STEAM education for social transformation
good morning everybody
i’m little nervous with two
excellent speakers and as an academic
i have some kind of you know
problem i mean some kind of challenges i
use lots of jargons
and this is one of the challenges for me
to speak here today
um my talk is
structure on under this topic the straw
mat that
the straw mat that took us to steam
education back in 2015 i have a
i i i was talking to my research team at
kathmandu university school of education
as to how we can connect different
disciplines
so that students have meaningful
learning experience
so in that context we found this picture
we had several pictures actually
in our laptop and desktops so
we looked into it we discussed
we actually probably spent more than a
week
as to how we can conceptualize this
multi-disciplinary approach to learning
so that time that clicked
to me and some of my colleagues so
then we sort of we pointed out to this
pattern
because myself as a maths educator so i
looked into the math side so what is in
there
okay there is tessellation there is a
pattern so we can take this out
and we can put into the design sort of
thinking
and then we can uh create a floor
sort of mattress okay so we can engage
the students in that process
likewise we can also engage students in
looking into the
haste track that may that that has been
used to make
this uh this mat
strawman so that is science then they
look in they go into the party field
they study that material likewise
they design it in a better way and they
do engineering
you know they take this reference and
design it further
they make it a kind of fine product so
this
idea of you know steam
burn out of this thinking sometime
in uh march april 2015
and we then we also look into we
discussed further
that actually this can
students can also be involved in
marketing in in prototyping in designing
and prototyping this is
the raw material they can make other
designs out of it
what would be what would look like a
classroom
if you use these materials is these
locally available materials
in our rural nepali public schools
how would that be if students engage
in designing you know several ah
mattresses several forms of mattresses
out of this design
you know they can you know use other
forms of designs
out of this one so this was the idea
then in 2016 we applied for a research
grant
r d grant i would say and then we in in
collaboration with other institutions in
norway and in nepal
and then we started working in a school
in a cluster of schools
in daphna and there we actually
look we started looking into those
artifacts how about
the local you know temples local
buildings how about the plot
how about the gardening design of the
school
so in that process we uh
actually engage students and teachers we
engage ourselves with
students and teachers to design a garden
a garden a school garden
in which students and teachers they work
collaboratively
they started with the formation of a
committee
they called gardening committee they
learn social skills
and then they talk to parents and
community people
and then from that they learn which
vegetable can grow there
and then they also pla started designing
the plot
and they use engineering skills they use
word you know basic word because they
had they have around
17 computers in the lab and they use
word processor
to draw the pictures of the plot so they
use a little bit of technology as well
and that was phenomenal because they
started
planting more and more vegetables so
that’s how we
started working with the schools and
this is what we call
steam education that’s how we
conceptualize and we have been working
with this idea of steam education and
this is this has not
stopped here and kids started working on
several community problems for example
deforestation
how can they plant trees so they look
into the
uh you know places open spaces and how
can they utilize open spaces
and there they use this science
mathematics
in a technology engineering and
technology skills
and they use them as tools and they
learn mathematics
because my intention desire
is to help kids learn mathematics
meaningfully but that didn’t
just help in mathematics but also in
other subjects
so stem education is actually
is a radical response to the
compartmentalized education system
around
science technology engineering and
mathematics
the idea is that these subjects which
are very very important
because they are associated with
prosperity
they are associated with growth they are
associated with civilization
but they are taught so badly especially
in nepal
and many parts of what we call third
world countries
because they are disconnected and the
arts are separate from that or arts
that the dimension of arts are demonized
so our approach we sort of came with
this visual image
out of our work but they are not
unconnected
historically they are so connected they
are intertwined
and arts has not been separate from
science and mathematics
mathematics and music they are so
connected
and likewise now with the advent of
technology
you know design thinking is very very
important designing something
is very important skill requiring
from every you know from uh
six year old till uh the adult life
so that’s how we came not just steam
esteem plus us esteem plus plus plus
r several plus there several forms of
artistic representation is there
so art we took it as a glue is a
connecting
dot so and then
how this how i i arrived at this stage
actually there is a history
back in 2003
i started my masters at curtin and
i started with this garden actually that
was my experience of learning
mathematics
i was very good in mathematics but i
experienced
this classroom situation in which almost
90 percent of my classmates would fail
and this continued i i continued the
same project in my phd
and thanks to curtin university who
exposed me in
not just in maths and science education
not just in maths and science
but also in other fields of inquiry
such as cultural studies and arts based
research
that actually helped me to think beyond
within and beyond science and maths
education
and in in during this research i came up
with some very important questions and
some of them
is about our future because we teach in
class
that we are giving the future to
students actually
we are not where we say we are giving
the hope
actually we are making them hopeless
because of the nature of maths and
science that goes inside our classroom
that is very much you know
um imposing and that is very much
disengaging students would not be able
to engage in that one
so they in approach memorizing the
definition formula so on and so forth
so actually our assumption our
assumption is
uh as okay assumptions as educators and
teachers and also as parents
we tend to think that the future is
given
the future is given to children as if
it’s somewhere else and we are putting
in front of them
instead the question would be are
futures created
and next who creates these futures
who is that who who is the person who
creates this piece
is the teacher or the students is the
learner
so i put this you know i color read
uh the front caller is great because i
like this question
i didn’t like the first one the future
is not given
there is no the future as such
there are many features so
then why this these two questions
are left behind because of the
the idea of our education
with the with the notion of departmental
silos so this is
maths this is science this is physics
this is chemistry
and this is arts and this is design this
is engineering
this is medical science so this is how
we have been actually uh
uh focusing on the other side of
the negative side of the education
so these departmental silos
they do not contribute
to interactive creative and meaningful
learning
