Thesis: TEACHERS' UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT OF LEARNER-CENTEREDNESS IN THE REVISED NATIONAL CURRICULUM STATEMENT: A CASE STUDY OF TWO DURBAN TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOLS. The purpose of the research was to investigate teachers' understanding of the concept of learner-centredness in the context of outcome-based education and the HNKV.
Curriculum Change in the General Education and Training Band
In short, the kind of learner envisioned is based on the kind of teacher envisioned to implement the learner-centered pedagogy in the. It is also not clear what teachers think and how they experience their new roles in educating the kind of learner envisioned in the classrooms. This case study aimed to investigate these issues in the two schools studied.
Focus and purpose of Inquiry
Therefore, this research was also motivated by the need to formulate a better way to understand learner-centered pedagogy and its practice. The research was an attempt to explore specific insights that teachers have about some of these assumptions and student-centered pedagogies, and how these might translate into classroom practice and outcomes.
Research Questions
This affects the conception of their roles and how they deal with pedagogical processes in classrooms. As such, they influence how they see their own roles as well as the roles of students in a teaching and learning situation.
Organisation of the Report
CHAPTER TWO
These principles are somewhat suggestive of the learner-centered pedagogy envisioned in the RNCS. Together, they are sensitive to the learner-centeredness of the RNCS and intrinsic to a pedagogy that aims to reveal the kind of learner that is intended. Thus, the focus of this study was the ways in which teachers in the two schools understand and use these differences in implementing the curriculum in general and its learner-centered pedagogy.
As mentioned earlier, one of the many roles of the type of teacher envisioned in the RNCS is to orchestrate a learner-centered pedagogy.
CHAPTER THREE
Interviews
Four semi-structured interviews were recorded with an average of approximately 37 minutes per respondent. These interviews were conducted in English using a one-on-one semi-structured interview method. According to Cohen and Manion (1994), the interviewer may use prompts to clarify topics and questions, while probing questions allow the interviewer to ask informants to expand and add to their answers; highlighting the richness, depth of response, comprehensiveness and reliability that characterize a successful interview. After completing the transcripts, I returned to the respondents with the intention of checking some parts of the transcripts with them.
Classroom Observation
Whereas, non-participant observation assumes that the researcher is not a member of the group under investigation. Paraphrasing Aaronsohn (1996) one of the realities of a high school culture is distance between teachers and not being sure what other teachers are doing. As a teacher in one of the schools participating in the study, this meant approaching the learning observations, in large part, as a non-participant observer.
I am therefore aware that it would be naive to think that the teacher's telling of the story was solely for the purpose of giving himself away. To maximize the credibility of the respondents' stories, I returned to them to correct their stories in the first transcription; and I observed the context in which schools operated and how social interactions worked in classrooms. As part of the case study, the design design was made more credible by selecting two respondents who shared the learning area in each of the high schools studied. In my opinion, there are four major design limitations of the study that actually stand out.
First, it is the number of cases studied in relation to the entire Durban teaching population and schools. In light of the sample of two schools and four teachers and approx. 300 students indirectly involved in this study, the findings and analysis presented in Chapter Four cannot be generalized to all schools and teachers, but can serve as a valuable 'test bed' (Robson, 1993) where the case study is appropriate. Second is the unavailability of appropriate and relevant research materials and appropriate studies to examine student-centered teaching experiences and roles.
CHAPTER FOUR
Learner-centredness as Group-oriented teaching and learning
For him, student-centered education meant "what is happening in the classroom, where students form groups" (Sipho, IVf.8). It can be seen that in the absence of conceptual clarity of cooperative learning strategies that are appropriate; and the growing complications of classroom teachers are mostly. His answer was that "when I appear in front of the students, I want every student in the class to understand me" (Sipho, IVf.9).
Proponents of student-centered teaching suggest that it is not in students' best interests to understand a teacher on the basis that he is "the authority" (Young, 1992) and a subject matter expert. Instead, it is in the best interest of the individual student to be understood by a teacher "in authority" (Young, 1992) who cares about the student's unmet needs and interests. The type of group work that reinforces learner-centeredness in the RNCS coincides with a method of group formation derived from Moreno's (1934) 'sociometry'.
In the next section, I look at the third developing understanding of learner-centredness in RNCS among the four teachers in this study. Implicit in the studies cited, as well as in the emergent understandings of respondents, is a view that teachers' subjective and fragmented notions of pedagogy as a set of activities that must be joined together to have an impact on the learner have been reinforced (Britzman, 1991). ). In the next section, I look at four developing understandings of learner-centeredness among the four teachers in this study.
