M1-M3: 160 minutes per week
M4-M5: 120 minutes per week
Subject Details
Technology in the MYP aims at establishing the foundations for technological literacy and know-how. Students become aware of the practical solutions people have devised to satisfy their basic need for food, clothing and shelter as well as to communicate, to preserve their health, to learn, and to enjoy themselves. Technology in the MYP is essentially concerned with solving problems in an effort to stimulate students’ ingenuity and to encourage them to combine intellectual talents and practical skills.
While allowing schools great flexibility in the choice of subjects, the teaching of technology in the MYP provides a balance among three key areas: systems, information and materials. All technology courses chosen by schools should allow students to display ingenuity and creativity and to devise practical solutions to given tasks by following the design cycle of investigation, planning, creation and evaluation.
This subject area offers great potential for reinforcing and integrating skills learned in other disciplines, especially in the presentation and handling of data and the processes involved in the design and manufacture of a product. At the same time, it fosters awareness of the social and ethical implications of technological development.
Assessment Criteria
Criterion A: Investigate
Maximum 6
Investigation is an essential stage in the design cycle. Students are expected to identify the problem, develop a design brief and formulate a design specification. Students are expected to acknowledge the sources of information and document these appropriately.
Criterion B: Design
Maximum 6
Students are expected to generate several feasible designs that meet the design specification and to evaluate these against the design specification.
Students are then expected to select one design, justify their choice and evaluate this in detail against the design specification.
Criterion C: Plan
Maximum 6
Students are expected to construct a plan to create their chosen product/solution that has a series of logical steps, and that makes effective use of resources and time. Students are expected to evaluate the plan and justify any modifications to the design.
Criterion D: Create
Maximum 6
Students are expected to document, with a series of photographs or a video and a dated record, the process of making their product/solution, including when and how they use tools, materials and techniques. Students are expected to follow their plan, to evaluate the plan and to justify any changes they make to the plan while they are creating the product/solution. Students will sometimes embark upon a very ambitious project, or they may encounter unforeseen circumstances. In some circumstances a product/solution that is incomplete or does not function fully can still achieve one of the levels awarded for this criterion.
Criterion E: Evaluate
Maximum 6
Students are expected to evaluate the product/solution against the design specification in an objective manner based on testing, and to evaluate its impact on life, society and/or the environment. They are expected to explain how the product/solution could be improved as a result of these evaluations. Students are expected to evaluate their own performance at each stage of the design cycle and to suggest ways in which their performance could be improved.
Criterion F: Attitudes in technology
Maximum 6
This criterion refers to students’ attitudes when working in technology. It focuses on an overall assessment of two aspects:
personal engagement (motivation, independence, general positive attitude)
attitudes towards safety, cooperation and respect for others.
By their very nature these qualities are difficult to quantify and assess, and assessment should therefore take into account the context in which the unit of work was undertaken.
Detailed M1-M3 Assessment Criteria are given here