Supporting Learning Environment 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 guide them to identify how transformation processes are controlled
• support students to understand that control mechanisms can function to enhance the fitness for purpose of technological systems by maximising the desired outputs and minimising the undesirable outputs
• provide students with a scenario outlining technical and acceptability specifications for a system and support them to explore and research components and connectivity factors to determine what components would be suitable and how they could be connected to meet system specifications
• support students to communicate system related details effectively. System related details include such things as what components would be feasible, layout requirements, and how they would need to be connected. Effective communication uses specialised language and symbols.

Explain how transformation processes within a system are controlled

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

Students to focus on;

• identifying how the process is controlled
• what the purpose of the process is

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

Technology student website – basic circuits

Describe examples to illustrate how the fitness for purpose of technological systems can be enhanced by the use of control mechanisms

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

Students to focus on identifying how the control mechanism enhanced the system’s fitness for purpose

Communicate, using specialised language and drawings, system related details that would allow others to create a system that meets both technical and acceptability specifications.

Match circuit component symbols with their symbols

Technology student website - basic circuit component symbols

Technology student website - more advanced circuit component symbols

Analyse others drawings to identify the conventions (symbols) used to communicate information about components and how they are connected

Circuit diagrams, mechanical systems, hydraulic and/or pneumatic systems

Interpret system diagrams and describe:

• what they do
• what each component is (and its specifications)
• how components are connected