CHAPTER 6: ANALYSIS USING WENGER’S THREE DIMENSIONS
6.5 A shared repertoire
6.5.4 Artefacts
The artefacts are the resources used by the community members to engage in learning and negotiate meaning in their practice. The resources assist in the achievement of the desired outcomes. The following artefacts are used by the Life Sciences cluster:
Examination papers: Past Grade 12 examination papers are used to help them with preparing their learners for the end of the year exam. Examination papers from the previous years are used to guide teachers in regard to what they should teach and guide the learners on how to respond to questions if they come up at the end of the year. Past examination papers are also sourced from other provinces (those are the internal examination papers).
Memorandum: This is a document with the model answers to the examination questions asked. It is meant to help the teachers when marking the learners’ exam papers and to assist them with mark allocation. The teachers are supposed to use
183 the memo when marking the examination scripts. It is also important to mention that a teacher who is marking should be a teacher that teaches the subject.
Examination guide: The examination guide is used to help teachers with the topics that would be covered in the exam. According to the subject advisor, the exam guide was introduced after there was a realisation that the learners are not performing as expected. The exam guide is linked to past examination papers in the sense that the teachers are given information about what topics will be tested in the examinations and how the learners are expected to respond. This document is generated at the DBE offices.
Moderation artefacts: This process has templates that are used to assess if the teachers were fair in assessing the learners in the previous term. The moderation is conducted every beginning of a term, focusing on the previous month’s results.
Annual Teaching Plan: This is an annual plan which has previously been referred to as the pace setter. The document is meant to regulate the performance of the teachers. It outlines the scope of the work that is supposed to be covered per term, per semester and by the end of the year. Through this document, teachers account for their performance and raise challenges that they encountered as they teach in their classrooms. The ATP outlines the following:
• Framework for the subject content summary;
• Dates and milestones for what needs to be covered;
• Formal tasks dates;
• Work schedule;
• Practical project.
Circular: This is a form of communication that the department uses to communicate directives to teachers, who would be expected to do as directed. Any activity that has to be actioned and where teachers are held accountable is communicated through the circular.
WhatsApp group: Teachers use this type of social media to share challenges among themselves so that they do not have to wait for the next workshop to raise their problems. Those who know the answers to the questions will respond
184 immediately and even offer to assist with teaching the topic that is challenging other teachers.
Through shared repertoire members are expected to communally generate resources; however, due to the manner in which the Department of Education operates the cluster; the generation of resources is done on behalf of the teachers.
An example of communal resources that members share is the files that the teachers compile as a portfolio of evidence. The files follow a set created by the Department of Education. The template is downloaded from the website of the DBE. These files would be submitted to the cluster leader and he would mark them. The requirements for these files are not generated by the members of the cluster but are a bureaucratic requirement from the DoE.
A practice characterised by artefacts is developed by the MDoE for the teachers in the cluster and is meant to assist in the achievement of the outcomes, as set out by the department. In this they are meant to assist in the delivery of the curriculum where teachers experience problems. They are also tools, as suggested by the shared repertoire. The MDoE takes the lead in everything that is related to the functioning of the Life Sciences cluster. Shared repertoire was exemplified at moderation sessions which are attended by cluster members.
It is considered the norm to wait for the MDoE to communicate the dates for the content and content enrichment workshops, which are delayed sometimes because of financial constraints. The agenda is set by the MDoE: the teachers just fit themselves in. If you want to know when the next workshop is, the teachers will tell you: “we are still waiting for the head office to communicate”.
The responses below point to how teachers use these artefacts to enact the preferred ways of delivering the Life Sciences curriculum which will contribute positively to the pass rate;
I’ve just learned also how to help learners to differentiate it (Mmm) by explaining more, some of the key concepts for them, so that they can differentiate them mostly and most of the, our learners, they lose marks on the terms by merely just looking at them and not studying them. (Pharara)
185 They use previous question papers as their exam guide. They focus on areas that increase the pass rate. If learners understand and know the terms, they are guaranteed marks.
So I was able to go back even when you teach a particular topic you are able to help or outline some of the basics that are needed when a learner is supposed to be answering in an essay question. (Neo)
Now that she has been taught some techniques of improving the pass rate, Neo is focusing on the areas that may be difficult to answer at the end of the year. She helps learners by sharing with them how to respond. I feel this is not different from rote learning.
No, sometimes we used to go there with previous question papers, ja, so we will indicate topics that were difficult to the learners, so that we can explain to each other those topics on how teach these learners for them to pass. (Marhoza)
Marhoza states clearly the link between using past exam papers and improved performance of the learners. They use past exam papers to identify problematic topics and help each other with how to approach them so that the learners can pass, not for the learners to be more knowledgeable.
you will find that in the first section learners will have a lot of marks as they are writing the final exam and if they go to the second section, maybe section B, section 1 will lead them to raise up their levels of marks as they continue for they have mastered the terms on the first section of the question paper. (Makutu)
we were told that sometimes we can ask the learners to write Biological terms more often and explain to them. So I am doing that with my learners and it is helping. (Yeye) In Makutu’s and Yeye’s responses, the section on defining terms has more marks, hence, it is important to ensure that the learners master the terms.
It is clear that teachers use the previous year’s exam question papers to teach and prepare their learners for the end of the year examination, which begs the question:
is it quantity or quality that determines the performance of a school, circuit, district or the province? Does this approach not disadvantage learners in regards to the workload they encounter at tertiary level? In a nutshell, the objective of the exercise is biased towards the production of quantitative results. Regarding lessons, in the
186 data I found that teachers’ interactions had taught them to learn different strategies of and approaches to teaching the problem areas. These different strategies were born out of the managerial discourse. It now depends on the teachers whether they would like to add other strategies that were not learnt through this process and implement them. This repertoire was important to general areas of teaching.
The other shared repertoire relates to classroom management strategies. Some teachers introduced positive competition among learners and arranged learners in groups. Their shared repertoire is limited to teaching strategies and the setting of exams, as the whole point is to improve matric results:
I saw it so interesting, I myself was so happy, but he (the cluster leader) is making it so simple and then from there when I come, I tried the same thing it worked very well.
(Ziduli)
and from there they (the teachers) will ask difficult topics, that they can’t teach and then from there I will assign somebody or go and teach that topic so that the teacher can observe and the next day, he or she can continue. (Nxonxo)
we organise all our learners, they go to a particular, we organise a centre where they meet on weekends, then we invite teachers from different schools to come and teach different topics. So if we were having a challenge with that subject and then another teacher who can, who understands it better will now teach the learners. (Ziduli)