South African Curriculum Research Articles

Specialised knowledge and everyday knowledge in old and new Grade 6 history textbooks

Abstract The post-democratic South African curriculum encourages integration between disciplines, and between disciplinary knowledge and everyday knowledge. This article uses the lens of integration of knowledge to interrogate two Standard 4 history textbooks published in the 1980s and two Grade 6 Social Science textbooks written for the new National Curriculum Statements during the last five years. Using Bernstein's concept of classification, the article describes the extent to which the textbooks represent knowledge as specialised to history or integrated in both substantive and procedural knowledge. Similar content in the chapter ‘History of medical science’ was analysed across all four texts. The findings indicate that the textbooks for the new curriculum contain reduced substantive history knowledge compared to the old textbooks. The new textbooks have a greater focus on inclusive history and on everyday knowledge. One of the implications of this integration is that the new textbooks do not develop a clear sense of narrative and chronology. In terms of procedural knowledge, very few activities require learners to develop historical skills but only generic skills such as comprehension.

The effectiveness of a course for helping educators cope with the demands of the IQMS

In 2004, the South African Education and Labour Relations Council announced that an agreement had been reached to integrate several existing programmes on quality management in education into a new programme entitled Integrated Quality Management System (IQMS) for School-based educators. In order to help educators in a particular Province of South Africa to cope with the demands of this programme, an Advanced Certificate in Education was instituted. The first cohort of teacher-students taking this particular ACE was subsequently subjected to an empirical survey intended to determine the effectiveness of the training. It was found that although the ACE was deemed to be generally helpful for meeting the IQMS requirements, it also failed in several respects. The survey also exposed several aspects of outcomes-based education with which school educators seem to be constantly struggling. Certain changes will have to be made to the ACE itself, but also to the current South African outcomes-based curriculum approach.

Evaluating risk awareness in undergraduate students studying mechanical engineering

This paper examines the development of risk awareness among undergraduate students studying mechanical engineering at a South African university. A questionnaire developed at the University of Liverpool was modified and used on students from the first, second and third year cohorts to assess their awareness in the areas of professional responsibility, risk assessment, techniques for reducing risk and potential exposure to hazards and risk in the workplace. Students performed best in hazard identification in the workplace. The student performance was similar in the first and second years, but a significant improvement was evident towards the end of the third year. This was attributed to the third year design curriculum, which formally covers certain aspects of risk awareness, including the ones showing improved performance. The results were compared to those obtained from the University of Liverpool – the UK students outperformed their South African counterparts. It is recommended that teaching interventions regarding health and safety be introduced earlier in the South African Mechanical Engineering curriculum to address this deficiency.

Spirituality in Social Work: A Survey of Students at South African Universities

Academic discourse related to spirituality has proliferated globally. The rationale for its inclusion in social work education rests on the premise that spirituality is a critical strength in social work practice. This paper explores this aspect and highlights empirical research related to the inclusion of spirituality in training. It does this within the context of a SA study that was undertaken to explore the views of students with regard to the role of religion and spirituality in practice and the extent to which South African curricula considers religion and spirituality. The research was conducted by distributing questionnaires to final year social work students at schools of social work (N = 21); 342 completed surveys were returned yielding a response of 47%. The findings revealed high levels of religiosity or spirituality amongst students, a gap in the curriculum on spirituality and support for its inclusion in social work education.

Exploring teachers' conceptions of the rainbow using an argumentation-based intervention

In pursuance of one of the goals of the new South African curriculum to integrate science with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), this study, which forms part of a larger study, is concerned with determining teachers' and learners' conceptions of a number of familiar natural phenomena. Several recent studies have indicated that: (1) learners do hold cultural beliefs which hinder them from learning the scientific way of interpreting natural phenomena; (2) argumentation is an effective instructional tool that teachers can use to enhance learners' understanding of such phenomena; and (3) argumentation helps to create necessary opportunities for learners to externalize their thoughts, clear their doubts or even change their minds about what they learn inside or outside the classroom. Specifically, this study used an Argumentation-Based Course (A-B Course), a pre-post-test questionnaire and structured individual interviews to explore conceptions of a number of selected phenomena (including the rainbow) that were held by a group of nine experienced science teachers. The findings show that the teachers' apparent scientific conceptions of the rainbow were in reality embedded within an amalgamation of scientific and IKS-based cosmological worldviews. The A-B course seemed to have made the teachers to become more favourably disposed to the teaching of IKS along school science. They were also enthusiastic about higher institutions including such a course in their teacher training programmes.

