Year 2
Technologies Support Materials
Assessment Principle 1
Assessment should be an integral part of Teaching and Learning
Materials and Technologies specialisations snapshot: Puppets
Technologies/Design and Technologies/Knowledge and understanding/Technologies and society and Processes and production skills/ Investigating and designing/Designing
| Content Description |
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People design and produce familiar products, services and environments to meet local community needs Explore design to meet needs or opportunities Develop, communicate and discuss design ideas through describing, drawing, modelling and/or a sequence of steps |
Nature of the assessment
Classroom activity
Design and create a solution and product
Purposes of the assessment
To determine students’ understanding that products are designed to meet specific purposes
To observe students’ ability to choose appropriate materials for products
Stage in the Teaching sequence
A classroom activity in the middle of a teaching cycle – formative assessment
Assessment task
Students were asked to design and create puppets for kindergarten children to use when learning nursery rhymes.
Assessment process
Students had previously engaged in the design process to complete technology tasks.
The teacher organised for the students to visit a puppet theatre to see how puppets are made and to talk to the puppet designers. They were introduced to a variety of puppets and saw the puppets being used during performances.
The teacher explained that the purpose of the assessment activity was to design a puppet for kindergarten children to use when learning a nursery rhyme. As a class they developed and agreed on their success criteria.
- My puppet helps a child learn a nursery rhyme (it is a character from a nursery rhyme or it looks like a character that would tell a child a nursery rhyme).
- My puppet is easy for a young child to use.
- My puppet is safe for a young child to use.
- My puppet is fun to use when reciting a nursery rhyme.
The teacher then helped the class to brainstorm some ideas about the materials they could use to create their puppets.
The students first drew a design of their puppet and then created it from materials provided by the teacher.
Using the information
The teacher evaluated each puppet against the agreed success criteria and provided students with feedback about what they had done well. He chose not to give feedback about what they could improve upon as he did not want to interfere with the students’ enjoyment of sharing their puppet with the younger students. He noted the skills he needed to address in subsequent teaching in order to extend students’ understanding of the design process.