In France, project activities figure predominantly in technology education. The general idea behind learning based on project activity is to allow the pupil to get involved in the activity in question, with the pupil tackling real situations rather than ones of an abstract nature. But too often, we notice that the pedagogical strategies used by teachers in project activities are not particularly effective from a learning point of view. What must be done in order to render project work in technology teaching genuinely effective? In this article, we make the following suggestion: if specific help, based on the pupil's level of understanding of the activity relating to technologically based problem solving in project work, is made available by the teacher, then project activity can become much more effective from a learning point of view. By using situations highlighting project activities in the technology teaching domain, we analyse the knowledge used by pupils. We then present the specific help used by the teacher as well as the resulting effects upon student activity. We highlight the fact that if specific help conceived as a result of analysing student activity is put in place, the pupil learns more effectually.Keywords Project activity Á Technology teaching Á Help in problem solving Technology education in France and training for junior engineersThe aim of this article studies the effects of specific help, defined by analysing pupils' activity when they undertake projects in a technology teaching context. In France, technology teaching is a specific discipline from middle school onwards (pupils aged 11-15 years). Such learning can be continued at high school (pupils aged 15-18 years) in
This work details research carried out by the GESTEPRO laboratory concerning technological education; the acronym stands for 'Groupes de Recherche en Éducation Scientifique, Technologique et Professionnelle' (Research Team in Scientific, Technology and Vocational Education). The laboratory, created around five years ago, integrates the combined fields of research on learning, didactics, evaluation; a training programme which organises research into education in the Aix-Marseille region. GESTEPRO brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds such as educational, material and life and earth sciences, psychology, even different sectors of industrial engineering-people who are interested in scientific, technological and professional education. The common interest lies in a particular type of research; the processes for transmitting and applying knowledge in the specific domain of teaching methods, and the retransmission of scientific, technological and professional expertise to others. Such an approach confines the team's research to situations found in schools, middle schools, high schools, universities and professional training centres; in other words, any situation where a teacher relays knowledge to the pupils. The GESTEPRO team was established at the end of a lengthy process of creating teams for research in technological and scientific education. As far as technological education is concerned, the status of such teachings as being compulsory for all pupils in primary and secondary education, in 1985, was accompanied by an important teacher training programme, be it introductory or long term. The long term or continuous training was concerned with converting teachers of 'manual' subjects, competent in disciplines such as cookery, handicrafts, wood and metal work... into domains which were largely unfamiliar to them, like mechanical construction, electrical engineering, business economics, or even information technology. This teacher reconversion programme, conducted over a one year period due to its vastness and complexity, generated a dynamic upsurge in resource development, educational tools and teaching aids, thus helping to initiate ways of thinking which would go on to constitute the basis for university research. For the second group, introductory training progressively defined itself as the reference point required by teachers to get to grips with such knowledge, in order to put into practice a mode of teaching of which the content, application and organisation was somewhat out of the ordinary.
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