Social Learning and Regenerative Sustainability: Unlocking value created in sustainability projects in higher education
- Authors: Royle, Carlene
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Social Learning South Africa Makhanda , Sustainability South Africa Makhanda , Education, Higher Social aspects South Africa Makhanda , Social accounting South Africa Makhanda , Education, Higher Activity programs South Africa Makhanda , Value creation , Agent (Philosophy) , Sustainable Development Goals
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/402981 , vital:69911
- Description: This qualitative study considers two bodies of theory, regenerative sustainability and social learning theory, within a tertiary education context. Universities offer unique opportunities, across both the formal and informal curriculum, that engage with the two-fold socioeconomic and environmental crises. The study explores both the promise of unlocking value in an ex-linear economy; and the healing and regenerative benefits in moving toward greener practices. Through an embedded case study at Rhodes University, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, this research explores the value that is being unlocked in campus-based sustainability projects, when considered through a social learning lens (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Invitations to participate in this study were extended to project-leads of sustainability initiatives originating from Rhodes University campus. Six projects, which have been active on campus in recent years, were selected and, through semi-structured interviews, the insights of 12 participants were captured and analysed using the associated Value Creation Framework (VCF) developed by Wenger, Trayner and De Laat (Wenger, Trayner, de Laat, 2011) and later Wenger-Trayner and Wenger Trayner (2014, 2015, 2020). The VCF consists of value cycles that interconnect dynamically, including Orientating, Strategic, Enabling, Immediate, Potential, Applied, Realised and Reframed or Transformative value cycles. The study identified instances of all these value cycles, within and across the six embedded case studies (project). Drawing on social learning theorists the analysis further focused on instances of collaboration, agency and boundary crossing. Additional themes that emerged across the majority of the embedded study projects, were a convergence of socio and eco; a whole-systems perspective shared by project leads; the importance of the social commons; language as an enabler; and problem solving for system change. A recommendation is proposed to further unlock the unbounded value created through such projects by reframing the informal curriculum opportunities offered on university campuses as social learning spaces where students can practice agency. To do so, would require formalizing various forms of system support, thus facilitating expanded learning in regenerative sustainability activities, for the common social and planetary good. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
- Authors: Royle, Carlene
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Social Learning South Africa Makhanda , Sustainability South Africa Makhanda , Education, Higher Social aspects South Africa Makhanda , Social accounting South Africa Makhanda , Education, Higher Activity programs South Africa Makhanda , Value creation , Agent (Philosophy) , Sustainable Development Goals
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/402981 , vital:69911
- Description: This qualitative study considers two bodies of theory, regenerative sustainability and social learning theory, within a tertiary education context. Universities offer unique opportunities, across both the formal and informal curriculum, that engage with the two-fold socioeconomic and environmental crises. The study explores both the promise of unlocking value in an ex-linear economy; and the healing and regenerative benefits in moving toward greener practices. Through an embedded case study at Rhodes University, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, this research explores the value that is being unlocked in campus-based sustainability projects, when considered through a social learning lens (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Invitations to participate in this study were extended to project-leads of sustainability initiatives originating from Rhodes University campus. Six projects, which have been active on campus in recent years, were selected and, through semi-structured interviews, the insights of 12 participants were captured and analysed using the associated Value Creation Framework (VCF) developed by Wenger, Trayner and De Laat (Wenger, Trayner, de Laat, 2011) and later Wenger-Trayner and Wenger Trayner (2014, 2015, 2020). The VCF consists of value cycles that interconnect dynamically, including Orientating, Strategic, Enabling, Immediate, Potential, Applied, Realised and Reframed or Transformative value cycles. The study identified instances of all these value cycles, within and across the six embedded case studies (project). Drawing on social learning theorists the analysis further focused on instances of collaboration, agency and boundary crossing. Additional themes that emerged across the majority of the embedded study projects, were a convergence of socio and eco; a whole-systems perspective shared by project leads; the importance of the social commons; language as an enabler; and problem solving for system change. A recommendation is proposed to further unlock the unbounded value created through such projects by reframing the informal curriculum opportunities offered on university campuses as social learning spaces where students can practice agency. To do so, would require formalizing various forms of system support, thus facilitating expanded learning in regenerative sustainability activities, for the common social and planetary good. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
Application of systems theory for analysing the sustainability foci and practices of the Faculty of Economics and Information Technology Systems: (A Case Study of Walter Sisulu University: Komani campus)
- Authors: Klishi, Konwaba Bomikazi
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Sustainable development Study and teaching (Higher) South Africa Mthatha , System theory , Curriculum evaluation South Africa Mthatha , Community engagement , Walter Sisulu University for Technology and Science
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405281 , vital:70157
