A high school curriculum development for a model airplane unit in technology education

Abstract

Kaukauna High School determined a need to update the current curriculum for the Technology Education Department. The topic for the curriculum used in this study was developed through a focus group comprised of three Technology Education instructors. The focus group critiqued the Summer Technology and Engineering Preview (STEPS) at UW-Stout to determine if the topic and content were suitable for use at Kaukauna High School. This was accomplished using a qualitative method when visiting the weeklong STEPS program in action. The methods of interviewing staff members, observing the student's participation and video recording the process of STEPS. The problem of this study is that there is no curriculum for a remote control airplane unit at Kaukauna High School. This unit needs to be designed and developed following the Wisconsin State Technology Education standards. The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to identify the scope and sequence for designing a remote control airplane; second, to develop curriculum used to teach this unit at Kaukauna High School. The goal is to write a curriculum that will be an activity-based unit designed to instill enthusiasm in students and to help them learn how to engineer and mass-produce a product. The objective of the research is to define the scope and sequence of the model airplane unit and to design a curriculum for the model airplane unit that follows the Wisconsin Technology Education Standards. It is the researcher's belief that the results of this study validate a model airplane unit in a high school Technology education class. The large number of Technology Education Standards that directly apply to the curriculum and the student's positive attitude for learning this curriculum attest to that belief.