Knowledge of resistant materials construction CMT 6-3
Achievement Standard 1.22 AS91059
Resistant Materials refer to a group of materials that are grouped together because they show certain common characteristics. These characteristics include: tensile strength, compressive resistance, hardness, malleability, ductility, elasticity, grain.
Such materials are broadly categorised as wood, metal, ceramics, plastics, glass and their composites. Particular resistant materials exhibit characteristics to a greater or lesser extent. Resistant materials are often sub categorised. For example hardwood and softwood; thermosetting and thermoplastics, alloys and pure metals.
Resistant materials require particular basic techniques to be used to enable materials to be measured, cut, shaped, joined and finished when making products. Advanced techniques required at level 7 of the curriculum are required to craft special features of a high standard in a product and rely on the consistent application of accepted conventions to achieve a desired effect. Special features can be structural and/or aesthetic and include such things as: inlays, special fit (eg, interference, push fit), matching turned components, internal screw cutting on a lathe, compound machining, and glass fusing.
Knowledge within this component includes understanding how resistant materials are characterised, and understanding techniques used to work them. Understanding of techniques would include: how it is done in a safe and effective manner, the impact of the technique on materials involved, and when the technique would be suitable to use.
Learning objective: CMT 6-3
Students will:
- Demonstrate understanding of basic techniques used to make resistant materials products
Indicators
Students can:
- explain how the characteristics of resistant materials influence the selection of safe techniques
- discuss why resistant materials require particular techniques for their safe handling and use
- discuss why techniques and resistant materials are combined in different ways across two or more situations.
Progression
Prior to level 6 students should be developing an understanding of range of skills and techniques used when working with resistant materials to support their knowledge and skill development when constructing resistant materials outcomes. Relevant health and safety and codes of practice should also be a focus of the teaching and learning programme. These skills should be scaffolded at levels 4 and 5 of the curriculum.
At level 6 students learn about resistant materials per se, the basic techniques commonly used to work
them, and the relationship between these.
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 develop understandings about the advanced techniques used to make products from resistant or any other material type at level 6, teachers could:
- Provide opportunity for students to categorise a range of materials and identify those that display characteristics associated with the broad categories: resistant materials and textiles. Include materials that exist at the boundaries of the category such as vinyl and leather.
- Provide opportunity for students to explore a range of products made from resistant materials in order to discuss the materials used, their characteristics and the techniques that would be appropriate to work them safely.
- Guide students to explore how and why resistant materials and techniques are combined differently for particular situations.
- Provide students with the opportunity to understand how basic techniques are undertaken in safe and effective manner, and the impact of these techniques on different materials. Examples of basic techniques include: marking and layout; sawing, filing machining, folding, sanding, planning; gluing, welding, soldering, fastening, jointing; painting, staining, bluing, polishing, machine finishing.
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Contexts for teaching and learning
Learning about basic concepts to make products can be incorporated into a teaching and learning programme where students make a specified product to meet a brief (refer to CMT-6.1) or where students are constructing a product of a resistant material within the context of their technological practice TP6-3. This objective and subsequent assessment is about demonstrating understanding and knowledge of basic concepts to make product while not necessarily making a specified product.
When students are developing understanding of the accepted codes of practice that are used when making products, they should be exposed to accepted standards and methods. This can be done through demonstration, interviews or videos of practicing technologists or industry visits
When explaining safe practices, students should explain:
- strategies to manage the safety of those in the work space
- the responsibilities (both legal and ethical) of students/employees
- the teachers/employers, reporting systems and liability.
It may be easier for some students to show their understanding after they have made a product. These final understandings might be informed by some initial investigations before the product is made. Not having made a product does not exclude a student from achieving this objective, but it is expected that students will require access to materials to demonstrate how basic procedures are implemented This might include, for example, materials used to make a product, to reinforce it and to achieve particular finishes. Students will more than likely also need to explore a range of existing products, in order to discuss the materials and techniques used, to achieve particular quality features.
Literacy considerations
- To be successful students will need to understand the assessment language of describe, explain and discuss. Note the following definitions
- to identify is to state an idea
- 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, a comparison and contrast between tow ideas or concepts or it may be a detailed reasoning and relationship between several complex ideas
- Students will need to be supported in their understanding of how describe, explain and discuss look when collecting their evidence for assessment and writing frames and structures or template can be used judiciously to support his. Care must be taken not to over template writing forms which may not allow students to achieve against the criteria.
Students will need to understand the following key terms:
- Resistant materials may include but are not limited to – wood, composites, metal, alloys, ceramics, plastics.
- Products can be made from a range of materials. These materials may include but are not limited to wood, composites, metal, alloys, ceramics, plastics, glass, natural and synthetic fibres, yarns, fabrics, leather, and vinyl
- Health and safety practice includes strategies to manage the safety, responsibility for this, reporting systems, liabilities, monitoring for exposures and safe practice.
