Professional Learning: New Tech Curriculum

These lesson plans and videos are here to support teachers with Ontario's new tech curriculum. These resources include ready-to-use classroom lessons and professional development videos that guide you through project creation from start to finish.

Save time, enhance your teaching strategies, and confidently bring tech projects to life in your classroom. Engage your students and make learning more effective with our comprehensive materials.

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Video Resources

General

New Tech Curriculum - Chapter 1 - Overview
New Tech Curriculum - Chapter 2 - Coding
New Tech Curriculum - Chapter 3 - Design
New Tech Curriculum - Chapter 4 - Build
New Tech Curriculum - Chapter 5 -Reflect and Communicate

Grade 9 and 10 - Safety Passport

General

Students will create a list of potential hazards in their tech spaces (wood shop, classroom, or auto shop, for example) that will require caution and safety procedures to use properly. Along with their teacher and related safety and standards documents, they will create a protocol for each hazard. All of these will be compiled into a Student Safety Passport. Once completed, the students and teacher will sign off on each hazard when the student has demonstrated that they can safely use each tool, material, or machine.

Downloadable Resources: Lesson Plan Template Teacher Resources

Grade 9 and 10 - Empathize and Define

General

In this lesson plan, students will identify a problem or a gap, research that problem, and practice understanding the perspectives, needs, and wants of people who are experiencing that problem, and who may use their solution. We will use the task of creating a North Star (Polaris or Giiwedin-anang in Anishinaabemowin) finder and programming a Micro:bit to indicate when we have located the North Star (Polaris, Giiwedin-anang) in the sky.

Downloadable Resources: Lesson Plan Handout Templates

Grade 9 and 10 - Ideate

General

This lesson follows the Empathize and Define lesson plan. Having investigated the problem of designing a North Star Finder and coming to a greater understanding of their audience, students will use that information to come up with many ideas for a solution and narrow their options down to a few that may work.

Downloadable Resources: Lesson Plan

Grade 9 and 10 - Prototypes

General

This lesson is the third instalment in a series that follows the Ontario Tech Ed curriculum. In this lesson, students will create a prototype of the idea that they created and refined in the first two lessons (Empathize and Define and Ideate). Students will explore the engineering design process as they create their star-finder prototype, test it, refine it, and finally code their Micro:bits to make a functioning starfinder! This lesson is followed by Reflect and Communicate.

Downloadable Resources: Lesson Plan Coding Guide

Grade 9 and 10 - Reflect and Communicate

General

In this lesson, students will refine and present their North Star (Giiwedin Anang) finder designs, focusing on effective communication in the Engineering Design Process. They will create clear visual representations, articulate their design choices, and integrate Indigenous Ways of Knowing related to navigation and the night sky. The lesson emphasizes clarity, justification of design decisions, and responsiveness to constructive critique, preparing students to communicate ideas effectively in real world engineering contexts. This culminates the TechEd series of lesson plans.