Technological modelling TK 6-1
Achievement standard 1.5 AS 91048
Technological modelling refers to the modelling practices used to enhance technological developments and includes functional modelling and prototyping. Functional modelling allows for the on going testing of design concepts for the yet-to-be-realised technological outcome. Prototyping allows for the evaluation of the fitness for purpose of the technological outcome itself. Through technological modelling, evidence is gathered to justify decision making within technological practice. Decisions as a result of technological modelling may include the termination of the development, changing or refining the design before proceeding, or a continuation of the development as planned.
Achievement Objective: TK 6-1
Students will:
- Understand the role and nature of evidence and reasoning when managing risk through technological modeling.
Indicators
Students can:
- describe practical and functional reasoning and discuss how they work together to enhance decision making during technological modeling
- explain the role of technological modeling in the exploration and identification of possible risk/s
- discuss examples to illustrate how evidence and reasoning is used during functional modeling to identify risk and make informed and justifiable design decisions
- discuss examples to illustrate how prototyping provides information to determine maintenance requirements to ensure minimal risk and optimal performance over time.
Progression
Prior to level 6 Students should understand functional reasoning (the basis for exploring the technical feasibility) and practical reasoning (the basis for exploring acceptability). Students will also need to learn how evidence gained from modelling is used to justify outcome evaluation as fit for purpose.
At level 6, students will demonstrate their understanding of the role and nature of evidence and reasoning when managing risk through technological modelling.
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 understanding of technological modeling at level 6, teachers could:
- guide students to explain how practical and functional reasoning underpin technological modeling. Functional reasoning provides a basis for exploring the technical feasibility of the design concept and the realised outcome. That is, "how to make it happen" in the functional modeling phase, and the reasoning behind "how it is happening" in prototyping. Practical reasoning provides a basis for exploring acceptability (including socio-cultural and environmental dimensions) surrounding the design concept and realised outcome. That is, the reasoning around decisions as to "should it happen?" in functional modeling and "should it be happening?" in prototyping.
- guide students to understand the concept of risk as it relates to reducing instances of malfunctioning of
technological outcomes, and/or increasing levels of outcome robustness.
- guide students to understand how technological modeling is used to manage risk through exploring and identifying possible risk factors associated with the development of a technological outcome
- support students to analyse examples of technological modeling to understand how risk is explored and identified within particular technological developments.
- examples should include the modeling practices of technologists and should include instances where modeling was undertaken to explore and identify risk.
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Contexts for teaching and learning
- At curriculum level 6 students are encouraged to demonstrate their understanding of technological modelling by describing the modelling they have done in their own practice. However within a programme of work teachers may still want to explore other examples of technological modelling to build student understanding. Case studies, guest speakers, industry visits, and research are all appropriate ways to develop understanding of technological modelling. Refer to the resource section below for some possible case study links.
- Technological modelling includes both functional modelling and prototyping. Functional modeling allows for the ongoing testing of design concepts for the yet-to-be-realised technological outcome. Prototyping allows for the evaluation of the fitness for purpose of the technological outcome itself. Activities need to be built into the teaching programme that enure students understand both these forms of modelling and can confidently use the terms technological modelling, functional modelling, and prototyping in discussion and in written work.
- A key idea for students to understand is that technological modelling is about gathering evidence to inform decision making. Technological modelling is not something you do once in a project by making a one-off model – it involves different types of modelling at different stages of a project. Each time you undertake modelling you do it for a particular purpose, you will gather some evidence from that modelling, and then use that evidence to inform decision making about what happens next. Sometimes the "what happens next" decision can be carry on as planned, or make changes and refinements, or abandon the project completely.
- Teachers need to ensure students understand the ideas around technical feasability and acceptability as they relate to technological modelling. A misunderstanding about the words "could" and "should" seems to be impacting on student achievement. Students are using the words "could" and "should" considering only the everyday meaning of the words (e.g. I could make my table this big so I should make my table this big). Could and should have definite meanings related to practical and functional reasoning which address technical feasibility and acceptability. Functional reasoning (what could happen) is about the technical feasibility and this seems easier for students to understand. Teachers need to guide students to understand practical reasoning (what should happen) in terms of exploring social acceptability. Functional reasoning provides a basis for exploring the technical feasibility of the design concept and the realized outcome. That is, "how to make it happen" in the functional modeling phase, and the reasoning behind ‘how it is happening’ in prototyping. Practical reasoning provides a basis for exploring acceptability (including socio-cultural and environmental dimensions) surrounding the design concept and realised outcome. That is, the reasoning around decisions, as to ‘should it happen’ in functional modeling and ‘should it be happening’ in prototyping. An example, a student shows it is technically feasible to develop a fast food product that is high in fat and sugar. The modeling using taste test panels and surveys shows the product can be made and consumers like the product (i.e. what could happen). However in the current environment with a push to healthy eating it is not socially acceptable to produce this product in its current form. The modeling showed this issue around high fat and sugar was raised by some stakeholders (i.e. what should be done). Other examples could include a fashion garment that is technically feasible but not socially acceptable, or a design for any product that includes aspects that are not socially or environmentally acceptable.
