Supporting Learning Environment Level 7

To support students to undertake planning for practice at level seven teachers could:

• ensure that there is a brief against which planning to develop an outcome can occur
• support students to critically analyse a range of planning tools and project management practices that have been used in past technological practice
• support students to use selected tools to effectively manage resources (including time, materials, money, equipment and access to stakeholders etc) to enable the outcome produced to successfully meet the brief.

Select appropriate planning tools and develops project management practices informed by the critical analysis of own and others’ planning practices

Critically analyse others (practicing technologist and/or student) project management practices through evaluation of case studies and/or their actual practice as observed/presented.

Critically evaluate the practice of others focusing on such things as:

• the planning and project management tools they used
• planning they undertook to enable the fitness for purpose of the outcome developed to be verified
• management practices they used to ensure valid stakeholder feedback was accessed
• planning tools they used to manage the efficient use of resources

Include in this critical analysis a comparison with the student’s own practice

Flowchart a practicing technologists or other students past technological practice and critically analyse it to inform own practice.

Flow chart showing…

• What the analysis of a technologists practice told them
• Implications/findings/what I learnt
• How I will/did use understandings gained from this analysis

Develop project management practices…
Use roles in group situations
(either the real project or a simulated one off)

Each student has a different role e.g.

• Project manager
• Resource manager
• Time keeper
• Researcher
• Construction manager

Answer questions such as:

• what personal qualities does each role require?
• evaluate students success in fulfilling their roles?
• what part does each role play to the overall success of the technological practice undertaken?

Have students reflect on how these roles are accounted for/undertaken in their own practice, when developing technological outcomes?

Use planning tools and project management practices to plan for the effective management of resources to ensure completion of an outcome

Look the use of planning tools and determine the likely accuracy/validity of projections made based on findings obtained from them.

Focus on identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each planning tool in terms of allowing accurate and valid projections to future practice required to be made.

Use of physical and virtual planning tools, and project management practices and modelling techniques.

Focus on encouraging students to project and substantiate their judgments about the success or otherwise of the expected outcome(s) when they are placed in their intended physical and social environment, using physical and/or virtual planning tools and modelling techniques.

Use planning tools to record initial plans and ongoing revisions in ways which provide justification for project management practices

Exploring contexts and issues.

Provide students with a variety of scenarios (contexts) which they can critically evaluate to identify issues that provide opportunity for the undertaking of technological practice.
Students undertake a feasibility study on these issues and determine the likely technological practice required to develop an outcome that addresses the issue.

Explore the use of a range of evaluative tools.

Evaluation tools could include:

• PMI
• CAMPER (consequences, actions, minify /modify/magnify, put into another use, eliminate, reverse)
• SWOT/SWOB analysis
• What if questions
• Ryan’s thinkers keys
• Evaluating dice – with key questions
• Question Box – with key questions (colour code for different levels) see Blooms taxonomy

Literacy development – using linking words to provide justifications.

Encourage students to use linking language such as:

• as a result of
• because
• therefore …

Refer to Effective Literacy Strategies book for Secondary Schools for further examples.

Justifying the management of resources in terms of the physical and social environment in which they are used.

Critically evaluate:

• others practice (case study and/or observation of a practicing technologists practice) to determine how well they managed resources within the physical and environmental location in which they used. – if their management practices made an impact on the sustainability of the resources used and the outcome itself
• own past practice to determine how well they managed the resources within the physical and environmental location in which they used.