Teaching technology at primary school in Switzerland

A pilot study focused on repairing office items

Abstract

Purpose: This pilot study aims at introducing a new teaching practice, which is the reparation of office items. The research question focuses on the way teachers adopt and adapt such teaching practice.
Sample/setting: Four teachers of French-speaking Switzerland voluntarily used a half-baked pedagogical design in various schools, totaling about 70 pupils at primary school level (9-12 y.o.).

Design and Methods: The collaborative approach adopted for gathering data allows an integration of the practicing teachers’ expertise into the pedagogical design, not only through their feedback, but also by requiring them to make choices during the adaptation of the activity in their own classroom.

Results: The diversity of implementations of the pedagogical design, through the creation by participating teachers of various learning environments, confirms the relevance of the half-baked teaching design, and brings usefull insights for an efficient use by teachers. Notably, pupils engage easily and autonomously the repairing activity when teachers adopt a flexible classroom management.

Conclusion: Teachers’ comments are stressing the high educational potential of a pedagogical approach centered on hands-on, game-like tasks, and using a documentation semiologically verified, in supporting pupils’ autonomy and emancipation towards technology.

Keywords: durability, critical thinking, hands-on activity, half-baked pedagogical design, repairing office items, technology