An approach to delivering sustainable teacher development in large science classes

Abstract

The research reported here is the first stage of monitoring the sustainability of the 'Teaching Science to Large Classes Project'. This project has been introducing teachers, in the Western Cape, South Africa, to paper and pencil 'Translation Activities' (TAs) as a strategy for learning science process skills within the new South African Outcomes Based Education curriculum. By January 2001, 24 sets of TAs complete with teachers' guidance notes had been produced and compiled into four Learning Area Programmes suitable for a complete year of work in the Senior Phase. Two thousand booklets of this resource were reproduced by the Western Cape Education Department and distributed to all primary and secondary schools during a series of training workshops. This paper reports, survey and interview data monitoring the uptake by teachers of this provision. The appropriateness of the intervention and modes of dissemination are discussed in the context of an evolutionary model of teacher development and in relation to future sustainability of the innovation.

How much curriculum change is appropriate? Defining a zone of feasible innovation

“…An outside consultant may be aware of possible strategies that are feasible in such a situation, and which might constitute components of an envisaged ZFI appropriate for such situations. For example, science educators at Kings College, London, have developed a series of "translation activities" which are designed to enable students to engage, to some extent at any rate, in science processes using only pencil and paper (Johnson, Scholtz, Hodges, & Botha, 2003). A typical activity might provide the results of an experiment in table form, and the students' task is to "translate" the data into graphical form and come to some kind of a conclusion.…”