- Description: Sustainable development is a global concern that intertwines several factors, including poverty, biodiversity, inequality, water, and energy. This interconnection does not only affect the current generation but may have long term implications for future generations as we see the rapid spread of environmental risk in our local communities. In this study, systems theory was adapted for analysing the sustainability focus of the Faculty of Economics and Information Technology Systems (FEITS) at Walter Sisulu University. A qualitative research method was used during this research, and data collected from a purposive sample of staff, activities and documentation. In this study, Von Bertalanffy’s systems theory is applied to analyse the sustainability foci and practices of the FEITS. The study describes sustainability practices and concerns that emerge from research activities, community engagement activities and work-integrated learning. The theory is also used to analyse the connection between various subsystems of the faculty when addressing emerging local sustainability concerns. Education for sustainable development is an important aspect of this study as it considers the sustainability concerns in the curriculum from the perspective of current and future alternatives for the economy and socio-ecological aspects of communities. The following findings have emerged from the study: Contextual realities related to inequality were foci of discussion and concern in various qualifications. Socioecological issues and risks were found to be related to water and sanitation, food security and climate change. Sustainability discourse is related to health and wellbeing, peace, and security. There is an alignment of green skills to the curriculum of the faculty and pedagogical practices which relate to sustainability. The faculty participates in stakeholder platforms to respond local sustainability challenges and is developing courses in response to local development needs. This study has implications for the faculty’s curriculum in terms of the content of various qualifications, future research, and community engagement activities of the university. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Klishi, Konwaba Bomikazi
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Sustainable development Study and teaching (Higher) South Africa Mthatha , System theory , Curriculum evaluation South Africa Mthatha , Community engagement , Walter Sisulu University for Technology and Science
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405281 , vital:70157
- Description: Sustainable development is a global concern that intertwines several factors, including poverty, biodiversity, inequality, water, and energy. This interconnection does not only affect the current generation but may have long term implications for future generations as we see the rapid spread of environmental risk in our local communities. In this study, systems theory was adapted for analysing the sustainability focus of the Faculty of Economics and Information Technology Systems (FEITS) at Walter Sisulu University. A qualitative research method was used during this research, and data collected from a purposive sample of staff, activities and documentation. In this study, Von Bertalanffy’s systems theory is applied to analyse the sustainability foci and practices of the FEITS. The study describes sustainability practices and concerns that emerge from research activities, community engagement activities and work-integrated learning. The theory is also used to analyse the connection between various subsystems of the faculty when addressing emerging local sustainability concerns. Education for sustainable development is an important aspect of this study as it considers the sustainability concerns in the curriculum from the perspective of current and future alternatives for the economy and socio-ecological aspects of communities. The following findings have emerged from the study: Contextual realities related to inequality were foci of discussion and concern in various qualifications. Socioecological issues and risks were found to be related to water and sanitation, food security and climate change. Sustainability discourse is related to health and wellbeing, peace, and security. There is an alignment of green skills to the curriculum of the faculty and pedagogical practices which relate to sustainability. The faculty participates in stakeholder platforms to respond local sustainability challenges and is developing courses in response to local development needs. This study has implications for the faculty’s curriculum in terms of the content of various qualifications, future research, and community engagement activities of the university. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
Towards the Common Good: An expansive post-abyssal (Re)stor(y)ing of the epistemic cultures of the citizen sciences
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Science Citizen participation , Decolonization , Social epistemology , Hegemony , Common good , Traditional ecological knowledge , Ethnoscience
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290671 , vital:56773 , DOI 10.21504/10962/290671
- Description: In this study I explore and explain transformatiThe citizen sciences convene complex and reflexive ecologies of knowledges in response to a range of social-ecological risks. Their epistemic cultures seem to be assembled in ways which increase potential mobilisation of the common knowledges being produced, thereby producing knowledges in forms that are more strongly aligned with a range of implementation strategies. However, much of such processes of knowledge production have been ‘cleaned out’ of official accounts through scientifically hegemonic systems of legitimation, deepening hegemonically-entrenched systems of epistemic, contributory and distributive injustices, and undermining the potential for stronger enactments of participatory and radical democracies. The engagement of sociologies of absences and emergences in this study evidence these epistemic insights, thereby evidencing an expansive post-abyssal (re)stor(y)ing of the citizen sciences. Through this research, I consider knowledge production as ‘commoning', towards the constitution of the common good. To date, most accounts of knowledge production within citizen science projects primarily focus on scientific processes of knowledge production and legitimation. Such accounts neglect the ecologies of diverse knowledges through which knowledge is being collaboratively produced, the forms of learning that occur, or the ways in which such ecologies are mobilised in response to specific socialecological risks. To better understand the ways in which citizen science projects build risk-responsive common knowledge, I bring a focus to the diversity of epistemic cultures convened, speaking to this gap. My primary research question is: How do the epistemic cultures within citizen science projects enable commoning in response to social-ecological risk? To begin, I establish a particular vantage point from which the remainder of the thesis is launched, one which centres as the primary interest of knowledge production, an interest in social-ecological justice and the constitution of the common good. From this vantage point, knowledge co-production and learning can be viewed as acts of commoning, which themselves constitute common goods. I draw on the work of Karin Knorr Cetina to conceptualise and frame notions of epistemic cultures and their epistemic features. Expanding notions of epistemic cultures from a post-abyssal perspective, I draw on the work of Bruno Latour and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Latour’s distinctions between the production of ‘matters of fact’ and ‘matters of concern’ provide a way to challenge hegemonic systems of scientific knowledge production, while preserving the potential emergence of multiplicity in the context of evolving risk, thereby enabling a greater degree of situated reflexivity. Santos argues for the reclamation of all ways of knowing, including but not limited to scientific ways of knowing the world. He argues that other forms of knowledge are produced as nonexistent, and that they might be reclaimed through engaging sociologies of absences and emergences. Both