Setting the Terms Before Technology Enters | Tomorrow Ready

← Back to Designing for Integrity

Tomorrow Ready · Designing for Integrity

Setting the Terms Before Technology Enters

Subject adaptation · Years 11–13 · Technology · Field-Based STEM · Tony Jones

Senior Technology students making design decisions alongside AI face a question the assessment criteria do not ask directly: which decisions did they actually make? The Boundary Card makes that question answerable before the project begins, not after.

Phase 1
Brief Issued
Phase 2
Complete the Boundary Card
Phase 3
Work Within Named Conditions
Phase 4
Card Assessed Alongside Outcome

The Strategy

  1. When the design brief is issued, before any ideation, research, or tool use, students complete a Boundary Card with three boxes.
  2. Box 1 — AI may assist with: students name specific tasks where AI support is acceptable for this project. Examples: generating initial design options, checking technical specifications, drafting component lists.
  3. Box 2 — AI may not do: students name decisions that must remain theirs. Examples: final selection between options, fitness-for-purpose judgements, evaluation against client criteria, identification of key design constraints.
  4. Box 3 — I must show: students name what evidence of their own decision-making they will provide at submission. Examples: an annotated comparison, a recorded oral explanation, a design journal entry with stated reasoning.
  5. The Boundary Card is submitted at the briefing stage. It becomes the opening artefact of the project record.
  6. At submission, the card is assessed alongside the outcome: are the decisions the student claimed as their own traceable and justifiable in the work itself?

In Practice

Years 11–12

A product design or digital outcome brief. Students complete the Boundary Card before any prototyping or research begins. The card names the design evaluation criteria and commits to how the student will demonstrate their own judgement on each one. At submission, the assessor checks whether the decisions claimed as the student’s own are visible and justifiable in the work.

Years 12–13

A complex brief with multiple iteration stages. The Boundary Card is reviewed and updated at each iteration checkpoint. The version history of the card becomes a decision trace for the full project. For NCEA Technology, the card directly supports the evidence of technological thinking that assessment standards require and that AI-assisted outcomes alone cannot demonstrate.

Implementation

Decision Checkpoint
The card must be submitted before work begins. A Boundary Card completed at the end of a project describes what happened; it does not function as a Boundary Card. Build the submission checkpoint into the brief itself.
Teacher Judgement Note
For NCEA Technology, check that the “I must show” box specifies evidence forms that align with the relevant standard’s requirements before the brief goes to students. Vague commitments are not sufficient.
Related Frameworks

Evidence Lock · Decision Trace Conference · 3-3-3 Trace Map

Tony Jones · Founder, Field-Based STEM · Tomorrow Ready Resources · Free to use and share