Education for democracy: Using the classroom community of inquiry to develop habits of reflective judgement in South African schools

This paper reports on an initiative to introduce, not the Philosophy for Children (P4C) programme itself, but its principles and some of its practices, into South African schools. The paper points out the conceptual links between P4C and the understanding of human development that underpins the new South African curriculum, and provides a brief review of the current context of education in South Africa. Thereafter it explains briefly why it was necessary to create new materials rather than simply using the original P4C stories and manuals. This is followed by a description of the new materials together with some illustrative extracts. Finally the paper gives an account of efforts to obtain empirical evidence regarding the impact of the materials and indicates possible future developments.

The role of visualisation in data handling in Grade 9 within a problem-centred context

In the recent past, data handling has been neglected at secondary school level, perhaps partially due to the strong emphasis on developing arithmetic, algebra and geometry. For the first time, the South African curriculum includes substantial amounts of data handling at all grade levels. The introduction of more data handling in the secondary school curriculum in South Africa and the prevalence of many problems in the teaching of probability and statistics argues for a serious reconsideration of the way it is taught to the pupils. Currently this concern has been the focus of a call for reform in mathematics education by a body like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) at all levels of schooling (NCTM, 1989; 2000). The importance of visualisation in mathematics, at all levels of mathematical problem solving is well documented in the literature (Bishop, 1989; Maher & Alston, 1989; Moses, 1982; Wheatley, 1991) but almost nothing was done to appreciate visualisation in the learning of data handling. The paper therefore provides a qualitative examination from a Masters dissertation (Makina, 2005) of the role of visualisation in the learning of data handling. This is done through examining the thought processes involved by Grade 9 learners during visualisation while solving data handling tasks. Several roles of visualisation were identified and most were found to improve the critical and creative thinking of pupils during their learning of data handling. The results show that learners are likely to improve their performance in data handling if the awareness of the need to use visualisation creatively as a tool for understanding are highlighted.

New courses for Trojan horses: rethinking RPL in a South African teacher education curriculum

This article reflects on some of the findings of a research project which investigated the practice of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) within a major national teacher upgrading project in South Africa – the National Professional Diploma in Education (NPDE). The article analyses the ways in which a range of contextual factors have positioned RPL within the NPDE curriculum. Rather than support evaluations of RPL in the NPDE which have argued that RPL should be prior to rather than within the curriculum, the article uses and critically examines a theorized typology which characterizes RPL as ‘credit-exchange’, ‘developmental’, ‘radical’ and/or ‘Trojan horse’ to show how RPL in the NPDE has combined elements of these approaches in a distinctive way. The article suggests that the ‘Trojan horse’ model may provide the best framework for the use of RPL in linking qualifications-led professional development of practising teachers with other forms of continuing professional development. In conclusion the article reflects on how Trojan horse RPL could be included in critical engagement with the new national framework for teacher education and professional development.

Generative use of computers: promoting critical outcomes of the South African curriculum

In this study we focus on the development of the critical outcomes of the South African National Curriculum Statement via a generative use of computers approach developed within a framework of learning as design, Csikszentmihalyi's notion of optimal flow and Activity Theory. The strategy aimed at introducing a sense of novelty, developing cooperation, providing a structure to analyse data and solve problems, as well as enabling learners to use technology. Data were generated via a questionnaire, interviews, learner journals, observational notes, learner artefacts and evaluation reports. These data suggest that the generative use of computers within a hypermedia project-based learning approach was successful in terms of helping to develop Grade 6 learners to be creative-critical-effective problem solvers, collaborators, responsible persons, collectors and analyzers of information, effective communicators and informed and skilled users of science and technology. Although not an explicit objective of the project, it became apparent that the learners had also developed a higher level of awareness of the notion of audience and significance of evidence during the course of the intervention. The dynamics of the strategy are considered in the light of Activity Theory as applied to ICT integrated classrooms.