authors enable a stronger analysis of knowledge production in terms of its ability to intervene into context in response to manifest risks. These three theoretical approaches are convened into an analytical framework for the study. To enact sociologies of absences and emergences, I engage two forms of immanent critique, complemented by an epistemic mapping of 50 South African citizen science projects, and an analysis of three illustrative case studies. The first critique is one of produced nonexistence, through which I consider three aspects of the general knowledge cultures within which the epistemic cultures of citizen science projects are situated. This critique makes evident the ways in which the ontological and related conceptual structures of hegemonic scientific knowledge production actively produce as nonexistent, other onto-epistemic contributions to knowledge production in response to social-ecological risks. The second critique reviews the field of peer-reviewed literature through a reading of presence and absence, with a focus on the articulation of epistemic cultures. Predictably, a key finding is that this form of scientific reporting primarily foregrounds legitimated scientifically processed knowledge, while once again producing as nonexistent, other forms of knowledges. However, there is evidence of increasing accounts of citizen science which recognise both a diversity of knowledge contributions, and epistemic, contributory and distributive justice issues as regards hegemonic forms of reporting. The epistemic mapping evidences a highly diversified field of citizen sciences, whose epistemic cultures are convened to produce distinct forms of scientifically-informed knowledges in response to diverse contexts, scales and notions of risk. The three illustrative case studies engage sociologies of absences and emergences, with particular focus on articulating the ecologies of knowledges evidenced in project documentation, including both official and unofficial accounts of epistemic activity. This analysis highlights the significant contributions of diverse forms of knowledges, including scientific, situated, embodied, governance, indigenous, spiritual and relational knowledges, and the ways in which these knowledge are convened to respond to specific configurations of risk. It once again highlights issues of epistemic, contributory and distributive justice, and makes evident the need for stronger integrity in processes of producing and reporting common knowledges. The case studies also illustrate the increased effectiveness of leveraging an ecology of knowledges (in contrast to a monoculture of scientific knowledge) in response to situated risks, including how such ecologies have a tendency to be generative and enable multiple forms of intervention into structures and applied contexts of intervention. In response to the collective research findings, a think-piece on rigour-as-integrity is offered as a contribution to commoning, in response to social-ecological risk. The piece draws together a postabyssal system of rigour intended to strengthen knowledge production in ways which actively centre forms of justice and commoning. ve potential in arts-based environmental learning with a focus on water pedagogy. The study took place over a period of four years, where approximately 40 school pupils between the ages of 10 and 17 years-old were engaged in participatory arts-based inquiries into water located across unequal neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. Educators, school learners, citizens and decision-makers hold different historical, cultural, political and spiritual perspectives on water. These play a role in shaping what is termed in this research the ‘hydro-social cycle’. Yet, due to dominant ideas of what counts as knowing and truth, educators in educational settings struggle to account for the complexity of water, limiting educational encounters to a partial knowing leading mostly to limited unimaginative framings of problems and solutions. My focus on transformative potential in learning is derived from a concern for how environmental education encounters and the sense-making they enable, are infused by socio-economic, political, and historical elements, specifically colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacist racism. The connections between the multiple layers of capitalist crisis and the ever-urgent environmental crisis are not adequately made in mainstream forms of water education. The research explores how arts-based pedagogy could enable a productive meeting of critical environmental education with ecological literacies. Within this positioning, transformative potential considers how educational engagements position questions about water within the social life of participants/learners and inform learning that leads to fuller and more nuanced greater knowledge. Theoretically, I work with an interrogation of critical education theory, underlaboured by critical realism which enabled me to rigorously consider how claims to knowing are shaped by their accompanying assumptions of what is real. Drawing on recent debates in critical education theory, I resist the notion of critique as ideology and engage instead in the craftsmanship of contextual and responsive inquiry practice. This has enabled me to articulate processes and relationships in water education encounters with meaningful understandings of the effects of simultaneous crises rooted in racial capitalism and environmental crisis. My methodological approach is arts-based educational research with a directive to reflect upon educational encounters in an integrated way. It includes two parts informing the facilitation and analysis of open-ended learning processes. One component was arts-based inquiry practice developed for exploring complexity, drawing on the thinking of Norris (2009, 2011) and Finley (2016, 2017). The second part holds reflective space for these encounters guided by the practice of pedagogical narration inspired by the Reggio Amelia approach, demonstrated by Pacini-Ketchabaw, Nxumalo, Kocher, Elliot and Sanchez (2014). Clarifying the intellectual work of a responsive educator-researcher, pedagogical narration brings multiple theoretical lenses into conversation with emergent dimensions of educational process. In practice, in order to transgress the dominance of colonial white supremacist knowledge frames of water, I needed to be curious, to be confounded, to expect the unexpected in the educational encounters with participants and this mirroring of practice was emulated by the participants as they followed their own questions about water in Mzansi (South Africa). In our work together we came up against assumptions we had previously not questioned as individuals. Together we explored the implications of this by, for example, questioning who is responsible for saving water. These explorations required bringing together science knowledge and everyday knowledge at multiple scales: the household, catchment, government and global. It required us to be critical of how language and images are mobilized in public communication and school curriculums; for example, representations of water are infused with history and power in a way that impacts how we know and teach about water. The transformative potential of this pedagogical space is generated through acts of creative expression which are seen as acts of absenting absence, for example exhibiting