- The concept of how technological modelling is used to identify risk is introduced at this level and then built on at curriculum level 7 where it becomes a major focus. At this level students should understand that risk is about the technological outcome not performing as expected and the role of technological modelling in identifying that risk before it happens.
Literacy considerations
- Support students to understand the language associated with the technological modelling achievement objective. For example "functional modelling", "prototyping", "risk".
- In this objective “should” and “could” have very specific meanings and students need to understand they mean something specific rather than the everyday common meanings of the words. “Could,” decisions relate to the technical feasibility for example is it possible to create this outcome given the technical difficulty or materials available? “Should,” decisions relate to the acceptability (social and moral/ethical acceptability and/or environmental acceptability); for example should we create a high salt, fat and sugar content snack food to be sold in school canteens given the Healthy Eating Guidelines for Teenagers?
- Support students in developing writing frames to guide their thinking. Students also need to understand the meaning of the following terms in relation to what they are trying to communicate about the technological modelling:
- an explanation requires reasons as to how or why.
- discussion will require an explanation that is comprehensive, detailed, and broad and show evidence of some complexity in thinking.
- Generic definitions
- 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
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Assessment for qualifications
The following achievement standard(s) could assess learning outcomes from this achievement objective:
- AS 91048 Generic Technology 1.5: Demonstrate understanding of how technological modelling supports decision-making
Key messages from the standard
- Students should base their report on their own technological experiences related to technological modelling. In most cases this means the students should base their report on their own technological practice and the modelling they carried out themselves as they developed a technological outcome.
- Ensure the report covers functional modelling and prototyping. Most students can identify technological modelling but should be able to use the terms functional modelling and prototyping linked to their own practice. This requirement is stipulated in explanatory note 3 from the standard. Functional modelling allows for the ongoing testing of design concepts for the yet-to-be-realised technological outcome. Prototyping allows for the evaluation of the fitness for purpose of the technological outcome itself. Teachers need to ensure students understand both these aspects of technological modelling and include evidence about both functional modelling and prototyping.
- Identify the evidence derived from the modelling, and how that evidence has been used. The student should talk about the modelling they carried out, what evidence they gained, and what decision they made as a result of doing the modelling.
- Address technical feasibility and acceptability. A misunderstanding about the words "could" and "should" seems to be impacting on student achievement. Refer to bullet point three of the standard for achieved “describing how the evidence gained informed decisions about "what could happen" and "what should happen" for the technological outcome”. Could and should have definite meanings related to technical feasibility and acceptability (including socio-cultural and environmental dimensions). An example, a student shows it is technically feasible to develop a fast food product that is high in fat and sugar. The modeling using taste test panels and surveys shows the product can be made and consumers like the product (i.e. what could happen). However in the current environment with a push to healthy eating it is not socially acceptable to produce this product in its current form. The modeling showed this issue around high fat and sugar was raised by some stakeholders (i.e. what should be done). Other examples could include a fashion garment that is technically feasible but not socially acceptable, or a design for any product that includes aspects that are not socially or environmentally acceptable.
- Assist students with strategies on how to collect evidence for their report. Usually students will need to have evidence collected over a period of time about different types of modelling that they need to combine into one report. Photos or screenshots of different types of modelling at different stages in a project will be an important memory jogger that students can insert in their report and then write about that modelling in terms of what was the purpose, what evidence did they gain, how did they use that evidence to inform decision making.
- Ensure students know how to write a report that meets the requirements as set out in the assessment specifications and covers everything asked for in the standard. Teachers need to support students to understand what evidence needs to be included in the report. Breaking the writing task down into a series of tasks could be done by taking the assessment criteria in explanatory note 2 and re-phrase these into questions. For example for achieved
- What were the different forms of modelling you used during your project?
- Why evidence did you get from each type of modelling?
- How did the evidence gained from modelling inform decisions about technical feasibility and acceptability (social and/or environmental)?
- It is important that students only submit material they understand. They should write in their own words about their own technological experiences related to technological modelling. Students should reference material that is not their own using appropriate referencing at the point of use. The use of information from other sources can assist the candidate to demonstrate understanding only where the candidate uses the information by one or more of the following:
- interpreting or rewriting the information in their own words
- relating the information to a specific context or example
- commenting meaningfully on the information.
For the most up to date information, teachers should be referring to the latest standard, assessment specifications, assessment reports and student exemplars on the NZQA website. Refer to links below.
Resources to support student achievement
Last updated October 16, 2020
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