THE HIERARCHY OF HOLISM IN PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE

Twenty-first century believes in Holism and not Reductionism, be it on the concept of the Universe, the Nature, the Society or on the process of education. Quality education in 21st century demands a holistic approach with the 4C's: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking and Creativity. At the higher education level, Outcome Based Education (OBE) has been clearly defined with graduate attributes, qualification descriptors, course learning outcomes and programme learning outcomes. For attaining this a bottom-up approach should be followed. Problem solving skills are graduate attribute which is holistic in nature and is usually associated with cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains. Proper acquisition of problem solving skills is associated with development of scientific temper. Problem-solving skills and scientific temper are the pre-requisites for developing procedural knowledge and the authors have designed a pool of activities based on strategies to promote these two prerequisites among secondary school students through science learning. At the critical period of secondary level education, the pre-requisites and learner attributes are to be ensured in tune with the recommendations of NEP 2020. Research to innovate effective strategies in this direction gains priority.