Engineers for Overseas Development is a UK-based charity specialising in development projects across rural Africa. Each project provides opportunities to upskill both local construction workers and UK engineer volunteers, who take responsibility for design and site supervision. In October 2021, Cardiff branch delivered the first phase of a much-needed English teaching nursery and primary school in Uganda. In a first for the charity, construction was supervised entirely remotely due to Covid-19 travel restrictions. This paper outlines how this was achieved, highlighting the challenges and solutions developed.
A well-designed curriculum creates a knowledge-rich one. The application of the Curriculum Design Coherence Model (CDC Model) in the international Knowledge-Rich School Project is discussed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Model as a design tool. It achieves coherence by connecting the three forms of subject knowledge: generalising concepts, materialised content and applied competencies. Concepts’ generalisability creates knowledge’s internal logic – the source of understanding (learning). Students only develop deep understanding when they work with generalising concepts. Thinking (learning) doesn’t occur in a vacuum – one must think with something (concepts). And students also need to think about something (content). The article explains why it is essential to connect concepts and content. Such connection overcomes the limitations of both a ‘big ideas’ or concepts-only approach and a content-list approach. The CDC Model’s connection of generalising concepts, materialised content and applied competencies also reveals why New Zealand’s current competency-centred curriculum is inadequate. Two examples show how the CDC Model is used – a Physical Education topic ‘Exercise’ and a Social Studies topic, ‘The History of Ngati Kuri.’ Topics designed in the Knowledge-Rich School Project are mentioned.
Partnership and dialogue are central concepts in na- tional heritage management. This article problema- tizes the concepts on the basis of a theme project con- ducted in a high school, where the aim has been to give the pupils insight into history-making processes. The school project was carried out as part of the public activity in a major contract archaeology project. The text has a self-reflexive perspective, analysing mobili- zation processes in connection with the establishment and implementation of the theme project. The article shows the pragmatic attitude of the institutional ac- tors to different educational ideals, with partnership as an instrument on its own in terms of market as- pects. This raises ethical questions about the pupils and the conditions for the desired partnership.
AbstractIn a society that has to reconcile two areas which are conceptually very distant from each other, such as interdisciplinarity and specialization, the education for young people is essential to form a thought to understand complexity, thanks also to the stimuli deriving from increasingly powerful and interconnected technological and IT environments. So, it is essential to identify teaching–learning processes and methods that allow students to understand and act adequately with a constantly evolving reality. Transdisciplinary themes can be introduced to enrich the students' curriculum by anchoring them strongly to the wealth of emerging technologies, using their potential and designing educational activities focused on technology and attractive to the various spheres of knowledge. In this paper is presented an experimental activity of designing Smart objects in the Internet of Things conducted with students of the “Mathematical High School” project.
The ‘walking with friends to school’ project and its contribution to independent mobility, self‐esteem and happiness