Teachers\' practical rationality of mathematics teaching and policymaker rhetoric about mathematics as reasoning and mathematical relationships

This article reports on a comparison between, on the one hand, what is called the 'practical rationality of mathematics teaching' of a small selection of teachers in the Western Cape and, on the other, education policy statements on 'mathematics as reasoning' and 'mathematical relationships' in Mathematical Literacy, Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences - the mathematics component during the mid-1990s of the South African government's Curriculum 2005. The article is a theoretical and practical improvement on an original study, which compared contact points between the ways teachers speak and the ways policymakers write about school mathematics reform. The improvement is centred on a consideration of mathematics teaching as a practice and the way that teachers learn in such a practice. Conversations during interviews with the teachers in the sample indicate that Schon's notion of reflection-in-action is a key to understanding how teachers use their practical rationality as they try to understand nuanced meanings of the 'kind' of mathematics teaching with respect to policy statements on mathematics as reasoning and mathematical relationships. Results of the study have practical and theoretical implications for the education of teachers of mathematics.

Dialogue in mathematics classrooms: Beyond question-and- answer methods

This paper explores different kinds of interaction observed in South African mathematics classrooms in order to unpack the notion of participation in mathematics learning. It argues that conventional question-and-answer methods do not promote the kind of interaction that the new South African curriculum calls for. It presents more appropriate kinds of interactions, where teachers maintain high task demands, respond to genuine learner questions and support conversations among learners. The paper argues that combinations of different kinds of interaction are most likely to support learner participation and mathematical thinking in classrooms.

Teachers’ Stances and Practical Arguments Regarding a Science‐Indigenous Knowledge Curriculum: Part 1

The new South African curriculum known as Curriculum 2005 (to depict the year of its full implementation) requires that teachers integrate school science with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). Curriculum 2005 has generated heated debates at various levels since its inception in 1997. This study focuses on the effectiveness or otherwise of a Practical Argumentation Course (PAC) as an instructional tool for enhancing teachers’ understanding of, and ability to implement, a Science‐IKS curriculum. Data collected by questionnaires, video‐taped and audio‐taped interviews, and reflective essays were analysed in terms of a Practical Argumentation Framework developed for the purpose. The findings show that the PAC did enhance the teachers’ understanding as well as increase their awareness of the need to implement a Science‐IKS curriculum in their classrooms. Also, the PAC seemed to have made the teachers more sceptical of the notion that science is the only way of knowing or interpreting experience, or that IKS were based on superstitious beliefs. All the teachers recommended the need to include the PAC or similar courses in science teacher education programmes.

Concerns about the South African Mathematical Literacy curriculum arising from experience of materials development

In this paper we reflect on our experience of developing mathematical literacy material for the Further Education and Training (FET) band in South African schools, adult learners, university students and for participants in a youth development project. We use this experience to highlight some problems and concerns about the South African Mathematical Literacy curriculum for learners in the FET band and offer some cautions and suggestions. In particular we highlight the importance of the educational community in South Africa developing a shared understanding of what Mathematical Literacy is. We discuss the importance of distinguishing between Mathematics and Mathematical Literacy and of clarifying the role of Technology in Mathematical Literacy. We explore the difficulties and importance of a proper understanding of the contexts used to teach Mathematical Literacy and argue that more attention needs to be paid to the integration of Mathematical Literacy with other school subjects. Finally we raise some of the issues that a common final assessment task might have on the learning and teaching of Mathematical Literacy.

Developing Mathematical Literacy through project work: A teacher/teaching perspective

The implementation of the new Mathematical Literacy curriculum in South Africa is assuming several different conceptions of mathematics and therefore also being realised through a range of different pedagogies. In this paper I begin from a particular privileging of a critical perspective in mathematics education, which I argue is one (among others) of the forces shaping the new South African curriculum reforms, particularly the Mathematical Literacy curriculum. If so, then the case for a specific pedagogy, that of project work, can be shown to support the development of a mathematical literacy from a critical perspective. In this paper a particular set of conceptual tools, principles and practices associated with project work, as developed in the Scandanavian context but researched in South Africa, are elaborated from the perspective of teachers/teaching of mathematical literacy.

