Astha Saxena

Areas of Interest & Expertise

  • Science Education
  • Pedagogy of Science
  • Nature of Science
  • Philosophy of Education
  • Science and Ethics
  • Bioethics
  • Environment Education
  • Teacher Education
  • ICT in Education

Biography

Astha has a Master’s degree (MSc) in Zoology and a Master’s degree in Education (MEd) from Delhi University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, India. She has completed her PhD in Science Education from the Department of Education, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India.

During her doctoral work, she explored the interlinkages between science and ethics and developed a framework for integrating ethics in science teaching and learning. She also looked into the different dimensions of teachers’ knowledge base (pedagogical content knowledge) for negotiating ethical issues related to biotechnology in the classroom. 

Astha has been associated with NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training) for developing a textbook on the pedagogy of biological sciences, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) for Biology, Teacher Education. 

She has also worked with CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) for developing a secondary science manual; UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) for designing a curriculum for Adolescence Health Programme under the Ayushman Bharat programme by the government of India; UNICEF for reviewing K‑12 textbooks for the state government of Maharashtra, focusing on integrating life skills and equity issues within academic disciplines. These, she believes, provided great opportunities for learning and reflection. 

She has published research papers, written articles, and prepared reports in the area of science education, teacher education, and sociology and philosophy of science in reputed national and international journals. 

Teaching has been a passion for Astha and she strongly believes is a dialogical process that provides opportunities to interact with students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. 

Publications

A list of her publications is given below. The complete list of publications can be accessed here.

Books

Chapters in Edited Books

Journal Articles

Monograph

  • Behari, A. & Saxena, A. (2017). Striving for Excellence in Higher Education- Unfolding the pedagogic dimensions- A Monograph. IQAC, Department of Education, University of Delhi.

Conference Proceeding

Blog Posts

Newsletter Articles