through play how water use in the household interconnects with gender and age relationships. As such, creative expression through multiple mediums or more-than-text enables a deeper understanding of water as well as openings for interdisciplinary engagement with learning about water. My research found that in bringing together the contributions of critical education and environmental education in practice, two shifts are needed: environmental educators need to view ecological literacy as inseparable from the social and political. The knowledge that is shared about water in the classroom has social and political implications. On the other hand, critical educators need to better locate justice concerns in the material and ecological world at scale. Arts-based inquiry, as a kind of scaffolding for pedagogical process, has the potential to enable these shifts by opening up fixed analytical frames. Making these shifts requires a reflective practice on the part of the educator to navigate the inherited blind spots in environmental learning and critical education, such as dualities. One way to do this is for the educator to identify absences, as articulated in the Critical Realist tradition, and consider how these absences might be absented. This differs from a simplistic process of critique in the possibilities it opens up for collaboration between different schools of thought rather than further polarisation and alienation between educators and knowledge keepers on social ecologies. These insights have relevance for many sites of environmental education practice, such as natural science lecturers, school teachers or community activists. It is knowledge-learning work emergent from and responsive to complex ecological crisis, which requires everyone to rethink and open up to new ways of being, seeing and doing around these issues. The transformative potential of this work is that the thinking and transforming at all scales can be catalysed and grounded through the arts based educational encounters with the participants. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya
- Date: 2022-04-08
- Subjects: Science Citizen participation , Decolonization , Social epistemology , Hegemony , Common good , Traditional ecological knowledge , Ethnoscience
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/290671 , vital:56773 , DOI 10.21504/10962/290671
- Description: In this study I explore and explain transformatiThe citizen sciences convene complex and reflexive ecologies of knowledges in response to a range of social-ecological risks. Their epistemic cultures seem to be assembled in ways which increase potential mobilisation of the common knowledges being produced, thereby producing knowledges in forms that are more strongly aligned with a range of implementation strategies. However, much of such processes of knowledge production have been ‘cleaned out’ of official accounts through scientifically hegemonic systems of legitimation, deepening hegemonically-entrenched systems of epistemic, contributory and distributive injustices, and undermining the potential for stronger enactments of participatory and radical democracies. The engagement of sociologies of absences and emergences in this study evidence these epistemic insights, thereby evidencing an expansive post-abyssal (re)stor(y)ing of the citizen sciences. Through this research, I consider knowledge production as ‘commoning', towards the constitution of the common good. To date, most accounts of knowledge production within citizen science projects primarily focus on scientific processes of knowledge production and legitimation. Such accounts neglect the ecologies of diverse knowledges through which knowledge is being collaboratively produced, the forms of learning that occur, or the ways in which such ecologies are mobilised in response to specific socialecological risks. To better understand the ways in which citizen science projects build risk-responsive common knowledge, I bring a focus to the diversity of epistemic cultures convened, speaking to this gap. My primary research question is: How do the epistemic cultures within citizen science projects enable commoning in response to social-ecological risk? To begin, I establish a particular vantage point from which the remainder of the thesis is launched, one which centres as the primary interest of knowledge production, an interest in social-ecological justice and the constitution of the common good. From this vantage point, knowledge co-production and learning can be viewed as acts of commoning, which themselves constitute common goods. I draw on the work of Karin Knorr Cetina to conceptualise and frame notions of epistemic cultures and their epistemic features. Expanding notions of epistemic cultures from a post-abyssal perspective, I draw on the work of Bruno Latour and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. Latour’s distinctions between the production of ‘matters of fact’ and ‘matters of concern’ provide a way to challenge hegemonic systems of scientific knowledge production, while preserving the potential emergence of multiplicity in the context of evolving risk, thereby enabling a greater degree of situated reflexivity. Santos argues for the reclamation of all ways of knowing, including but not limited to scientific ways of knowing the world. He argues that other forms of knowledge are produced as nonexistent, and that they might be reclaimed through engaging sociologies of absences and emergences. Both authors enable a stronger analysis of knowledge production in terms of its ability to intervene into context in response to manifest risks. These three theoretical approaches are convened into an analytical framework for the study. To enact sociologies of absences and emergences, I engage two forms of immanent critique, complemented by an epistemic mapping of 50 South African citizen science projects, and an analysis of three illustrative case studies. The first critique is one of produced nonexistence, through which I consider three aspects of the general knowledge cultures within which the epistemic cultures of citizen science projects are situated. This critique makes evident the ways in which the ontological and related conceptual structures of hegemonic scientific knowledge production actively produce as nonexistent, other onto-epistemic contributions to knowledge production in response to social-ecological risks. The second critique reviews the field of peer-reviewed literature through a reading of presence and absence, with a focus on the articulation of epistemic cultures. Predictably, a key finding is that this form of scientific reporting primarily foregrounds legitimated scientifically processed knowledge, while once again producing as nonexistent, other forms of knowledges. However, there is evidence of increasing accounts of citizen science which recognise both a diversity of knowledge contributions, and epistemic, contributory and distributive justice issues as regards hegemonic forms of reporting. The epistemic mapping evidences a highly diversified field of citizen sciences, whose epistemic cultures are convened to produce distinct forms of scientifically-informed knowledges in response to diverse contexts, scales and notions of risk. The three illustrative case studies engage sociologies of absences and emergences, with particular focus on articulating the ecologies of knowledges evidenced in project documentation, including