Learner-centredness as learning that originates from the learner
In accordance with the social-transformative constructivist perspective of the research, I had to understand Bheki's experience in a wider context and in comparison with the experiences of other teachers in the school. So we try to get the students to acquire some skills, working in groups and investigating to enable them to acquire the content as stated in the old curriculum (Bheki, IVp.22). As external participants in the pre-implementation process, there is a third implication that individual teachers' subjective understanding of the concept of learner-centeredness in RNCS may limit the quality of the educational messages they can take from the counter-discourse.
In the next section, I present some of the teachers' experiences of trying and thinking about a learner-centered pedagogy in the context in which they teach. In the third and final category, Content as in the old syllabuses is identified as having the most importance in lesson planning. To justify his choice Bheki explains that "we still use the old program" (Bheki, NQ.13.l). My point here is that the internal environment of schools and the 'coalitions of teachers' (Watkins, et al., 1999) fighting back in defense of their long-reconstructed identities and roles are in large part formed the way teachers are acting, trying or avoiding the student. - pedagogy focused on schools.
It is therefore possible for an unlimited variety of learner-centred curriculum understandings to be organised, explained and probably many more in the Durban area and beyond. In the next section, I present some of the roles of teachers and students that were presented during lesson observations in this study. According to Young (1992), the above features are from a 'methods classroom'. In the 'methods classroom', the teacher's main role is to transfer knowledge to cover a set curriculum.
Conclusion
According to Sowell (2000), there are two main approaches to the curriculum process that teachers and practitioners often use, namely the technical approach and the non-technical approach. Those who support this view also hold a subjective interpretation (construction) of knowledge. From these differences it can therefore be deduced that in the cases studied, teachers use a. It is clear that teachers teach as they see fit in the context in which they operate.
According to the teachers' reasoning, this is because the guidelines and objectives for the pre-implementation process of the RNCS are not clear and the schools' curricula are not good. As suggestive as this finding is, it is not clear how the apparent three-way intersection acts as a conservative force in schools to reinforce unchanged curriculum. To conclude, two contextual areas that I believe have emphatically highlighted the findings in the contexts where leamer-centeredness in the RNCS was examined in this study should be noted.
These are: traditional teaching in the schools; and the collective reconstruction and misrecognition of the roles constructed for them to try out and implement the Revised Natural Curriculum Statement. Thus, a fundamental issue that the findings highlighted is that teachers cannot possibly understand learning-centeredness in the HNKV without the proper use of new curriculum materials; full use of new teaching approaches and comprehensive curriculum principles; and reconceptualizing their existing pedagogical beliefs and assumptions. This chapter presented the main findings of the study. In the next chapter, chapter five, the summary of findings is highlighted and its implications in terms of classroom organization and professional development are briefly discussed.
CHAPTER FIVE Discussion and Implications
Implications for further research
A number of issues and questions have been raised about the unfolded understanding of learner-centredness in the RNCS among the respondents. However, I must point out the value of further research to investigate the following: (1) The validity and reliability of the research instruments, to truly reflect the respondents' understandings, experiences and roles in organizing and avoiding student-centered pedagogy. These are some of the relevant research questions that deserve further attention as a result of the questions and issues raised in this study.
Gubrium and J.A. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research context and method. 1990).Classroom knowledge as a foundation for teaching. 2000). The Constructivist Landscape, In D.e.Phillip (Ed.), Constructivism in Education Opinions and Second Opinions on Controversial Issues. Teachers' understanding of the concept of learner-centredness in the Revised National Curriculum Statement: A case study of two Durban township high schools.
Research purpose and instruments used in the case study A research study to investigate teachers' understanding of the concept of learner-centredness in the Revised National Curriculum Statement, in Durban village secondary schools was conducted by MFEKA SlY ANDA , a Master of Education (Curriculum Studies). student at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Completing interview questions, questionnaire and observing a classroom lesson are the important aspects of the research study. Your answers are very important as they will help to describe the meaning of the concept of learner-centeredness in the RNCS under study.
There are five principles that characterize the leaner-centered attitude in the RNCS, these are: i) Results-oriented education; (ii) Social justice, a healthy environment, human rights and inclusivity; (iii). 12. When choosing content and lesson activity, consider the way your classroom is organized. 22.The sequence of content in your planned curriculum is largely determined by: (You may select more than one option).
