The last sessions of the training

The technology education professional development (TEPD) implemented in the scope of my dissertation data collection finished up with the fourth session last Thursday. The two last sessions took place on March 25 and 27, 2008. During the third session, 23 participants and I talked about technology education and technological pedagogical content knowledge. Teachers learned the technological process of teaching technology education to students. During that same session they designed and made two instruments of music: a drum and a guitar. As stipulated in the curriculum, both instruments were made with materials available in the country.

The fourth session was devoted to the evaluation of the technological process of designing and making artifacts and the evaluation of the technological object. The 19 secondary school science teachers who showed up reviewed the competencies (disciplinary and transversal) included in their curriculum that teachers are required to develop while teaching technology education to kids; they discussed in small groups of 3 or 4 about the rubrics for evaluating the technological process and based on some criteria provided by the researcher, they evaluated the drums that they made two days ago. Like I said in one of my blogs, the making of the liquid thermometer was not an easy task because of diverse problems related to the dilatation of the liquid and the materials to be used. Therefore, instead of wasting their time to try to make that object, teachers proposed different approaches to make it. Because of the difficulties of making the liquid thermometer, many participants suggested that curriculum developers test the feasibility of the artifact before including it in the curriculum. At the end of the day, the researcher administered to the participants his two instruments (TETEBI instrument and Technology Awareness instrument) as post tests, he encouraged the participants to write their journal right on the spot, and finally, he administered the daily evaluation.

Overall, the sessions went well despite the defection of many teachers. Those who attended the TEPD sessions participated eagerly. They demonstrated their interest to learn the content of technology education and how to teach it to students. Through different speeches, teachers expressed their gratitude to the researcher for offering this training encompassing a theoretical part (different lectures) and a practical part (sharing the expertise in making the artifacts and providing with the materials utilized) and also for providing meals to the participants. The TEPD being one part of the data collection, during the next weeks, the researcher will implement class observations (as post test) aided by selected teachers in order to check whether or not the participating teachers are applying in their respective classroom what they learned.

Pictures: 1- One participant playing a guitar that he mane; 2-Teachers making a guitar; 3- The participants are having good time with their instruments

Illicit sale of gasoline in Benin: A dangerous business

In my first blog, I mentioned that during my stay, I will be writing about my research and some issues related to my country. After talking about the meeting time in Benin, here is another issue. Please free to email me if you need more information or if you have questions regarding these subjects I am writing about.
A dangerous business that has developed over the years since the nineties is the illicit sale of gasoline in every street and city of my country Benin. The common reasons raised by those practicing this business are the increase of unemployment and the excessive price of gasoline at gas stations.

Indeed, at the beginning of the nineties, because of economic difficulties, the government was unable to provide jobs; thus, many graduates without jobs or those laid off started this business. The gasoline came from Nigeria, a frontier country of Benin at almost no cost through smuggling. It is sold in every street and home. It is common to see someone selling the illicit gas near a regular gas station (in the pictures, some vendors' stalls).
Also, the increase of gasoline at gas pumps has encouraged this business. The difference between both prices is often at least the equivalent of a quarter. Therefore, almost everybody prefers to purchase gas in black market to save some cents or dollars. In addition, whenever there is a shortage of this product at the gas pumps, these dealers are ready to serve with a little increase.
Despite governmental authorities’ actions to stop the sale, this business is everyday expending (it is also expending to other Benin frontier countries such as Togo). In fact, it is a prosperous business, solving the unemployment problem and helping those who cannot afford gas at the pump. However, the problems caused by this illicit commerce are multiple. First, it is causing health problems to the sellers, because of the way the gas is transported and sold. Sellers are always inhaling the liquid. Second, the sellers’ life is always in danger because of the multiple fires recorded every week in the country originated by the storing up of the product. Finally, the use of this kind of gas is causing an environmental problem. Indeed, it is demonstrated that the gas that is sold contains a high percentage of lead, causing air pollution when it is used in cars and motorcycles, and people’s health problems.

Working with Instructors

I would like to apologize for the delay of this blog. It was written about a week ago. But because of electricity shortage and lack of internet connection in the capital city, I was unable to upload it. Indeed, for some reasons I could not explain, it is hard sometimes to get internet connection in my country. Today, I am lucky to upload my message; so enjoy it.
As I am meeting with my participating teachers in a few weeks for two other sessions (March 25th and 27th), I decided to discuss with the instructors topics related to the rest of the training. Two high school teachers and one technology teacher and I were working on the different sessions since the beginning of the technology education professional development. Each session of the professional development has two parts: a theoretical part and a practical part. In the scope of these two coming sessions, we met twice and worked on the presentations and three artifacts (two sound instruments and a liquid thermometer) teachers will make during the next sessions. The theoretical part of the two sessions will deal with technological pedagogical content knowledge and how to evaluate students’ artifacts. Essentially, we will be discussing about how to teach technology education based on the technological process stipulated in Benin secondary school science curriculum and we will design rubrics which will help teachers to assess students’ works. A Guitar and a drum are the two sound instruments teachers will be making. After discussion, we realized that the later instruments will be easy for teachers to make, whereas the liquid thermometer will be the most difficult to make, because of the concerns related to the dilatation of the liquid. For our next meeting (March 12th), we all decided to find ideas to how to make that artifact easy for teachers to construct with not complicated equipment.
We also made class observations as pre tests in order to investigate how secondary school science teachers are teaching the technology portion of the curriculum in their classroom. As I mentioned in my dissertation proposal, most of them were not teaching technology in their class for the reasons I already pointed out in the same document. However, those who were teaching chapters dealing with technology brought up some difficulties including their lack of veritable content knowledge, the lack of teaching materials, etc. It was notified in the curriculum that students should utilize materials in their environment to make their artifacts, but some of those materials are sold or could not be found easily.
I would like to thank those who are reading my blogs. I will be delighted to enlighten any question or topic related to my dissertation. Certainly, having your perspectives will be helpful. So, please feel free to send me your questions.