4.2 PRESENTATION OF THE CASE STUDIES .1 Case Study of School A
4.2.4 Case Study of School D .1 Context and Profile
Mr C's classwork seemed to be different from the practices of other educators, such as Mr A.
From what was observed, the learners were working collaboratively helping one another. The educator also facilitated while learners were solving problems. Classwork seemed to be effective in Mr C's class. He also used homework as an assessment instrument which helped learners. Like other educators, Mr C had a problem with marking homework. When the homework problems were discussed, the learners marked their work and did corrections.
Most learners do not like to do their homework. The learner respondents were asked about this:
Interviewer: How many of you do their homework honestly without copying from others?
Learner: Most of us do the Physical Science homework. Hmm...m, I can say about 70% of us do try.
The reasons is that we like Physical Science, and most of the learners respect our teacher (interview 28.8.2000)
Mr C was introducing projects, where learners make models. Some of these models are displayed on photograph 4, Appendix H . The educator was also involved in the Science Expo competition. Some of his learners were participating in the competition. These projects led to a good relationship between the educator. When they work on a project they work as a team, including the educator.
4.2.4 Case Study of School D
and gangsterism. During the political violence, the area was an ANC stronghold, and a "no go" area for the other political parties.
School D is a co-educational school, and has Grade 8 to Grade 12. The school is small, built to accommodate about 700 learners. However, there were 790 learners when the data was collected. The staff of 22 was made up of the Principal, Deputy Principal, 3 Heads of Department and 18 permanent educators. There were 6 non-teaching staff members, including an office clerk, a cleaner and 4 security guards. The security guards are employed by the school governing body. According to the principal, they sometimes have problems with people who steal the school property. That is the reason they employed many security guards. The matriculation pass rate and Physical Science pass rate are given in Table 4.4 below.
Table 4.4. Matriculation and Physical Science Pass Rates of School D Year
Matriculation
Physical Science learners
1997 35%
15%
1998 26%
28%
1999 22%
19%
2000 47%
40%
The school has 20 classrooms which are large enough to accommodate 50 learners. There are two offices, for the Principal and the Deputy Principal. The school does not have a hall, a library, a laboratory, and there is no sports field. According to the principal, the school has a shortage of text books. Stationary was bought by the parents. Only the Grade 12 learners were supplied with textbooks. The school has only one duplicating machine and one typewriter. There is no photocopier and no computer. The school has a telephone, and electricity in the offices only.
Ms D was a young educator between the age of 25 and 34 years, and she was single. She had a College Diploma, Secondary Teachers Diploma. She was studying a computer course when the data was collected. Ms D had 5 years experience and 5 years teaching Physical Science.
She was acting as a subject head and had a register class, Grade 11 "A". She had attended 5 inset courses during the period 1999 to 2000.
It seemed as if Ms D was not comfortable with being observed teaching, but initially she was willing to help. When I wanted to visit her, she kept canceling appointments. As a result she was only observed once. During the observation, she showed some resentment to being observed. At some stage, I had to correct her, when she linked by visit to the "Educator Appraisal Programme".
4.2.4.2 Ms D's Teaching Style
Ms D was observed teaching Grade 11. There were 43 learners, 20 boys and 23 girls, five learners were absent. According to Ms D, they had already finished the syllabus and they were busy with revision. The educator was intending to do revision by asking questions, however, she did not prepare a set of questions. She took a learners' notebook, she used the notes to ask questions. Her first question was:
Ms D: What is a vector?
(About five hands were up and she pointed to one boy).
Learner J: A vector quantity is a physical quantity which has a magnitude only.
Ms D: Correct yourself, it is the other way round.
Learner 1: Magnitude and direction.
Ms D: What is a scalar quantity?
Learner 2: A scalar quantity is a physical quantity which has a magnitude only.
(The learner is reading from his notebook The other learners are looking at their notebooks).
Ms D: Give me an example of a scalar quantity.
(The learners are not responding and the educator decided to continue).
Ms D: Examples are distance, time, mass etc.
Ms D: What is a distance?
Learner 3: A distance is the path actually travelled.
The educator continued asking lower order questions. These questions axe often asked to assess the recall of information. But in Ms D's case the questions did not serve that purpose because the learners were referring to their notebooks. They did not have to recall the information. It seemed as if the educator was highlighting important concepts to be internalized by learners for examination purposes. Some of these questions had appeared in a test written on the 15* March 2000. The following extract is taken from this test:
Physical Science Test No. 1 Grade 11 Question 1
Define the following terms and give one example where possible 1.1.1 Vector
1.1.2 Scalar
1.1.3 Displacement 1.1.4 Distance
1.1.5 Acceleration 3 x 5 = [ 15]
It was observed that during revision, the educator did not give adequate feedback. She allowed learners to guess, for example, the first learner did not know the difference between a vector and a scalar. It was also noticed that Ms D's class was not active. As this was a revision exercise, it was not unreasonable to expect a more interactive lesson or active participation of the learners.
Ms D took about 25 minutes asking questions, then she gave her learners some work to do.
The educator moved around facilitating and marking the work. As she moved from desk to desk she discovered that five boys were not doing their work because they had left the exercise books at home. The educator did not do anything about it, and the boys remained seated for the rest of the period. Ms D seemed to be a disciplinarian educator. However, that prevented her from creating a relaxed atmosphere.
4.2.4.3 Assessment of Learners
Ms D used a variety of assessment instruments: tests, assignments, classwork, homework and projects. The tests remained the most important assessment instrument for Ms D. All the test marks were recorded, and they contributed towards the promotion mark of the learner. The educator also recorded some of the classwork and few homeworks. The analysis of the test questions reveals that the questions were selected from the examples, classwork exercises and homeworks For example, in test 1 all the questions were taken from the learners notebooks, examples, classwork and homework. This means that a learner who could memorize the problems could get 100%. The implication is mat Ms D could not distinguish between a learner who understands the concepts and a learner who is able to internalize or memorize information.
CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS