Virtual Sessions of Hands-On STEM with Novel Engineering in Nepal Pt.2

In the previous blog post (Part 1) we had shared how three Karkhana teachers designed and implemented a Novel Engineering (NE) approach in their virtual classrooms, based on a story book titled Muncha, Muncha, Muncha. We also shared observations and insights that we hoped would be useful for teachers who want to implement an NE approach in their own classrooms.

In this post (Part 2), we will share observations and insights of facilitating three Teacher Development sessions for classroom teachers in Nepal and further iterations that Karkhana teachers have been trying: like collecting traditional folktales, identifying rich texts in Nepali language, reviewing the national curriculum to locate texts that might be suitable for an NE approach, and designing a learning progression to introduce these ideas to other educators.  

Iterations  

Grade 6 Santoshi 

For grades 6 and 7, Santoshi decided to use a different story titled Aamachi’s Amazing Machines, for two main reasons. The first was that she wanted to test how the same lesson progression would turn out if she used a different story. The second reason was that this story (in comparison to Muncha, Muncha, Muncha) had specific examples where the two main characters use different kinds of devices and contraptions that might be easy to connect to the science concept of “simple machines”. This connection to science concepts was important because she also wanted to address the concern from the school leaders that “her Karkhana session looked more like an English language class.” 

In the common Session Facilitators’ room on Google Chat, Santoshi shared “Today’s class for grade 6 went really well. Students shared many interesting projects. I have shared the pictures in the notes doc.” Here are the pictures she shared from her session. 

Figure 1: Student’s initial drawing of his solution to pick coconuts from the tree (left) and the prototype he made in the final session (right).

Figure 2: Student’s initial drawing of her solution to use a first class lever to cut open a coconut (left) and the prototype she made in the final session (right).

Explorations 

Exploring curricular resources 

In order to identify texts suitable for Novel Engineering from existing textbooks, I decided to review resources offered by the Nepali Curriculum Development Center (CDC) from their website. First, I reviewed Grade 4 and Grade 5 English textbooks. I was a bit disappointed because the language was very simple, the characters in the story were not well developed, and some of the themes were problematic. Here’s an example from a Grade 4 English textbook (p. 42-43).

What made the landlord a good man? 

Once upon a time there lived a landlord. He was a bad man. He was also very cruel. He never smiled, he never laughed and he never, never danced. Because he never smiled or laughed or danced, he never allowed his servants to smile or laugh or dance.

So his servants were sad all the time. They worked all day long in   the   field.   Sometimes   the   landlord   did   not   let   his   servants   stop, rest or eat. When the servants asked him for food, he shouted, “No! Keep working!”

A bird lived high up in the sky. She watched all this for a long time and she could see that the landlord was very bad. She flew   down   and   began   to   sing   a   beautiful   song.   When   the   people heard the song, they stopped working. They smiled. They   laughed.   They   danced.   They   danced   all   over   the   field.  

The cruel landlord came out of his house and shouted, “Stop!”

Then the bird said,   “Landlord, you’ve been very bad. You didn’t give your people food.  

They couldn’t sing or   laugh or dance. So I’ll   punish you.”

The bird sang her song again and the very bad landlord danced. He smiled, he laughed and he danced. He danced for three days and three nights. He could not stop.

After three days he fell down because he was so tired. “Bird, please stop your song”, he said. The bird stopped singing.

The landlord said to his servants, “Look! I’ve been a very bad man. From this day I’ll be a good man.”

Then he gave his servants food and they laughed and they smiled and they danced. And that was the end of very bad landlord.

After that, I reviewed Grade 4 and Grade 5 Nepali textbooks. In comparison to the English textbooks, the story themes were relatively complex (e.g. “Pachuto” (Grade 4, p. 86)), the characters in the story were rich, and the context was well defined.   

Exploring video resources 

Santoshi, Sunita, and Rashmi had suggested that playing a video narration of a story instead of the teacher reading the story was a better alternative, because it saved time (most of our sessions were between 1 to 2 hours) and provided opportunities to re-watch the video in the student’s own time. Considering this suggestion, Samaya and I tried to identify video resources for teachers to find narrations of Nepali stories.

