Technological modelling TK 8-1
Technological modelling is concerned with functional modelling and prototyping to justify decision making in technological practice. Through technological modeling, evidence is gathered to justify decision making within technological practice. Decisions as a result of technological modeling may include the termination of the development or a continuation of the development as planned.
Achievement objective: TK 8-1
Students will:
- understand the role of technological modeling as a key part of technological development, justifying its importance on moral, ethical, sustainable, cultural, political, economic, and historical grounds.
Indicators
- Explains the role of technological modelling in making informed, responsive, and defensible design and development decisions.
- Explains the role of technological modelling in making informed, responsive, and defensible manufacturing decisions.
- Discusses examples to illustrate a range of technological modelling practices that have been undertaken in situations with competing and contestable factors.
- Critiques examples of technological modeling practices in terms of how well they address underpinning factors.
Progression
At level 8, students will use critical analysis to judge/determine the role that technological modeling had in the development and implementation of a technological outcome. This can be demonstrated by students doing a retrospective reflection on their own technological practice or analysing a case study, or undertaking an investigation into the technological modeling applied in someone else’s practice.
The technological outcome has to have been implemented, placed in situ and tested, that is, developed to the prototype stage.
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Teacher guidance
To support students to understand the role of technological modeling at level 8, you could:
- support students to develop a critical and informed understanding of why technological modeling is an important aspect for ensuring responsible and defensible decisions are made during the design, development and any subsequent manufacturing of technological outcomes
- support students to critically analyse examples of technological modeling practices that were undertaken to address a range of competing and contestable factors to gain insight into how these factors can be handled. These factors arise from such things as differing moral, ethical, cultural, and/or political views and the way in which people adhere to and understand issues such as sustainability, globalisation, democracy, global warming and so on. Examples should include the modeling practices of technologists and should include instances where modeling was undertaken to deal with competing and contestable factors.
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Contexts for teaching and learning
- Ensure students are aware that responsible and defensible making requires the justification of a decision.
- Provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their understanding of how technological modeling was used as an important tool for ensuring that responsible and defensible decisions were made during the design, development, and manufacturing of a technological outcome.
- Encourage students to discuss, within their reports, examples of where technological modeling was used to identify how the competing and contestable factors were handled.
- Provide opportunities for students to explain how different forms of modeling were used to enable the technologist (or themselves) to address competing and contestable factors that arise from differing moral, ethical, cultural, and/or political views, including the way in which they relate to issues such as sustainability, globalisation, democracy, global warming. (If students are discussing their own previous practice and implemented outcomes, ensure that issues and perspectives listed above can be identified and discussed.)
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Support students to develop an understanding of how the technological modeling supports technological development by providing a range of opportunities where they can analyse their own and others technological practice used to develop and implement a technological outcome.
This analysis could involve students in:
- explaining the critical role that functional modeling had in allowing the technologist (or themselves) to make informed decisions
- identifying what the competing and contestable factors were that needed to be addressed when developing and implementing the technological outcome
- explaining the defensible decisions that were made which addressed competing and contestable factors, and how technological modeling was used to support these decisions.
- Provide students with access to case studies that describe the technological modeling practices used by technologists, especially those where modeling was undertaken to deal with competing and contestable factors. Students need to explain how modeling assisted the decisions made based on the evidence from the modeling and discuss the competing and contestable factors and resulting decisions made as a direct result of modeling.
- Explore through discussion, using illustrated/case study examples, how different modeling media and procedures were used when functional modeling and how these enabled (or not) the risks associated with different potential outcomes to be determined. Also discuss how functional modeling enabled social and physical environments requirements to be determined and how the short and long term risks were mitigated.
Literacy considerations
Support students to understand the language associated with the achievement objective:
- Technological outcome being fully realised products and systems, created by people for an identified purpose through technological practice.
- The physical and functional nature of a technological outcome, such as a building, garment or product.
- Competing and contestable factors are those arising from issues that will include, but are not limited to ethical, social, historical, cultural, political, economic, sustainable, humanitarian, and environmental.
- Implementation of technological outcomes refers to the placement of the technological outcomes in situ.
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 modeling:
- an explanation requires reasons as to how or why
- justification is an extension of explanation where a student gives the rationale for the decision-making
- discussion will require an explanation that is comprehensive, detailed, broad and show evidence of some complexity in thinking. Defensible decision making is where the student will discuss the impact of the evidence as a substantiation of the design decisions as a result of the modeling undertaken.
Resources to support student achievement
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Assessment for qualifications
The following achievement standard could assess learning outcomes from this achievement objective:
- AS91612 Generic technology 3.5 Demonstrate understanding of how technological modelling supports technological development
Key messages from the standard
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 AS91612 Explanatory note 2 and re-phrase these into questions. For example:
- for achieved (demonstrate understanding):
- How was functional modeling used to test competing and/or contestable factors?
- How was functional modeling used to inform decisions during the development of a technological outcome?
- How was prototyping used to inform decisions for implementation of a technological outcome?
- for merit/excellence:
- What evidence supports competing and/or contestable factors that is gained from different forms of modeling?
- How were the decisions made during the development and implementation of a technological outcome justified?
- How did modeling enable informed, responsive and defensible decision making during the development and implementation of a technological outcome?
Students also need to understand the words used to describe the level of expected performance at each achievement grade:
- Explain meaning to give a reason or reasons; an explanation answers the question “why?” or “how does that work?”
- Justify to explain in your report the reason why to present a logical argument or reasons.
- Discussion will require an explanation and reasoned argument that will include analysis, justification, and evaluation in order to make a judgment that relates to the responsible and defensible decisions made.
Last updated October 16, 2020
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