- Techniques include:
- one or more of measuring or marking out
- one or more of sizing, shaping, or forming
- one or more of joining or assembly
- one or more of finishing, detailing, or tuning.
- Characteristics of resistant materials may include but are not limited to – profile, hardness, malleability, ductility, elasticity, grain.
Resources to support teaching and learning
Case study material
General resources:
Health and safety procedures
Other
- New Zealand Standards of relevance to the product constructed and its associated industry codes
- Health and Safety in Employment Act (1992) and its amendments (2003)
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Assessment for qualifications
The following achievement standard(s) could assess learning outcomes from this learning objective:
- AS 91059 Construction & Mechanical Technologies 1.22 Demonstrate understanding of basic concepts used to make products from resistant materials
Key messages from the standard
Students will be required to demonstrate their understanding of basic concepts by recording evidence in some form related to the conventions used, the construction of the products selected, the safety issues related to the construction in a school environment
Students are required to describe which combinations of techniques and resistant materials would be suitable for use in a situation. They might, for example, choose to focus on a chair that will be used outside in the garden (as opposed to, for example, a highly crafted indoor chair). The response could include describing techniques that would be suitable for shaping a mortise and tenon joint (for the garden chair) to accommodate the characteristics of kwila.
Students woul be expected to complete the following activities in order to meet the standard
- describe characteristics of a product such as profile, hardness, malleability, ductility, elasticity, etc
- explain safe techniques to be used with the product. The techniques must cover one or more from each of the following four categories:
- measuring or marking out
- sizing, shaping, or forming
- joining or assembling
- finishing, detailing or tuning.
- explain which combinations of techniques (shown above) and the product would be suitable for use in a specific situation:
- for example the combination of techniques and materials used to lay concrete pavers in a small patio area.
- explain how the characteristics of the product would influence safe technique selection for all of the techniques listed above:
- for example in the context of concrete pavers in an outdoor setting students could explain how a petrol engine driven concrete cutting saw is used, why the control of dust is necessary, and what purpose the water feed on the saw has.
- explain which combinations of techniques (shown above) combined with the product would be suitable for use in a situation:
- for example, explain techniques that would be used to measure and mark out an area for a small paved patio suitable for use as a barbeque area, and also explain the process of laying, joining and finishing the concrete pavers for a patio.
- discuss why specific materials require particular techniques for their safe handling and use:
- for example discuss how the characteristics of concrete materials require the selection of specialist safety and cutting equipment that can deal safely with high temperatures, dust, noise, vibration, petrol fumes and electricity.
- discuss why techniques and concrete materials are combined in different ways across two or more situations, for example, discuss:
- techniques that are used to measure and mark out an area for a small paved patio suitable for use as a barbeque area, and then discuss the process of laying, joining and finishing the pavers for this patio
- techniques that would be used to pave a small area in a busy shopping area, and the further safety techniques and control of hazards when working in public areas.
The situations that could be considered that would impact on materials characteristics and their techniques could include:
- the environment in which it is used
- ease or optimisation of production
- one-off versus mass production
- budget constraints
- durability and maintenance
Students are likely to be more motivated if the outcomes for this standard are linked to their practice.
For Excellence students must discuss why resistant materials require particular techniques for their safe handling and use, which could be a comparison between techniques or a detailed reasoned argument, and they must also discuss why techniques and resistant materials are combined in different ways across two or more situations. This again be a comparison or a discussion of the relationship between the combined techniques and materials.
Students are required to investigate:
- basic procedures when constructing a product, how these are achieved through use of tools, techniques and materials, and how these support construction of resistant materials products.
- strategies used to manage safety in school workshops, that is safe practices in the classroom settings.
- Evidence for assessment may come from a variety of sources and activities. Students will need guidance on what constitutes evidence, how they are to organise and annotate the evidence they gather, and present it (for example as a hard copy in a portfolio, digitally, or as a combination of the two). Teachers will need to ensure that the range and depth of evidence the students provide covers the requirements of the standard.
Evidence of student understanding may be collected as part of targeted teaching and learning or collected throughout the year as part of a whole programme.
Evidence can be drawn from a range of sources
- photographs and/or drawings including annotations describing the accepted conventions followed when constructing the product
- photographs or photocopies of safe practices followed during construction with annotations stating how this practice exemplifies common approaches to managing safety in school workshops
- an analysis of the connections between the procedures used and the tools and techniques used to follow the conventions in similar contexts (for example. other pieces of furniture made/ constructed) and diverse contexts (for example, musical instruments, boats)
- an explanation of the similarities and differences between the safety practices in school workshops and industrial construction (for example joinery) and mechanical (for example engineering workshop) environments.
Creating the evidence an individual activity, but students may carry out the investigation either independently or with a partner or group.
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. See links below.
Resources to support student achievement
Assessment resource:
Annotated Exemplars
Last updated March 8, 2022
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