Planning for practice TP 6-2
Achievement standard 1.2 AS91045
At level 6 effective planning for practice should result in planning that is both flexible and robust. It should be flexible enough to incorporate modifications and it should be robust enough to provide clear guidance of "where to next?" Ensure resource availability, and allow critical feedback to be gained in time for key decision points. Effective planning techniques ensure efficient resource management (including the management of materials, time, money and personnel) and are critical for informed and responsive Technological Practice.
Planning for practice includes a recording aspect to support resource management, enable reflection, and ensure vital documentation is maintained. A range of planning tools can be used to enhancing the quality of the practice undertaken and include such things as: brainstorms, mind-maps, idea banks, reflective journals and/or scrapbooks, plans of action, Gantt charts, flow diagrams, graphical organisers, and structuring/diagramming techniques. These planning tools should be selected and/or developed on the basis that they are best suited to the nature of the practice being undertaken.
Record keeping may include: oral, graphical, written, and/or electronic modes of documentation as appropriate. Technological practice is enhanced when the documentation of planning strategies best meets the needs of all stakeholders, including the student themselves. Planning tools should take into account the physical and social environment into which the outcome is to be situated, as well the environment in which the Technological Practice is occurring.
Achievement objective: TP 6-2
Students will:
- critically analyse their own and others’ past and current planning practices in order to make informed selection and effective use of planning tools.
- Use these to support and justify ongoing planning that will see the development of an outcome through to completion.
Indicators
Key progressions are also related to the teacher provide, guide and support statements in the teacher guidance sections.
Students can:
- critically analyse own and others use of planning tools to inform the selection of planning tools best suited for their use to plan and monitor progress and record reasons for planning decisions
- use planning tools to establish and review key stages, identify and manage all resources, and to determine and guide actions to ensure completion of an outcome
- use planning tools to record initial plans and ongoing revisions in ways which provide reasons for planning decisions made.
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Progression
Prior to level 6 students provided with a range of planning tools to inform their selection of tools. They will use these tools to identify and record key planning decisions.
At level 6 students will use a range of planning tools to guide their development of an outcome therefore they are able to use these to guide their technological development of an outcome to address a brief.
At this level students will also be required to:
- establish key stages and resources required
- plan actions to be undertaken within each key stage
- identify review points (at excellence this becomes the identification of critical review points)
- identify and reviewing key planning decisions
- prioritise resources required to ensure the outcome can be completed
The Teacher Guidance section provides information that supports teachers scaffolding of learning from levels 1–8 of the curriculum. This allows for differentiation of a programme of learning.
The deliberate use of provide, guide, and support in this section signals that as students' capacity for self-management increases, teachers progressively reduce the level of scaffolding provided.
- Provide – the teacher should take full responsibility for introducing and explicitly teaching new knowledge, skills or practices.
- Guide – the students have a level of understanding and competency on which they can draw but the teacher remains primarily responsible for continuing to develop these.
- Support – the students take primary responsibility for their own learning, drawing on all their previous experiences to consolidate and extend their understanding. The teacher is supportive rather than directive.
- The Teacher Guidance also uses the term ensure to indicate when the teacher plays a monitoring role to check that conditions critical for learning are present.
Teacher guidance
To support students to undertake planning for practice at level six 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 that have been used in past practice
- support students to select planning tools that will provide appropriate support for their practice and efficient recording of why key planning decisions were made
- support students to ensure appropriate resources are available (stakeholder/s, materials, components, software, equipment, tools and/or hardware) suitable for their outcome
- support students to use selected tools to manage resources to ensure completion of an outcome.
Contexts for teaching and learning
- Provide and teach about the use and suitability of a range of planning tools so the student can use tools to ensure record keeping remains relevant to enhancing the quality of the practice undertaken. These planning tools should be selected and/or developed on the basis that they are best suited to the nature of the practice being undertaken, and the communication strengths of the student. Record keeping may include: oral, graphical, written, and/or electronic modes of documentation as appropriate. Technological practice is enhanced when the documentation of planning and decision making strategies best meets the needs of all stakeholders, including the technologist themselves.
- Planning tools include such things as: brainstorms, mind-maps, idea banks, reflective journals and/or scrapbooks, plans of action, Gantt charts, flow diagrams, graphical organisers, structuring / diagramming techniques and the use of digital planning tools such as Trello, cozi, Evernote and Todays meet. In order to work most effectively and responsively, specific planning techniques need to be developed as part of technological practice to ensure that all factors key to success are taken into account throughout the developmental work. The planning tools should show evidence of planning practices rather than a template to complete and identify key decision points and outcomes.
- Sharing, by the teacher, of their own use of planning tools to manage the teaching and learning can enhance student practice.