Teachers' preferred contexts for Mathematical Literacy as possible initiators for Mathematics for Action

The reasons provided by teachers for the contextual issues they would prefer and not for learners to deal with in Mathematical Literacy were analysed. This analysis rendered that teachers consider situations from the background of the learners and those that will not conflict with teachers' personal pedagogical ideologies as important contexts to be used in Mathematical Literacy. Issues from learners' background are intensely political and this leads to the wonderment whether the handling of such issues should remain at a level of awareness- making. To deal with this wonderment the notion of mathematics in action is extended to mathematics for action. It is concluded that teachers' preferred contexts to be used in Mathematical Literacy open the possibility for the inclusion of an action component which can contribute towards societal transformation as desired by the South African Mathematical Literacy curriculum.

Knowledge contents reflected in post-apartheid South African Physical Science curriculum documents

The study analyses the contents of the grade 10 Interim Physical Science curriculum document (1995) and the National Curriculum Statement for Physical Science (2004) to investigate changes in knowledges valued in the policies. Using a multi-dimensional theoretical approach the documents were analysed in terms of: philosophical underpinnings, instructional and regulative discourses; ideology; cognitive and socio-affective competences, and, complexity of competences. Findings suggest that the NCS on the whole reconceptualises valid science knowledge. A social-constructivist philosophy of knowledge and a hybrid ideology underpins the reform. Diverse forms of knowledge for diverse purposes are valued. The socio-political goals of the new democratic social order are emphasised. There is an increase in complex cognitive and socio-affective competences with meta-cognitive competences strongly present. The implications of the openness of the document to multiple interpretations in different socio-economic contexts, for social justice, are raised.

What does it mean to teach Mathematics for understanding? When to tell and when to listen

This article explores the question, ‘What does it mean to teach mathematics for understanding?’ in the context of the recent South African curriculum reforms. We report on lessons taught during an action research collaboration between Gerty, a female secondary mathematics teacher, and Satsope, a mathematics educator and first author of the article. We analyse detailed vignettes of three lessons from Gerty's Grade 9 mathematics teaching in a village school, focussing particularly on the problematic issue of the role of telling (and listening) in teaching and offer some observations about how understanding can be promoted in mathematics classrooms.

Programming in the real world

This article reports on a learning experience that was designed to investigate the extent to which a learning event would draw from both objectivist and constructivist traditions to provide learners with real-world projects so that they can construct their own programmes in collaboration with other individuals and develop new ideas for future systems. The study was done because the current South African curriculum for high school Computer Studies, in our opinion, is weak on higher order thinking skills. An experimental lesson was presented to high school learners, and monitored to determine the extent to which a learning experience could be designed using predominantly objectivist methods, but presented in a constructivist fashion. The evaluation showed that the lesson was successful. Learners scored better in their year-end results than previous years, and indicated that they enjoyed the real-world style. Using techniques developed for this lesson should help learners to do real world programming, and this would narrow the gap between school / university and the real world. Some recommendations for curriculum design emerge.

Learning material in compliance with the Revised National Curriculum Statement: A dilemma

This paper reports on the challenges confronting a developer of mathematics learning material according to the Revised National Curriculum Statement of South Africa. The material development is based on the approach to learning embodied in Realistic Mathematics Education in the Netherlands. It is a real challenge to realise the learning outcomes and assessment standards in the South African curriculum and simultaneously to explore learners’ informal strategies to come up with their ‘own’ solutions to practical problems and thus to experience mathematics as real, relevant and enjoyable.

Assessing the attainment of learner outcomes in Natural Science of the New South African Curriculum

The second phase of the Mpumalanga Secondary Science Initiative (MSSI) was launched in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa in 2003. The MSSI seeks to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics and science in all secondary schools in the province over a period of three years. To achieve this goal an in-service system has been developed. The long-term research of the MSSI is aimed at examining the effect of the intervention on the three science learning outcomes as defined by the new curriculum. Tests were developed to assess 10 learners in each of Grades 8 and 9 in 40 schools, representing a 6% sample. This paper reports on the methodology of the baseline assessments undertaken and the extent of learners' attainment levels in the three Natural Science outcomes. It then looks at the results in terms of learners' socio-economic backgrounds. Finally it discusses some of the dilemmas encountered in this research, such as the issue of validity in the light of possible misalignments between the instrument, practice and policy.