A Systems Approach for Developing Technological Literacy

In order to examine the implications of applying a teaching strategy that integrates a systems approach and project-based learning (PBL), it was implemented in two courses. The objective of the first course was to train preservice teachers to teach the subject of “science and technology for all.” The second course was an introductory freshman course in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. This paper describes a qualitative study that followed the progress of the two classes. The students in the courses were the participants in the study. In order to prepare pre-service teachers to teach the subject of “Science and Technology to All” (mandatory subject in all of Israel’s junior high schools), a mandatory methods course has been developed in the Department of Education in Technology and Science at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology: “Methods for Teaching Science and Technology for All”. The course participants were pre-service teachers who were studying toward a teaching certificate in the Department of Education in Science and Technology parallel to their studies for a B.Sc. degree in one of the Technion’s science Faculties. Most students in this course lack basic knowledge in engineering and technology. The course lasts fourteen weeks (one semester). Every once-weekly class meeting includes a one-hour lecture, two hours of microteaching, and three hours in a lab (team project). The challenge for the course instructors was two-fold. First, students had to be given content knowledge. That is, they had to be taught technological subjects as they appeared in the national curriculum of the junior high school science and technology course. Second, students needed to acquire pedagogical content knowledge so that they could teach the subject content in the future. The idea underlying the second course was to achieve certain objectives through experiential learning. These were to provide students with a clear overview of the different fields in mechanical engineering; to introduce them to the essence of engineering work and the processes of design and development of new technological products; to raise their awareness of the importance and necessity of analysis for finding optimal solutions for engineering problems, and