- Teachers should encourage on-going reflection and evaluation of past and current planning experiences (both one’s own and those of others) to enhance the student’s ability to make informed planning decisions and develop practical tools and structures to support student reflecting critically and creatively about their practices.
- Ensure that students are aware of resources available to them. These resources may include but not limited to: time, materials, tools and equipment, research information, and community and school-based specialist knowledge and skills.
- Note that assessment of this objective is about planning for the development of an outcome so the brief must allow for technological development of a conceptual design or prototype.
Literacy considerations
Students will require support and become independent in their ability to identify, explain, manage and reflect aspects of their planning and planning decisions. They need to understand that they are planning to develop an outcome and planning to undertake technological practice.
Students will need to be able to confidently communicate their planning and be able to undertake the following:
- Use planning tools to guide the development of their outcome.
- Establish key stages where they will need to reflect review and revise their technological practice and developing outcome in order to determine next steps.
- Plan actions to be undertaken in each stage of the development and associated resources.
- Identify key decisions, review points and critical review points.
- Prioritise resources to ensure the completion of the outcome.
Students will also need support to develop the skills such as:
- undertaking research and use of this to inform their work
- using the information to identify critical review points
- providing sufficient evidence within their portfolios / journals that planning tools have been used to guide technological practice and to support planning decisions and those influencing the development of an outcome.
In general, depending on the achievement criteria which defines the nature of the discussion:
- to describe is a statement that gives details about the outcome or idea
- to explain is to describe in detail with reasons – often including the how and why
- to discuss requires an explanation that is comprehensive, detailed, broad and show evidence of some complexity in thinking. It may be a reasoned argument presenting a particular point of view, or a comparison and contrast between two ideas or concepts; or it may be a detailed reasoning and relationship between several complex ideas.
Resources to support teaching and learning
Case studies – planning for practice in action
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Assessment for qualifications
The following achievement standard(s) could assess learning outcomes from this achievement objective:
- AS 91045 Generic Technology 1.2: Use planning tools to guide the technological development of an outcome to address a brief
Key messages from the standard
Teachers will need to teach about a range of planning tools prior to students using them to guide their development. The focus of this assessment is students using planning tools to guide their technological development if an outcome to address a brief.
Planning tools may include but are not limited to: brainstorms, mind-maps, idea banks, reflective journals and scrapbooks, plans of action, Gantt charts, flow diagrams, graphical organisers, Scrum boards, on-line tools such as Trello, and spreadsheets and databases.
Students must have a brief against which planning to develop an outcome can occur. This may be provided by the assessor or developed by the student. The assessor should be ensuring that it is appropriate for curriculum level 6 and the assessment tool.
The teacher ensures that the students are aware of resources available to them. These resources may include but not limited to: time, materials, tools and equipment, research information, and community and school-based specialist knowledge and skills.
The planning undertaken can be either to develop an outcome to a conceptual design stage or to a prototype/finished technological outcome stage.
Note: An outcome is a conceptual design for an outcome and / or a technological outcome itself (prototype).
Conditions of assessment
The teacher provides opportunities for students to develop evidence for the standard by:
- ensuring that there is a suitable brief for the development of a technological outcome
- encouraging the student to use planning tools from a range of sources and use those appropriate to their practice
- supporting students to use selected planning tools to effectively manage resources and efficiently manage time and materials
- supporting the student to develop questioning and self-reflection skills
- conferencing with the student and supporting them to reflect on progress and use this to project forward during the development process to ensure the completed outcome meets the brief.
Some student evidence could be enhanced if a greater emphasis was placed on what is to be done, why it should be done and identifying potential conflicts and compromises. More reviewing and revising of decisions would also help to show the efficient management of the development of an outcome.
Evidence for this achievement standard would be expected to be gathered from in-class and homework activities over a period of time specified by the teacher. This evidence will be provided by individual students and could be presented in a portfolio, online, in a PowerPoint, in a video of an oral presentation or in other forms negotiated with the teacher. Evidence could include a variety of media (for example, written, digital) in any format. It is recommended that where written format is used there be a maximum size of A3. Evidence needs to be organised in a way that clearly communicates the student’s planning practices.
Teachers must closely supervise stages of the development process in order to ensure authenticity of student work.
This standard assesses the planning practices used by students within their technological practice. The aim of this standard is that the development of an outcome will be successfully managed to ensure completion.
It is important to note that the NZQA exemplars focus on the planning tools that are used and do not show all the technological practice that occurred as a result of that planning.
When submitting student work for moderation of the planning for practice standards, assessors will also need to submit evidence of the development and completion of the outcome. This allows assessors to make judgments about the effectiveness of the planning that has occurred.
For the most up to date information, teachers should be referring to the latest version of the standards, conditions of assessment and assessment resources on TKI and the moderators reports, clarifications documents and student exemplars on the NZQA website.
Resources to support student achievement
Last updated May 30, 2018
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