between self-regulatory systems and intelligent systems. Intelligent systems have been designed to adapt to environmental inputs in ways that change the nature of the system components and/or transformation processes in known and unknown ways to produce desirable but unspecified outputs.
• provide students with the opportunity to investigate intelligent technological systems and support student to understand how the operational parameters enable these systems to function.

Indicators of Progression

Teaching Strategy

Explanation

Explain the concepts and processes underpinning the operational parameters of particular technological systems.

Teacher led discussion: What are operational parameters?

Operational parameters in a technological system define the tolerance range of a system's performance. This includes tolerances such as temperature variables, yield, energy consumption, waste and speed of operation. Operational parameters set limits around such things as:

• energy use
• level of waste
• resource inputs
• back-up and fail-safe requirements
• tolerances for outputs.

Site visit to a local production facility.

Students to identify the operational parameters of the system of production.

Research the operational parameters of a range of unfamiliar systems.

Students conduct an internet research to find a range of systems (alarm system, irrigation system, etc) and describe the operational parameters.
Students to discuss why they think these parameters are important to the functionality of the system.

Describe the concepts and processes of the operational parameters of a system the student has designed.

Student analyse the operating principles in their own (or another) technological system.

Explain how the establishment of operational parameters impact on the design, development and maintenance of technological systems.

A practicing technologist's perspective.

Arrange a talk from a system designer or use Techlink case study (or similar) to help students identify the operating parameters that were established and how these impacted on the design, development and maintenance of the technological system.

Discuss examples of self-regulatory and/or intelligent systems and explain how operational parameters have been developed to support such systems

Teacher led discussion on self-regulatory and/or intelligent systems

Using the teacher's own examples introduce and discuss self-regulatory and/or intelligent systems.

Research assignment.

Students choose a self-regulatory and/or intelligent system, research it and explain how operational parameters have been developed to support the system.