Curriculum Focus for Technology Education

Abstract

This paper was presented at the Technology Education Isues Symposium, Maui, Hawaii, in June 1996. 71 knowledge of practice (specific technological applications), and (c) impacts of technology on society and the environment (Wright, 1992). With this as a basis for the field, curriculum development can begin. As development of curriculum is considered, disagreement arises. Here is where the curricular friction begins to take place and be noticed. For much of the profession the current curriculum framework is little different from the old vocational models used in years past that concentrate on the technical aspects of selected tools and materials. It is packaged differently, modules are used instead of unit shops, computers and robots are used instead of jack planes and handsaws, but the philosophical basis remains the same. Educators concentrate the majority of their efforts on the technical procedures used to create artifacts and give the processes used by technologists and the impacts of technology on society only cursory attention. Students sometimes gain knowledge about the technological processes and the impacts of technology as a by-product of the curriculum. These outcomes occur in a haphazard way, however, rather than through a coordinated curriculum that shares the stage with the major elements of the technology education curriculum