Background information for teachers

This teaching resource has been designed for teachers in Year 2. The objective of this unit is for students to understand the process in which humans design and create items to meet the needs and wants of different people. This is acheived by engaging students in a real-world design project where they are asked to create an exhibit for a spinning toy museum. This design process is heavily scaffolded by the use of the Spectacular Spinners Design Booklet.

Curriculum

Content Descriptions 

Knowledge and Understanding – Assigned

Explore how technologies use forces to create movement in products (ACTDEK002)

Process and Production Skills

Use materials, components, tools, equipment and techniques to safely make designed solutions (ACTDEP007)

 

Cross Curriculum Priorities:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures

Students explore the use of spinning toys in indigenous cultures, examining why and how they are created, how they are used and who uses them.

Sustainability 

Students identify problems and needs presented by society and generate ideas and create solutions by anticipating the social impact of their solutions.

 

General Capabilities:

Literacy

Students will:

  • Interprete and organise information.
  • Communicate mammandur information using well-constructed sentences.
  • Communicate spinning toy design information using sentences and diagrams.
  • Complete peer reviews.  

Critical and Creative Thinking

Students will think critically and creatively when:

  • Identifying design features that children would like them to incorporate in their design.
  • Identifying the advantages and disadvantages the spinning toy will have on children, parents and the environment. 
  • Identifying the different viewpoints that children, parents and environmentalists may have on their spinning toy. 

Personal and social

Students will engage in independent, self-directed and self-managed learning throughout the completion of the assessment project.

Intercultural understanding 

Students will:

  • Explore the use of spinning toys in indigenous cultures, examining why and how they are created, how they are used and who uses them.

 

Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies - Key Ideas

The assessment task has been designed based upon the Australian Curriculum’s key ideas of:

  • Creating preferred futures – Students will identify the needs of society (children, parents and environmentalists), in order to plan and create beneficial and sustainable solutions.
  • Project Management – Students will engage in the process of planning, managing resources and time, decision-making and evaluating.
  • Thinking in Technologies - Students will engage in design thinking, where they will identify the problem or need and design and create a solution, in order to meet the need.

Additional notes for teachers

  • Lessons are approximately 60 minutes in duration.
  • You will be required to insert your Due Date for the assessment task within the Spectacular Spinners Design Brief.
  • You will be required to print of all lesson worksheets, a Spectacular Spinners Design Brief, a Spectacular Spinners Assessment Criteria and a Spectacular Spinners Design Booklet for each of your students. 
  • You will need to organise and notify students of the peer they will be completing a peer review for. 

See the Unit Overview and Resources section below to find a lesson sequence and required resources and the Differentiation section to view differentiation considerations.

Differentiation

This unit caters for a range of learning styles, as it provides different approaches for students to communicate their knowledge and understandings. These learning styles include: visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, kinaesthetic, logical, interpersonal and intrapersonal. This differentiation is achieved through providing opportunities for students to draw diagrams of their design, communicate their understandings and ideas using graphic organisers and written text, physically construct their spinning toy, work independently and collaborate with peers through the provision of feedback.