both official and unofficial accounts of epistemic activity. This analysis highlights the significant contributions of diverse forms of knowledges, including scientific, situated, embodied, governance, indigenous, spiritual and relational knowledges, and the ways in which these knowledge are convened to respond to specific configurations of risk. It once again highlights issues of epistemic, contributory and distributive justice, and makes evident the need for stronger integrity in processes of producing and reporting common knowledges. The case studies also illustrate the increased effectiveness of leveraging an ecology of knowledges (in contrast to a monoculture of scientific knowledge) in response to situated risks, including how such ecologies have a tendency to be generative and enable multiple forms of intervention into structures and applied contexts of intervention. In response to the collective research findings, a think-piece on rigour-as-integrity is offered as a contribution to commoning, in response to social-ecological risk. The piece draws together a postabyssal system of rigour intended to strengthen knowledge production in ways which actively centre forms of justice and commoning. ve potential in arts-based environmental learning with a focus on water pedagogy. The study took place over a period of four years, where approximately 40 school pupils between the ages of 10 and 17 years-old were engaged in participatory arts-based inquiries into water located across unequal neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. Educators, school learners, citizens and decision-makers hold different historical, cultural, political and spiritual perspectives on water. These play a role in shaping what is termed in this research the ‘hydro-social cycle’. Yet, due to dominant ideas of what counts as knowing and truth, educators in educational settings struggle to account for the complexity of water, limiting educational encounters to a partial knowing leading mostly to limited unimaginative framings of problems and solutions. My focus on transformative potential in learning is derived from a concern for how environmental education encounters and the sense-making they enable, are infused by socio-economic, political, and historical elements, specifically colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacist racism. The connections between the multiple layers of capitalist crisis and the ever-urgent environmental crisis are not adequately made in mainstream forms of water education. The research explores how arts-based pedagogy could enable a productive meeting of critical environmental education with ecological literacies. Within this positioning, transformative potential considers how educational engagements position questions about water within the social life of participants/learners and inform learning that leads to fuller and more nuanced greater knowledge. Theoretically, I work with an interrogation of critical education theory, underlaboured by critical realism which enabled me to rigorously consider how claims to knowing are shaped by their accompanying assumptions of what is real. Drawing on recent debates in critical education theory, I resist the notion of critique as ideology and engage instead in the craftsmanship of contextual and responsive inquiry practice. This has enabled me to articulate processes and relationships in water education encounters with meaningful understandings of the effects of simultaneous crises rooted in racial capitalism and environmental crisis. My methodological approach is arts-based educational research with a directive to reflect upon educational encounters in an integrated way. It includes two parts informing the facilitation and analysis of open-ended learning processes. One component was arts-based inquiry practice developed for exploring complexity, drawing on the thinking of Norris (2009, 2011) and Finley (2016, 2017). The second part holds reflective space for these encounters guided by the practice of pedagogical narration inspired by the Reggio Amelia approach, demonstrated by Pacini-Ketchabaw, Nxumalo, Kocher, Elliot and Sanchez (2014). Clarifying the intellectual work of a responsive educator-researcher, pedagogical narration brings multiple theoretical lenses into conversation with emergent dimensions of educational process. In practice, in order to transgress the dominance of colonial white supremacist knowledge frames of water, I needed to be curious, to be confounded, to expect the unexpected in the educational encounters with participants and this mirroring of practice was emulated by the participants as they followed their own questions about water in Mzansi (South Africa). In our work together we came up against assumptions we had previously not questioned as individuals. Together we explored the implications of this by, for example, questioning who is responsible for saving water. These explorations required bringing together science knowledge and everyday knowledge at multiple scales: the household, catchment, government and global. It required us to be critical of how language and images are mobilized in public communication and school curriculums; for example, representations of water are infused with history and power in a way that impacts how we know and teach about water. The transformative potential of this pedagogical space is generated through acts of creative expression which are seen as acts of absenting absence, for example exhibiting through play how water use in the household interconnects with gender and age relationships. As such, creative expression through multiple mediums or more-than-text enables a deeper understanding of water as well as openings for interdisciplinary engagement with learning about water. My research found that in bringing together the contributions of critical education and environmental education in practice, two shifts are needed: environmental educators need to view ecological literacy as inseparable from the social and political. The knowledge that is shared about water in the classroom has social and political implications. On the other hand, critical educators need to better locate justice concerns in the material and ecological world at scale. Arts-based inquiry, as a kind of scaffolding for pedagogical process, has the potential to enable these shifts by opening up fixed analytical frames. Making these shifts requires a reflective practice on the part of the educator to navigate the inherited blind spots in environmental learning and critical education, such as dualities. One way to do this is for the educator to identify absences, as articulated in the Critical Realist tradition, and consider how these absences might be absented. This differs from a simplistic process of critique in the possibilities it opens up for collaboration between different schools of thought rather than further polarisation and alienation between educators and knowledge keepers on social ecologies. These insights have relevance for many sites of environmental education practice, such as natural science lecturers, school teachers or community activists. It is knowledge-learning work emergent from and responsive to complex ecological crisis, which requires everyone to rethink and open up to new ways of being, seeing and doing around these issues. The transformative potential of this work is that the thinking and transforming at all scales can be catalysed and grounded through the arts based educational encounters with the participants. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04-08