A quick search on Google led us to a YouTube channel named Nepali Fairy tales. Although the channel had many videos, the majority of the stories were translations of Western fairy tales, and the character depictions were also mostly Western. We struggled to find resources that offered quality narrations of rich texts in Nepali. Finally, we found two useful resources, Reshma Reads and Rato Bangala Kitab.

Unfortunately, Reshma Reads only had a total of four videos and we bookmarked Sanu ra Adhiberi as a potential story to use in our next NE session. Similarly, Rato Bangala Kitab only had six titles available and most of the stories were very simple and short. We decided to use Bhai Khoi for a professional development session for a couple of teachers from a public school. 

Exploring folk stories 

 

Figure 3: The cover page of a collection of Nepali folk stories by Bodh Bikram Adhikari

I borrowed a collection of Nepali folk stories compiled by Bodh Bikram Adhikari, from a friend. There are 12 stories in the collection (rough translations of the story titles are in brackets): 

1. Rajkumar Dikpal (Prince Dikpal)
2. Yagya Raj ko katha (Story of Yagya Raj)
3. Keshwati (Keshwati)
4. Shattal Sing raja ko katha (Story of King Shattal Sing)
5. Shishir-Basanta ko katha (Story of Shishir and Basanta) 
6. Baraline poi ko katha (Story of a wandering husband)  
7. Syal ko katha (Story of a fox) 
8. Latobungo ko katha (Story of a deaf boy)
9. Dharmapal rajkumar (Prince Dharmapal) 
10. Bisemira ko katha (Story of Bisemira)
11. Dahine kandh ma surya ra baya kandh ma chandrama bhayeko balak ko katha (Story of a kid who has sun on his right and the moon on his left shoulder)
12. Badarni maiya ko katha (Story of a monkey queen)

Some of the stories are also available on a YouTube channel titled Nepali Folk Tales. 

Research on Novel Engineering suggests that “texts that have worked well have realistic settings (not magical, like Harry Potter) and problems that have multiple possible solutions (Portsmore & Milto, 2018, p. 219).” Unlike, Muncha, Muncha, Muncha or Aamachi’s Amazing Machines, stories that we have used in an NE session, almost all of the folk tales in the story collection have elements of wizardry, sorcery, or make-beliefs. We can imagine folk tales across different cultures having similar elements of magic, with unrealistic settings. As an experiment, it might be worth testing out a traditional folklore for an NE session.  

Teacher PD Sessions

Panchkhal School PD Samaya 

Samaya facilitated a virtual professional development session for around 80 teachers from a public school in Panchkhal. He started the session by asking the teachers “Why is hearing stories fun?” and they replied: 

“Motivation” 

“Thinking what happens next” 

“increases imagination power”

“उत्सुकता र कल्पना” (engagement and imagination)

“ज्ञान बढ्छ” (increases knowledge)

Since we had been informed by the session organizers that the majority of the teachers preferred to communicate in Nepali, Samaya had decided to use a Nepali story titled Bhai Khoi. He stopped the story at 2:25 and asked the teachers to identify problems in the story so far. The teachers responded: 

“एउटै काम निरन्तर रूपमा गरेर सफल हुन नसकेको” (failing to concentrate on a single task)

“can’t count birds”

“एकाग्र भै अर्को तर्फ ध्यान नदिदा” (failing to give attention to another task )

“दिदिको चासो भाइभन्दा चरामा बढि” (the sister paying more attention to counting birds more than her brother)

“आमा दिक्क मान्नुहुन्छ भन्ने पिर पर्नु” (worrying that her mother would be annoyed)

“Proper centration lacks for brother”

As there were 79 participants, Samaya had encouraged the teachers to use Zoom’s chat feature to share their ideas. It was fascinating that almost half of the teachers were typing their answers in Nepali. He then asked “If you were Guddi, what would you have done differently so that you can bring Laddu back?” The teachers responded: 

“बोलाउने थिएँ नभेटिए प्रहरीमा खबर गर्ने थिएँ” (would have called him and in case he was lost, I’d call the police)

“would engage with me”

“I would involve brother to count the birds if I were guddi kharayo”

“सङग्सङै चरा गन्न लगाउथे” (would have made him count the birds with me)

“Bhai lai aafu sagai bhulauthe” (would have engaged my brother)

“म भाइ लाई हातमा समाएर हिड्थे र  भाईलाई चरा देखाउदै गन्थे ।” (would have held my brother’s hand and showing him the birds)

Samaya then asked “How would you have avoided this problem?” The teachers came up with these solutions. 

