A Curriculum for Excellence – Draft Technologies Outcomes
7:19 pm on the 2nd of April, 2008
Monday the 14th of April sees the publication of the draft outcomes for Technologies. I’m really looking forward to seeing what is in them and where we may be going, Technologies is such a broad name and it could cover anything we wanted it to, hopefully there won’t be a trap of covering everything – and in the end nothing to a reasonable depth. At the same time I hope we will not be sticking too closely to the ‘traditional’ view of technical where all we teach is how to make sawdust and filings, and instead we are able to position ourselves so we can teach at the forefront of advancing technologies and keep up with the demands of industry – whichever industry that may be at the time.
I also hope deep down that design will feature heavily in a way that will embed design into everything that we as technology teachers do, and also into what every other teacher does.
Awkwardly that date coincides with something else which you may, or may not hear more about later – although that may actually save my skin a little (anyone worked out what I’m on about?)
Image credit: Red Bridge – Originally uploaded by El Fotopakismo
Tags: ACfE, Curriculum, Curriculum-for-Excellence, Design, draft-outcomes, education, outcomes, scotland, technologies, technology_teachers
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm on the 2nd of April, 2008
no i haven’t worked it out, do tell…
April 3rd, 2008 at 10:32 am on the 3rd of April, 2008
Technologies is a (horrifically) wide term, and I hope that the guidelines are broad enough in the way you describe. Ultimately, though, a lot comes down to teachers’ expectations of what can be done with the guidelines. These may have to be raised in some areas, others will come up with ideas and interpretations the writers hadn’t even dreamt of. That’ll be exciting to see develop. I’d say that the guidelines are just the start of a longer process of honing down what we want to see in our classrooms and workshops, and spreading out into what we could do if only we… The “if only we…” is where Local Authorities and, perhaps, LTS come in handy.
April 7th, 2008 at 12:30 pm on the 7th of April, 2008
As Ewan said horifically wide term that is Technologies.
I must say that I agree with the embedding of a design process into the curriculum is vital and not an add on to the skills as its at the moment.
The honing down…… or dragging back to some traditional way’s …….. or the building fences around particular area’s. This will be a very long process and I feel its going to be a very difficult one.
I am guessing that you also have an interview on the 14th.
April 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm on the 16th of April, 2008
I’m a little worried about the fixation on outcomes for subjects in ACfE… I hope we don’t lose sight of the raison d’etre behind this development. For me anyway, its about how we teach rather than what we teach.
Do we want this to be a radical shift in our teaching style or is it destined to be just the bastard child of 5-14 ?
Are we also too hung up on our subject specialism as well, defining ourselves by that rather than by our jobs as teachers first ?
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