A sustainability practices educational intervention in response to environmental matters of concern amongst Makhanda youth
- Authors: Musiyiwa, Fungayi Lona
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Sustainable living South Africa Makhanda , Social learning South Africa Makhanda , Eco clubs South Africa Makhanda , Environmental education Activity programs South Africa Makhanda , Youth in development South Africa Makhanda , Youth Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/188364 , vital:44747
- Description: This study responded to urbanisation as one of the challenges affecting youths’ lifestyles in this century. Children and youth around the world are living in overpopulated, polluted and unsafe environments which fail to produce opportunities for learning, play and recreation (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2017). This study explored these issues in the context of Makhanda with an intervention to engage youth in sustainability practices, to help them to strengthen sustainable lifestyles. The participants in this research were members of two eco-clubs from two schools in Makhanda ranging in age from 12-14 years (primary school) and 15-17 years (high school). The study explored how learning processes within a club intervention contributed to the well- being of participating youth and their capacity to live sustainable and fulfilling lives. The research explored (with participants) eight themes as matters of concern namely, ‘education’, ‘home-life’, ‘energy use’, ‘mobility’, ‘leisure and communication’, ‘waste’, ‘water’ and ‘food’. Detailed case narratives exploring Wals’ social learning stages were used to explore the themes. These themes were explored through photo narratives of the youths’ lives and matters of concern in sustainability issues, risks and practices emanating from the Makhanda context. The pedagogical framework for the intervention was guided by Wals’ social learning framework for mobilizing sustainability practices. Social learning interaction took place through all the stages of the framework and the challenges and potentials of the educational intervention were explored in relation to each stage. From the six themes suggested above the youth chose food and water as themes to take forward as a response project. The project pursued was a vegetable garden in which the youth were actively engaged in order to seek and try out sustainable ways of living. An interpretive approach was used within the interpretive paradigm. Qualitative data were generated through focus group discussions, observations, individual interviews and document analysis. Practice architectures theory was used analytically to explore the dynamics of the emergent sustainability practices initiated by the eco-club youth. I used it as a change method and a tool for initiating social learning actions for ‘sustainability practices’ projects. The study indicated that the youth’s key challenges affecting sustainability of their lifestyles are: lack of access to basic infrastructure, recreational facilities, electricity supply, transport, security and water. In this study, it was clear that much of the youth’s involvement in these matters of concern and sustainability issues was at the level of participating in the six themes through Wals’ social learning processes. This allowed youths to develop their knowledge and skills on how to participate in the gardening project rather than simply focusing on the environmental matters of concern in question. The Handprint Resource Books have been designed for educators who are looking for practical ideas to work with in the learning areas of the National Curriculum. The focus is on sustainability practices that can be taken up within the perspective that each learning area brings to environment and sustainability concerns. The use of the Handprint Resource Books promoted active youth participation and interaction encouraging youth to be reflective thinkers, which led to understanding of the issues and the sustainability practices that emerged during the discussions. The Handprint Resource Books focused on sustainability practices within the learning area of environment and sustainability concerns. Due to her facilitation skills, an environmental expert’s presentation on a sustainability topic enabled youths to select the intended project. The involvement of youth in the implementation of the vegetable garden as a sustainability practice empowered youth to be more confident in engaging in a collective action for change as they developed the capability to share and start their own vegetable gardens at their homes. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Environmental Learning Research Centre, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
- Authors: Musiyiwa, Fungayi Lona
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Sustainable living South Africa Makhanda , Social learning South Africa Makhanda , Eco clubs South Africa Makhanda , Environmental education Activity programs South Africa Makhanda , Youth in development South Africa Makhanda , Youth Social conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/188364 , vital:44747
- Description: This study responded to urbanisation as one of the challenges affecting youths’ lifestyles in this century. Children and youth around the world are living in overpopulated, polluted and unsafe environments which fail to produce opportunities for learning, play and recreation (World Health Organisation [WHO], 2017). This study explored these issues in the context of Makhanda with an intervention to engage youth in sustainability practices, to help them to strengthen sustainable lifestyles. The participants in this research were members of two eco-clubs from two schools in Makhanda ranging in age from 12-14 years (primary school) and 15-17 years (high school). The study explored how learning processes within a club intervention contributed to the well- being of participating youth and their capacity to live sustainable and fulfilling lives. The research explored (with participants) eight themes as matters of concern namely, ‘education’, ‘home-life’, ‘energy use’, ‘mobility’, ‘leisure and communication’, ‘waste’, ‘water’ and ‘food’. Detailed case narratives exploring Wals’ social learning stages were used to explore the themes. These themes were explored through photo narratives of the youths’ lives and matters of concern in sustainability issues, risks and practices emanating from the Makhanda context. The pedagogical framework for the intervention was guided by Wals’ social learning framework for mobilizing sustainability practices. Social learning interaction took place through all the stages of the framework and the challenges and potentials of the educational intervention were explored in relation to each stage. From the six themes suggested above the youth chose food and water as themes to take forward as a response project. The project pursued was a vegetable garden in which the youth were actively engaged in order to seek and try out sustainable ways of living. An interpretive approach was used within the interpretive paradigm. Qualitative data were generated through focus group discussions, observations, individual interviews and document analysis. Practice architectures theory was used analytically to