useful+strategies

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Welcome to 2010
With the current emphasis on the development of literacy knowledge and skills, I thought it timely to raise your awareness of the tools and information that is out there that will support the development of your programmes. Literacy (and numeracy) standards are going to be front and centre for primary teachers this year, and as our focus intensifies, technology teachers will be left behind if we don't manage to find ways of overcoming potential school barriers and engaging in this work. Our students will be strengthening their competence in these areas as the push comes through, so here are some links to the material that classroom based teachers will be focusing on. Be aware that teachers are being asked to gather information about student progress in the literacy standards from across a range of learning areas - that INCLUDES technology. Make sure your presence is felt. If you don't see the connection between literacy and technology, here's an extract from the literacy progressions (p.4) that may help join the dots: ** Increasingly complex texts and tasks ** //**"The PISA framework ... distinguishes between continuous and non-continuous text formats. Continuous text means (usually) sentences organised into paragraphs, for example, in narration, exposition, description, argumentation, instruction, and hypertext.** **As well as the more familiar continuous texts, students need to be able to read and retrieve information from non-continuous texts, which include charts and graphs, tables and matrices, diagrams ****, maps, forms , and vouchers."**// Sound like something you'd be needing them to do? I would certainly hope so!

//**As students move into secondary school and encounter a wider variety of texts and task demands, a critical factor affecting their ability to use texts is the extent to which reading is still supported by their teacher. In English, a complex novel, poem, or play will most often be read with a substantial amount of in-class support, for example, the teacher may read all or part of the text aloud. In other subject areas, there may not always be this kind of support. For example, a section of a science textbook may be assigned as homework, requiring the students to be able to read and use the information in the text independently. Secondary school teachers in all subject areas should plan to help their students learn the language and literacy skills associated with the subject.**//
 * Further to this, the standards throw out a cautionary note to secondary teachers (p. 6)**

This draft version has been around for a while and i believe the final is a couple of weeks away, so don't go printing it off just yet. The Literacy Online literacy progressions page is a useful tag to have in your bookmarks. This is where the final version will be available. //Literacy in English is critical to enabling students to engage with all aspects of the [|New Zealand Curriculum].// //The [|Literacy Learning Progressions] (draft) are a professional tool designed to help teachers understand the literacy expertise that students need to meet the reading and writing demands across all learning areas of the curriculum.// The TKI kete Literacy contains a wealth of information with great material that can be useful to support your programme development. There is also a site for the National Standards (literacy) if you are going to be working with these.
 * From the site page:**
 * //They describe the knowledge and skills that students need to have developed at specific points in their schooling if they are to engage with the texts and tasks of the curriculum, and make expected progress.//
 * //The tool can be used to help schools set literacy benchmarks and monitor expected rates of progress.//

Go well, sorry I can't physically be there to support you this year, but I do intend to keep this wiki live and updated so do keep watching.

Cheers, Heather

2009

 * September 6th**

**Technology Teaching Strategies**
[|Teaching strategies to engage students in technology] Hi All. Advisers across the country began work last year on a series of teaching strategies to help you engage students in the technology learning area's key understandings. This has now been published on Techlink. According to one of my colleagues, it is probably the most useful piece of work on the website - and I have to agree. Fundamentally it is a blow by blow list of strategies to engage students in EACH component of EACH strand - yes, including the two new ones. So if you're stuck for an idea about how to get the ideas across, have a look at this document. It's practical, and levelled from L1 up to L8, so can be directly used in your programmes. No translations required :) I suggest you back the pages, it's quite a few pages long - an indication of the richness of it, not the complexity of it. Hope you find it useful. Cheers, Heather

Here's what Techlink says about it: //Technology Curriculum Support Strategies for Engaging Students This document provides a range of teaching strategies that can be included in the development of units of work to address specific student learning needs. These strategies have been identified by teachers and advisers as having the potential to enhance student understandings and practices about components of technology within The New Zealand Curriculum (2007). The strategies presented have been organised into curriculum levels within each of the components of the three stands, with many of the ideas being applicable at multiple// //levels//.

**Literacy strategies**
Many teachers I work with now are commenting on how hard it is to get kids to write, I think we need to reflect on what we are asking them to write,how much and why. Evidence comes in many forms and we can validly accept non written material as part of their learning. Through oral and visual teaching and learning strategies, students develop their knowledge and understanding first which will support their ability to record evidence in words for those aspects where this is the only sensible option. All of the activities on this page are intended to encourage students to talk about technology in non-threatening, supportive ways. This will build up their ability to be able to communicate their ideas effectively and convincingly as their vocabulary is developed.