“google map fit garidinthe” (fit Google Maps on him)

“Gps add garne body ma” (add GPS on his body)

“सिठि को परयोग गर्ने” (use a whistle)

“भाइ को खुट्टामा बज्ने जुत्ता लगाइदिन्थे” (would have made him wear shoes that make sounds while walking)

“भाइलाई ट्रन्जिस्टर फिट गर्ने थिएँ वा ड्रोन उडाएर हेर्ने थिएँ” (would fit a transistor on him or fly a drone to find him)

Samaya felt that the answers were too technical or too complex and since he was planning to ask the teachers to build a prototype, he felt that it was not possible in the remaining time. So, he decided to ask the teachers to read another story “Muncha, Muncha, Muncha.” He transitioned by asking the teachers “Is anyone involved in agriculture? Please type A, if you are involved, B if you are not.” The majority of the responses were A. 

Samaya narrated the story in Nepali and at the end asked “If you were a farmer, what solutions (more than 1) would you have come up with?” The teachers replied: 

“Rabbit lai paso ma thapera rabbit form banau. Banaidine ra teslai palne.” (Trap the rabbit and start a rabbit farm. Raise the rabbits on the farm.) 

“tarsaune banaune – scarecrow” (Make a scarecrow)

“it would be better if the farmer thought about the possible problems and obstacles before doing farming. If we have a perfect mindset before doing something it Will help more.”

“खरायो मार्ने, पासो थाप्ने, सिसी क्यामेरा फिट गरिदिने, कुकुर बाँधिदिने, बुख्याँचा राखिदिने, विष हाल्ने ” (kill the rabbit, make a trap, fit a CC camera, use a guard dog, make a scarecrow, poison the rabbits)

“aawaj nikalne yanyra rakhidine” (use an instrument that makes sound)

“खरायो आउनासाथखबेल बज्ने ” (ring a bell as the rabbits enter)

“खरायो प्रवेश गर्न नसक्ने बार बन्देज लगाउने।” (make a fence that the rabbits cannot enter)

“electricity bell ko manage garne” (manage an electric bell)

Since we were running out of time, Samaya asked the teachers to sketch out their ideas on a piece of paper. Some of the teachers were really excited to share their ideas. 

Figure 4: Teachers sharing multiple solutions to helping the farmer like make a scarecrow, make a bell, make a fence, build a wall

Figure 5: Teachers sharing multiple solutions to helping the farmer like “sound producing scarecrow,” “electric shocking wire” fence, “make nose with plastic,” “loud drums,” and “attach a bell.”

Since it was just an hour long session, Samaya had to rush through his plan but the teachers seemed to appreciate his efforts and told us they would try to implement NE in their own classrooms. We have not followed up with the teachers whether they actually implemented these ideas or not.

Everest School 

The school principal contacted Pavitra for the possibility of running a teacher workshop related to teaching science online but also incorporating the hands-on activities virtually. Karkhana sent a proposal with details of the workshop and the school approved the proposal for a 3 day long workshop for 15 participants. 

Day 1: Ideation and Design Thinking  

The first day of the three day workshop focussed on introducing the teachers to various ideation techniques like Listing, Thinking with your hands, Mind maps, and Cross association. The main objective of this session was to encourage teachers to follow four tips for creative thinking, namely:

1. Quantity over quality
2. Unusual ideas 
3. Defer Judgement
4. Natural Associations 

Since the sessions were online, the teachers used Google Jamboard to collaboratively come up with creative ideas. As evident in Figure 6, the teachers utilized the tips for creative thinking to note down their ideas using mind maps. Although half of the participants struggled with Jamboard at first, they gradually learned to effectively use the online tool. They also figured out ways to add pictures to the board and also to scribe different shapes and letters to the board, on their own. Further, the teachers were helping each other solve minor technical issues.