explore the dynamics of the emergent sustainability practices initiated by the eco-club youth. I used it as a change method and a tool for initiating social learning actions for ‘sustainability practices’ projects. The study indicated that the youth’s key challenges affecting sustainability of their lifestyles are: lack of access to basic infrastructure, recreational facilities, electricity supply, transport, security and water. In this study, it was clear that much of the youth’s involvement in these matters of concern and sustainability issues was at the level of participating in the six themes through Wals’ social learning processes. This allowed youths to develop their knowledge and skills on how to participate in the gardening project rather than simply focusing on the environmental matters of concern in question. The Handprint Resource Books have been designed for educators who are looking for practical ideas to work with in the learning areas of the National Curriculum. The focus is on sustainability practices that can be taken up within the perspective that each learning area brings to environment and sustainability concerns. The use of the Handprint Resource Books promoted active youth participation and interaction encouraging youth to be reflective thinkers, which led to understanding of the issues and the sustainability practices that emerged during the discussions. The Handprint Resource Books focused on sustainability practices within the learning area of environment and sustainability concerns. Due to her facilitation skills, an environmental expert’s presentation on a sustainability topic enabled youths to select the intended project. The involvement of youth in the implementation of the vegetable garden as a sustainability practice empowered youth to be more confident in engaging in a collective action for change as they developed the capability to share and start their own vegetable gardens at their homes. , Thesis (MEd) -- Faculty of Education, Environmental Learning Research Centre, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
An exploration of formative assessment in primary school Natural Sciences classrooms
- Authors: Mgoqi, Nomvuyo
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Education, Elementary -- South Africa , Science -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa , Competency-based education -- South Africa , Curriculum-based education -- South Africa , Science teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124167 , vital:35572
- Description: This research investigated formative assessment in primary school Natural Sciences classrooms. The intention was to explore how teachers use formative assessment strategies to raise classroom standards and to foster higher order cognitive development of learners. My interest in the study was influenced by constant poor achievement of South African learners in literacy and specifically in scientific literacy reported in various international and national benchmark tests. Vygotskian theory of the zone of proximal development was used to provide critical insight into formative assessment processes. Further theoretical lenses included Wylie and Lyons’ (2013) ‘Ten dimensions of formative assessment’ work for reviewing formative assessment strategies and Dalton’s (2003) ‘New Bloom’s Taxonomy’ for insight into cognitive development in classroom contexts. Influenced by the above mentioned reports, a qualitative case study of seven primary school teachers in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa was conducted. Underpinned by an interpretive paradigm and driven by the desire to achieve an in-depth understanding of the case under study, three techniques for data generation were employed. The first technique was semi-structured interviews. The second technique of data generation was through lesson observations including pre-lesson discussions and stimulated recall interviews. Observations were conducted to record teachers’ formative assessment practices and report how they use the formative assessment strategies to support student learning or ‘shifting’ their zone of proximal development through formative assessment practices. The third technique was document analysis of lesson plans, teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks worksheets of the two teachers observed. Documents were analysed to gain insights and understanding of how teachers prepared teaching and learning activities and assessments to support learner cognitive development. There were four data analysis phases. Phase I was an analysis of the semi-structured interviews. These were analysed to get a sense of teachers’ perspectives, experiences and challenges regarding formative assessment practices. In order to get a better sense of the quality of formative assessment, classroom observations were analysed using the lens of Wylie and Lyon (2013). This was analysis Phase II. Phase III made use of Dalton’s ‘New Bloom’s Taxonomy’ to gain insight into the role of formative assessment in supporting low, medium and higher order cognitive development. This phase was the document analysis and involved a review of the lesson plans, teaching and learning activities and formative assessment tasks. Phase IV further explored teachers’ experiences regarding implementation of formative assessment. Phase IV is different from Phase I in that it was not only looking at what teachers highlighted as challenges but also at challenges experienced during the lesson observations. This analysis was done across data sources, that is, semi-structured interviews, lesson observations and stimulated recall interviews. Findings from the first set of data showed that teachers viewed formative assessment implementation as a useful practice in the teaching and learning process. However, the diverse views showed lack of clarity of the purpose and definition of formative assessment. The results also revealed some effective attributes of formative assessment were observed during lesson observations at the time of the investigation. However, the results showed that clarifying goals, feedback and classroom collaborations were weakly implemented. These seem to be strategic entry points to begin strengthening the effective implementation of formative assessment classrooms. Supporting teachers regarding use of formative assessment techniques could be one of the means of helping teachers in collecting evidence of student learning. The teachers highlighted some challenges they experienced when implementing formative assessments. Hindrances to implementing effective formative assessment practice reflected structural, technical and attitudinal challenges. The study recommends that since formative assessment is a fundamental part of teaching and learning, teachers need more support and time for reflection to improve their implementation of effective formative assessment. The study also revealed that teachers need enough time to be able to implement effective formative assessment practices. This requires curriculum developers and administrators to revisit curriculum coverage in terms of breadth and depth and to give more time for the implementation of effective formative assessment practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Mgoqi, Nomvuyo
