1

Technology as a School Subject Technology as a School Subject in the Indian Contextin the Indian Context

Beena Choksi, Sugra Chunawala and Chitra NatarajanHomi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai

2

• Problems of mismatch between culture, educational content and pedagogy

• Access inequities - gender, rural-urban, sect..

• Worse when subjects taught through “universal” frameworks with no connection to local context

150 million children of school going age, 35 million out of school

3

Technology in S&T textbook, Class 6

• Technology as application of science• no making or "doing"

4

Summary of current school TE

• TE as applied science work education Vocational/ technical education or IT (information technology) education

• Too narrow a view of Technology Education ignores design, which is the core of TE productivity oriented, not adaptive/ innovative

5

Rethinking Technology Education

• Design is central to TE link craft and empirical indigenous knowledge;

the natural sciences and the social sciences

• Problem in context – authentic Problem Solving

• Collaborative: teams, users, designers, makers

• Communication and language, multiple expression modes, quantitative reasoning

• Valid in a variety of classroom contexts

6

Design and Technology (D&T) activities

• Use a variety of skills

• Draw upon key concepts

• Integrate affect (desires,aesthetics) and judgements (alliances, materials, products)

• Episteme (knowledge) + techné (skill) + phronesis (practical wisdom)

• Cognition: conceptual, sensory-motor, visual-spatial and kinaesthetic (cognition and action)

7

Socio-cultural concerns

• Girls and women not well represented in technology, excluded in TE curricula

• Indian context: indigenous local technologies, wide urban-rural differences, multi-lingual classrooms

• Inclusive TE curriculum arrived at by addressing the nature of activities and its context

8

Framework for D&T Education

• Broad goals: (adapted from APU model) design, make, evaluate and communicate

technological goals, processes, and products through collaboration within a complex socio-cultural environment

• Groups share goal, common purpose, work as teams, common practices, tools and language

• Units selected in increasing order of complexity of tasks and intra and inter group collaboration

9

Collaboration and communication centred D&T education model for the Indian classrooms

10

D&T at HBCSE… so far

• Three D&T units: bag windmill model puppets and staging a puppet show

• Trials: Grade VI students in three socio-cultural and language settings urban English and Marathi medium schools residential Marathi medium school for tribal

students (rural)

11

Three D&T units: Bag

• Product, familiar object of individual use by boys and girls,

• Simple design considerations,

• Individual/ team based criteria for design for individual use

• Needs familiar tools, simple making skills available among boys and girls

• Scope to use range of materials, available resources

12

Three D&T units: Windmill model

• Technology as process; product is multi-component and dynamic

• Complex design considerations• Team based criteria for design for

community users• Unfamiliar tools, making skills • Scope to assemble different

materials • Community set criteria of

evaluation; use by individuals/ team

13

Three D&T units: Making puppet, staging a show

• Product is object and system, object more complex than bag (component, dynamic)

• Linked by complex system in production of puppet and show; social connections

• Collective criteria for show design; team criteria for product design

• Community judged show and product

14

Tasks within each D&T unit: Motivation and Investigation

• Set context for task, negotiate constraints, explore language of description, solution options

• Windmill model: Goal/ problem set through interactive story story, discussion to suit school context negotiated goal: working model of windmill to lift

weight

• Exposure to photographs, animations, movie clips, books, magazines, etc. orient to structure, function of windmill

15

Exploration of design

• Negotiating design within group, design description – consists of doodling and sketching design negotiations; Verbal, non-verbal making small scale models of paper, cloth… written description of envisaged product

• Results in design drawing – group’s idea of product (draw, write)

16

Technical drawing

• Technical drawing of selected design has labels and/ or annotations measurements with dimensions and units conventions of leaders and arrows

• Resource list – materials, their quantities, estimated costs, tools used to provide resources to each group

17

Planning to make

• Step-by-step plan of making using description and drawing – procedural map puppet paper cut-outs made

• Making sub-tasks and their distribution e.g. cutting, sewing in bag and puppet; fabrication and assembly in windmill

18

Making, evaluation, communication

• Design and plan communication/ justification before receiving resources

• Making: use design, plan and resources to collaborate in teams making product; modify

• Evaluation: use criteria to assess own & others’ products and communicate critical thinking, language and social skills

19

The fun of making a windmill model

20

Making, evaluation, communication

• Completed product broadly conforms to design, often incorporates changes, especially in complex artefacts card paper bag reinforced by cloth windmill vane material and shape varied,

assembly design changed, tower modified decorative elements on bag and puppet

• Evaluation criteria given + generated

• Communication of evaluation

21

Communication

22

Stage-wise Model

• Stages of school curriculum, vary across States: pre-primary primary (Grades I to IV or V) middle or upper primary (Grades V or IV to VIII) secondary (Grades IX and X) and higher secondary (Grades XI and XII)

• Framework for collaboration and communication centred D&T education elaborated stage-wise

• Artefacts, activities, communication issues

23

Manifestations of technology at stages of school curriculum

• Artefact/ object: aspects students will deal with materials, process of making, knowledge/

concepts, links with science and society (STS issues)

• Activities: interactions/ tasks students will participate in

• Language & communication: outcomes (debates, ...) & productions (drawings, writings...)

24

Stage 1: Pre-primary, Primary (to Grade V)

• Artefact/ object: locally available materials, their properties

• Activities: materials manipulation, use of simple tools,

estimation & measurement

• Language and communication: drawings -“reading” & generating, making explicit

the tacit knowledge

25

Stage 2 and 3: Middle school (Grades VI to VIII) & Secondary school(Grades IX & X) • Artefact/ object:

object, model/ process and system

• Activities: investigating, designing, planning and making,

evaluating

• Language and communication: exploratory sketches, technical drawings,

communication of complex ideas design language, community interactions, make STS links

26

Stage 4: Higher secondary (Grades XI & XII) • Options of objects and activities

• Artefact/ object: study of objects, machines and systems

• Activities: survey and analysis projects

• Language and communication: critical thinking, community interactions, make

STS links

27

Summary

• Proposed model for technology education as part of general education

• Collaboration and communication at core of classroom interactions, appropriate for diversity in Indian contexts

• D&T units with design, planning, making and evaluation as important constituents

• Stage-wise increase of complexity in activities within the D&T units

• Integrates skills, processes across domains

28

Acknowledgements

• Insights Swati Mehrotra Ritesh Khunyakari

• Technical help Manoj N., Bipin A. Technical services

group

• Encouragement Arvind Kumar,

HBCSE Marc J. de Vries, the

Netherlands

29

30

Vocational/ technical education - lofty goals, low status

• Craft-oriented or industrial/ agricultural production oriented

• Only 1.5% of post-secondary students enrol, 50% drop out, a large fraction "unemployed“

• Paradox: supply falls short of skilled labour demand Lack of coordination between institution and

industry Low social status – considered suitable for

academically and/or economically weaker

31

Collaboration and cognition

• Piagetian view: individual cognitive development through resolution of cognitive conflicts

• Vygotskian perspective: cognition manifest as changes in participation across different activities

32

Overview of technology education in school

• National Policy on Education (NPE 1968, 1986) emphasises technology literacy, education for work

• S&T education has science; technology addressed as applications

• Technology can be integrated in other school subjects; not done

• Work education: 7+ years, recipe-based, production goals, values & limited skills

• Vocational education, post secondary – lofty goals, low status, built-in obsolescence