Mix and Match activities
Have a collection of words (could be tools or terminology) on cards, their definitions or descriptions, and a picture or drawing of it, each on separate cards. Make up half a dozen sets of these cards - each set on different coloured card - and put each set in an envelope. have a race between the groups as students match the terms, definitions, pictures. Good to start off a new Y7 or 9 group to see what they know already, and is fun to do as a revision occasionally during the unit. If anyone is game to try this, write it on a word doc and post it up here for all of us to try out. Brian has a lot of the words and definitions already done in his technology literacy book if you have a copy, all you would need is to google some of the pictures and make a table.

Headbands
Give each student a post-it note (or make cardboard headbands if you're really keen) with a technological word on it to stick on their forehead. They pair up with other students and ask them questions to try to identify what their word is. The questionee can only answer with yes or no answers. You could use heaps of different groups of words for this activity. It could be pictures of different stakeholders or pictures of technolgical outcomes or pictures of common workshop tools. You could match up a picture of a tool with someone who is wearing the definition on their headband.

Developing/strengthening procedural knowledge
Using photos (see below) is a strategy I have demonstrated frequently over the past year both in classrooms with students and in workshops. I have used photos mainly to support planning for practice but lately have also been using them to **generate discussions** with students around such things as health and safety issues, supporting students to group actions into key stages, enabling students to identify key resources and knowledge needed at different stages, and specifically to promote and raise the level of literacy in our subject. A group of students who are sharing their thinking about what goes where in a sequence tend to use language more specifically than if they are just responding to a question. Asking them to justify their thinking lifts the responses up in the taxonomy, something the NZQA markers are certainly expecting from senior students. Justifying is a word that creeps into our curriculum at level 4 (brief devel) so we need to provide easy ways for students to learn how to do this.

Merv McNatty at St Joseph's Maori Girls College has done some significant work with photos this year and has found them invaluable for his girls. I'm sure he would love to field inquiries into how he has applied this strategy to support his programme.

If anyone is interested, I have a set of photos showing how to make a pewter pendant (courtesy of Merv, not the ones I was using last year) and another set showing how to make muffins (just to prove I don't always leave the foodies out). Email me and I'll send you a copy.

If you want to do this in a Maori context, there is a link on the Maori and Pasifika site that has a great set of photos showing the procedure for putting down a hangi. the focus is on food safety with these photos so they are really useful to develop that aspect of technological knowledge.

Photos
Take a series of photos of a procedure. Ask students to arrange these in order to show what happens. You can thn display the photos on your wall to support the process so students can check what is going to happen next. The list below identifies just some of the ways this can be used. The headings are not showing exclusiveness, just as a way of helping you to think about the ideas. However each idea can fit in a lot of areas so have a play.
 * Sequencing/****Planning**
 * as the labels for a Gantt chart or other planning tool
 * develop a timeline using the photos - students suggest times for each key stage and plan backwards to help them know where they need to be at any given time
 * give the photos out to students - 1 each - and get them to form a line that orders the photos. they need to talk to each other to do this so it's a good way to get them to use vocab. they also need to justify their decisions so that moves the level of 'talk' up a notch.
 * as a group game to practice or revise procedure
 * to vary an aspect - add a stage to something they already know about. In the pewter pendant, I add photos showing inserting Paua and ask when that happens in the sequence
 * identify what steps they can transfer from their existing knowledge
 * to identify what tools, equipment and materials they need
 * to find out if there are any safety issues that need to be understood
 * as a wall display to show procedure - for reference
 * Key Stages**
 * ask students to find a number of photos that show a key stage . Ask them to identify what is happening in these photos. Give it a key stage name - e.g. preparing materials. Then ask them to find the next 'set' of photos and see if they recognise the grouping. It might be construction/mixing, or finishing/baking etc.
 * Assessment**/**Prior knowldege**
 * as a discussion starter to identify what students already know before teaching a unit
 * to identify what they need to learn before beginning a new procedure
 * match up photos with written steps or labels - e.g. a photocopy of photos and words and get kids to draw lines matching them (individual) or give a set of pictures and words on cards to a group to generate discussion as they sort them out.
 * as a summative 'test' of knowledge - sequence the photos from a b&w sheet with them all on.
 * Language Development**
 * to develop language around tools, equipment, procedures
 * to allow students with less 'written' literacy to succeed
 * Predict****ion/Reflection**
 * sort the photos into key stages then make suggestions about the time it takes to complete each key stage based on past experience. Develop this into a large (teacher tool) Gantt chart or other planner and plan the process. After completion, reflect on the actual time each KS took and why any variation occured and record this under the prediction. This is great as a whole class tool so the discussion is important not the written record. Build juniors' planning understandings by doing this together.
 * as a formative tool to generate discussion around next steps
 * as a reflective tool to discuss past practice
 * as a way of focusing a class when they arrive to remind them of where they are and need to go next
 * as a way of showing students who were absent what they need to do
 * to indicate where the student needs to stop and check with the teacher before moving on
 * Filling in Time**
 * as an activity for early finishers - photocopy photos and steps, match the photos with the written steps and number them