because they are de-contextualized they
are contextualized within their
disciplines
rather than in the social
socio-political context socio-cultural
context for example if we
study mathematics let’s say
factorization
we we if we have a context of
application then we can better
understand
if we have a physics problem physics
numerical problem
if it has a context outside of physics
it makes better sense
so is the case of many engineering
problems as well
many other problems related to the area
of sciences
so they have been like more liturgical
subjects
rather than more creative and and
empowering
enabling subjects so
uh and then we continue our work then so
this is the assumption that
why we came with the this is the this is
the reason why we came with the idea of
html education
then we continue to work in in public
schools
for example we with nepali teachers
nepali teachers when they came to us
sir
then okay so why don’t you take your
students to observe the plant outside
the classroom
engage them in in different parts of the
plants discuss with science teachers
or study yourself something about
science
it’s grade 5 no problem you can find
some resources
if you need one i can give you and then
why don’t you engage them in painting
and coloring a plant
and likewise why don’t you ask them to
count the word because
there are certain me the meter and
rhythm in in that poetry
so they learn mathematics
you know they learn certain patterns and
by that pattern if you connect with that
pattern
that is group theory in mathematics we
talk about group theory
you know and in an abstract sense that
can be connected with
powerful mathematical ideas and then
they design a plot you know they convert
poetry into story probably they can be a
little creative
and they can convert the poetry into
drama
something like that or monologue
so in this way we also discuss we also
you know this is what we
we’ve been doing with nepali teachers
actually in our idea in our research
program
this is not a mechanical mix actually
this is more synergistic mix
what we mean by this is that a plus b
is more than the combination of
a and b it is like
it’s not two plus two is equals to four
it’s more than four
because this combination effect you know
in many sciences you’d probably
study combination effect is more than
what is
mechanically aided so that’s how we do
that’s why we can work with a plethora
of possibilities
so then what we have been facing
as far as school education as far as the
achievement in mathematics is concerned
estimating mathematics and science is
concerned
in school in a school living certificate
examination
historically if you see that the
achievement
is very low achievement is very low
we continue to test we have several
exams
but achievement is very very low
because our major focus is you can see
in this cartoon
that i see you did well in schools but
what real world
skills do you have test
i can take test that’s the skill we have
that’s the skill as far as math and
science
education is concerned that’s the skill
we are imparting and that is not giving
the hope
that is not helping is our students our
children
to create their future rather we are
imposing our future on them
so why is team then so because there are
problems real world
problems then the problems in the
textbook
because the learner has potential is
earlier presenters already talked about
it
that creativity is very important the
way how you approach
any question is very important then the
learner is very important not just the
teacher
not just the educator but the person who
is going to receive education
is very important and context is very
important
not just the content but context is very
very important
because we connect context
and then we solve the problem and also
skills what type of skills for example
in maths we have this
skills of algorithmic problem solving so
you have these steps that
steps in conventional sense this is
i’m not talking about this type of
skills i am talking about
what we call 21st century skills
communication collaboration critical
thinking
and so on and so forth so these are the
skills these are called
soft skills they are more
important than your ability to do
factorization
they are more important than your
ability
to uh define certain
theorem or something like that so that’s
why
we need esteem so arriving at this stage
toward the end of my
uh presentation that what we we have
been working with
municipalities in around nepal
that we need this kind of school
actually where you know these are the
key features
collaborative the school has to develop
a collaborative culture
among and across the departments among
and across the teachers
and they have to be communicative they
have to talk to each other
they have to make plan and also they
need to be critical and they need to
help learners to be critical students to
be critical
and also they need to be creative not
just teaching textbooks
and likewise this is actually guided by
the region of holistic education it’s
not just one dimension
there are several dimensions in our life
in there are several dimensions
in our educational process that we need
to inculcate
and likewise the learners has to be
active
have to be active it’s not passive it’s
not
disengaged it’s not sleepy learners it’s
active learners
and also cooperative and facilitative
teacher
teachers they if the teachers
they are interested in imposing their
agenda
or teaching content they cannot be
cooperative teachers
they need to be you know
they need to have the philosophy of
teaching
humans not teaching subjects because
lots of
our idea lots of our teaching idea
is guided by the notion that we teach
subjects i’m a math teacher i’m a
science teacher
this is okay to the extent that if we
focus on individuals
but if we start focusing excessively on
content and subject matter
without looking into the interest
and connect contextualization
in kids life then it has no meaning it
has no value at all
so the the very important dimension is
problem solving intent
if we do not have the intent of problem
solving
then we continue to reproduce the same
content forever
for example i teach factorization and my
children my student will teach the same
content
i teach physics laws of motion and
my uh next generation will teach the
same
and another generation will teach the
same and it’s just
a reproduction and that is happening
so this is absolute this is optional it
actually this is not going to work
and because for several reasons one of
which is that
the world of work is changing because
in earlier centuries probably 400 years
back
when this compartmentalized education
system
was formulated conceptualized
in prejudice europe immediately after
the industrial revolution
that was fine at that time because they
needed clerks
working in assembly line now the
assembly line
is the shape theory and we need to
prepare
creative and
uh innovative uh future citizens who can
address
the problems that we face today the
problem
of global climate change the problem of
poverty
the problem of inequity that is evident
in previous presentation as well
that we’ve been facing in our everyday
life
so this is why i think steam education
is very important this is why we need to
think even
not just in school because my research
is concentrated in
school education it has also
repercussions for higher education as
well
our engineering departments our
management schools engineering school
science schools actually we need to
collaborate we need to work together
we need to actually go beyond this
subject center
curricula and focusing more on problem
center
more on learner-centered curricula with
open design space
with open labs where we can go to the
community
and we engage in solving the real
problems not the hypothetical one thank
you very much
you