Co-construction Meeting - Term 4, November

This was our last co-construction meeting for the year. I was really impressed to see more of what the other Technology teachers at FFC teach/make in their classes. Sharing ideas, discussing learners, challenges, highlights and future ideas.

BCH – China trip was the highlight. Challenges were home sickness and tricky connections with home-stay families. The group were worried about the performances they had prepared because some students weren’t taking it seriously – this did resolve itself when they were in China and students were proud of themselves. BCH made a school banner to take with them to the various schools and places they visited. Students had the best opportunities to be immersed in the Chinese culture at the schools.
BCH uses songs to teach the junior students rather than having to repeat phrases over and over.

GSN – Year 9’s have been working on small cars, learning to use the lathe and other machinery. Year 10’s have been making metal garden tools and used torches to weld and anvils to flatten. In graphics they have been doing concept development of ways to present their names as a 3D model. These are then printed out by a 3D printer.

MSA – Basic electronic circuits etc. to be able to program a robot. The robot has a task it has to complete. They are given codes and sensors to modify. The students really like this task because they enjoy the final product.

SSC – Building websites using a range of apps. The difficult part is getting them to write in their blogs using complete sentences and detail. Some have created very basic blogs with images. Geoguessr – a great game to entertain students and educate them without them realising.

SKE – Year 10’s have finished composition – writing lyrics and composing the music themselves. Some will be performing at the junior prize giving. Lyrics are written first because that’s the hardest task. Some students collaborate. Two assessments are done, a song and a performance. Loads of challenges but the end result is always amazing.

JWA – Uses Code Combat to introduce students to coding – always looking for tools to teach coding. Gamification – adding elements of games into learning. Lots of choices to make in terms of characters and solving puzzles, codes are used to solve the puzzles. Differentiates with learning – students can go back and finish previous tasks or develop them. A graphics tablet has been brought to

KRO – Has previous students presenting at an exhibition for their art degrees. Students work through portfolios learning about colours and perspective. Juniors are scaffolded to be able to develop the knowledge and skills to do NCEA art.

RTE – Creating a large wooden box with a sliding lid. Carbon paper to decorate, etched designs and then sanded and varnished.

JWR – Food Tech has a healthy eating focus for Year 10’s – hauora and food groups. Students create posters to display their knowledge of the four food groups. Students move on to design a weekly eating plan that meets the needs of daily requirements.