Planning
Get students to make something basic that will build basic skills that relate to following technology phase in a 'paint by numbers' (craft) fashion. Then...
 * 1) Use a whole class shared brainstorm (mix it up) to identify the steps taken to make the 'thing' (disassembly).
 * 2) Get students into groups. Put the steps on individual cards (in groups).
 * 3) sequence the cards. groups walk around and check each others - question, challenge
 * 4) identify the new tec outcome and ask students what extra steps or differences there will be. brainstorm.
 * 5) put the new steps on cards
 * 6) groups try to identify where the new steps will go and justify their decisions
 * 7) teacher support to get the steps correct.
 * 8) agree on steps - paste cards in order on large paper for future reference when making the tec outcome.

Brainstorms and mind maps
...as a start point to brief development. [|Download a programme called FreeMind] - it's free! (google it) You can use it on your computer to do mind maps and kids really like it. As Paul suggests it is good as a way to start briefs with kids. One of my year 7/8 teachers uses it as a class brainstorm first. Each kid sees how it works and they go and develop their own brief based on what they want their outcome to be like. I've attached an example one of his students did but you will need a copy of the programme to see it. [| mindmap2.mm\] If you happen to have I**nspiration**, this works really well. However this is not a free programme.

Stakeholder identification
Give students pictures of a variety of the same things - e.g. coffee tables. make it a real range. Give students one or two and ask them to draw a picture of the person this was made for. Then get them to talk about the client to the class, justifying why they chose that type of person. For example, a fancy Victorian table could perhaps be an older woman professional with lots of money; a plank on concrete blocks would probably elicit a drawing of a Dunedin varsity student (sans burning couches). This could help kids to think about the impact the client has on their designs and how important it is to understand their client. Many students will draw happily rather than write a half page description. The picture itself is not important, you don't need to be an artist to do this. It's the information in the sketch that shows the level of thinking, and the justification speech allows you to ask quite deep questions. Could also be a great way to teach labelled diagrams as they could identify features of the person - pockets stuffed with money for example.

Identifying & describing attributes/specs
>
 * 1) Put a lot of items (e.g. 10 pencil cases) on the table - related to what your students will be making
 * 2) get students to explore them and identify properties - encourage aesthetic and functional properties
 * 3) list these on a large piece of paper - brainstorm. Alternatively they could be put on individual post its so they can be moved later.
 * 4) ask students to look at the list and come up with some common headings (attributes) - support them to come up with appropriate ones
 * 5) students sort the word list/brainstorm under the headings they identify.
 * 6) students use the word lists to come up with possible descriptors for their attributes. List multiple options. (see below)
 * 7) display this for all to see
 * 8) students can then **use the descriptors to support them** when they write their own briefs or develop conceptual ideas for their particular outcome

Paul Turner
Thanks to Paul for the following ideas. They came from some work he has done with his own team. Great for thinking about how you expect students to present their work.
 * 1) Guided reading; helping students find meaning from text.
 * 2) Cloze sentence; students learning to read on further to make sense of text.
 * 3) Mix and Match activities to develop technological content literacy.
 * 4) Vocabulary lists to support content specific vocabulary.
 * 5) Brainstorms and mind maps as a start point to brief development.
 * 6) Structured overviews to assist students summarise information.
 * 7) Concept circles to show how concepts relate and interact.
 * 8) Use of drawings concepts to support written skills.
 * 9) Use of ICT (powerpoints) to convey data amongst students in group settings.
 * 10) Pair definitions which assists in understanding and develops teamwork