After briefly talking about the updated Science curriculum, we then introduced the teachers to the idea of design thinking and client based design, which teachers at Karkhana have been utilizing since our initiation to design, test, and implement engaging lesson plans for our students. We ended the session by reading a story titled Muncha, Muncha, Muncha, in order to set up the stage for the next day’s session.      

Figure 6: Teachers collaboratively coming up with creative ideas on Google Jamboard by following mind maps and cross association techniques.

Day 2: Novel Engineering

On Day 2, after sharing ideas about the global trends in STEAM education, we introduced the teachers to the idea of Novel Engineering. Since we had asked the teachers to collect various everyday use objects, household materials, or recyclable materials in order to design and build creative solutions to help their clients from the story, we were glad to see most teachers (mostly female teachers) come prepared with the materials. In small groups, the teachers came up with creative solutions to either help the farmer or the bunnies. We were impressed that all the teachers were comfortable with Jamboard in this session. 

Figure 7: Teachers collaboratively using creative thinking techniques to come up with creative solutions to help their clients based on the story book

Using the materials they had collected, the teachers built engineering solutions to the problems they had identified. We were fascinated by the resourcefulness the teachers showcased during the build session. Here are some of the creative solutions they built. 

Figure 8: One team made a trap using bricks, bucket, and wires to catch the rabbit while the other team made a maze using a whiteboard, marker, and paper.

Figure 9: One team made a maze (using cotton, glue, and paper plate) to trap the rabbit on a hole (paper cup), and another team made a model of electric wire fence (using wires, invitation cards and light).

Figure 10: One teacher made a bell that would ring once the rabbit would enter the garden while another teacher made a scarecrow to scare off the rabbits.

Based on the end of the session feedback from the teachers, the teachers seemed excited to learn about the Novel Engineering approach. 

Day 3: Independent Research 

On the final day of the session, we asked the teachers to independently figure out further details about various interesting ideas in the field of STEAM education. The broad categories covered were: 

1. Novel Engineering
2. Depth-of-Knowledge (DOK) framework
3. Modelling of scientific concepts using representations and stop motion animation 
4. Stop-motion animation techniques to aid student understanding 
5. How science concepts are taught in Karkhana Science using “hands-on” “minds-on” approach

Along with the topics for independent research, we also introduced the teachers to various sharing techniques like Jigsaw Activity, Gallery Walk, and Silent Sharing, that the teachers can utilize in online settings, as they experienced these techniques in the 3 day session. 

At the start of the session, the teachers explored different sample lessons and activities in the Karkhana Science Google Classroom. Then they began their independent research. The majority of the teachers struggled with the independent research at first but gradually updated information in the common shared Google Slide. Similar to the first day, some of the teachers needed extra assistance in learning to use a new online tool. Here are some of the slides from their research: 

Figure 11: One group created a slide that covered the main points of a Depth of Knowledge (DOK) framework and another team shared some ideas about using representations to model scientific concepts

Figure 12: One group share research outcomes of how stop motion animation can be used to model scientific concepts and another team shared ideas about how to effectively teach concepts of friction to students

Overall we felt that the teachers seemed really excited about implementing a Novel Engineering (NE) approach in their classrooms. Considering this observation, we shared with them a couple of activity sheets for students that Karkhana has designed in collaboration with the Asia Foundation for stories like Aamachi’s Amazing Machines, The Wind and the Sun, and How Do Aeroplanes Fly, alongside activity sheets for students (Figure 13). Since, an NE approach utilizes low-cost household materials, teachers thought it was a great way to involve students in hands-on making, engineering and scientific explorations. 

Figure 13: Guided activity sheets for students designed to go along with Aamachi’s Amazing Machines

The teachers (especially those who taught higher grades) were really excited to learn more about the Karkhana Science kits. Although most of them mentioned that the kit was a bit expensive for students to afford, they saw possibilities of making science learning engaging through not just “hands-on” but also “minds-on” experiences. The primary level teachers wanted to know whether such kits were available for lower grades as well. At the moment, the Karkhana Science kits have been designed for grades 6, 7 and 8 only. So, we recommend teachers who teach younger learners to implement the Novel Engineering approach.