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Education, Elementary -- South Africa , Science -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa , Competency-based education -- South Africa , Curriculum-based education -- South Africa , Science teachers -- Training of -- South Africa , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124167 , vital:35572
- Description: This research investigated formative assessment in primary school Natural Sciences classrooms. The intention was to explore how teachers use formative assessment strategies to raise classroom standards and to foster higher order cognitive development of learners. My interest in the study was influenced by constant poor achievement of South African learners in literacy and specifically in scientific literacy reported in various international and national benchmark tests. Vygotskian theory of the zone of proximal development was used to provide critical insight into formative assessment processes. Further theoretical lenses included Wylie and Lyons’ (2013) ‘Ten dimensions of formative assessment’ work for reviewing formative assessment strategies and Dalton’s (2003) ‘New Bloom’s Taxonomy’ for insight into cognitive development in classroom contexts. Influenced by the above mentioned reports, a qualitative case study of seven primary school teachers in Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa was conducted. Underpinned by an interpretive paradigm and driven by the desire to achieve an in-depth understanding of the case under study, three techniques for data generation were employed. The first technique was semi-structured interviews. The second technique of data generation was through lesson observations including pre-lesson discussions and stimulated recall interviews. Observations were conducted to record teachers’ formative assessment practices and report how they use the formative assessment strategies to support student learning or ‘shifting’ their zone of proximal development through formative assessment practices. The third technique was document analysis of lesson plans, teaching and learning activities and assessment tasks worksheets of the two teachers observed. Documents were analysed to gain insights and understanding of how teachers prepared teaching and learning activities and assessments to support learner cognitive development. There were four data analysis phases. Phase I was an analysis of the semi-structured interviews. These were analysed to get a sense of teachers’ perspectives, experiences and challenges regarding formative assessment practices. In order to get a better sense of the quality of formative assessment, classroom observations were analysed using the lens of Wylie and Lyon (2013). This was analysis Phase II. Phase III made use of Dalton’s ‘New Bloom’s Taxonomy’ to gain insight into the role of formative assessment in supporting low, medium and higher order cognitive development. This phase was the document analysis and involved a review of the lesson plans, teaching and learning activities and formative assessment tasks. Phase IV further explored teachers’ experiences regarding implementation of formative assessment. Phase IV is different from Phase I in that it was not only looking at what teachers highlighted as challenges but also at challenges experienced during the lesson observations. This analysis was done across data sources, that is, semi-structured interviews, lesson observations and stimulated recall interviews. Findings from the first set of data showed that teachers viewed formative assessment implementation as a useful practice in the teaching and learning process. However, the diverse views showed lack of clarity of the purpose and definition of formative assessment. The results also revealed some effective attributes of formative assessment were observed during lesson observations at the time of the investigation. However, the results showed that clarifying goals, feedback and classroom collaborations were weakly implemented. These seem to be strategic entry points to begin strengthening the effective implementation of formative assessment classrooms. Supporting teachers regarding use of formative assessment techniques could be one of the means of helping teachers in collecting evidence of student learning. The teachers highlighted some challenges they experienced when implementing formative assessments. Hindrances to implementing effective formative assessment practice reflected structural, technical and attitudinal challenges. The study recommends that since formative assessment is a fundamental part of teaching and learning, teachers need more support and time for reflection to improve their implementation of effective formative assessment. The study also revealed that teachers need enough time to be able to implement effective formative assessment practices. This requires curriculum developers and administrators to revisit curriculum coverage in terms of breadth and depth and to give more time for the implementation of effective formative assessment practices.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
An investigation of learning and emerging knowledge in the Mpophomeni Sanitation Education Project, Howick, KwaZulu-Natal
- Authors: Boothway, Reinetta Louina
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Mpophomeni Sanitation Education Project (South Africa) , Water quality management -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Knowledge and learning
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115377 , vital:34121
- Description: This study took place within the broader context of water resources management in South Africa. With the democratisation of water stewardship through an enabling international and South African water policy landscape, an opportunity opened up for citizens to participate in the effective management of their own water resources. In this context, a community-engaged citizen science project known as the Mpophomeni Sanitation Education Project emerged to demonstrate how a diverse range of knowledge agents can work and learn together to better manage their water resources and address problems of sewage pollution threatening their provincial water source. The following study aimed to shed light on the learning and emerging knowledge in the MSEP. The study was conducted in three phases. Wenger’s Communities of Practice (CoP) theory provided a lens to look at Phase One, which aimed to answer the following sub-question: Is the MSEP a CoP? Wenger’s CoP theory also assisted with the investigation during Phase Two, which looked at the following question: What is the nature of learning in the MSEP? Social realist theories of knowledge and education, and Tàbara and Chabay with their Ideal Type (IT) worldviews, provided suitable lenses for Phase Three’s investigation of the following question: What is the nature of emerging knowledge in the MSEP? The main finding for Phase One is that the MSEP does function as a CoP. With its strong focus on relationships, it’s clearly defined joint enterprise of solving the problem of sewage pollution, individual and joint commitment to engage with the problem and the sharing of a repertoire of tools, ideas and practices it is cultivating a culture conducive to purposeful learning. Regarding the exploration of the nature of learning in Phase Two, findings confirming the engagement of identity with learning and the importance of context for meaning-making emerged. Finally, study findings about the nature of knowledge in the MSEP found that the knowledge practices in the MSEP that are both social and epistemic in nature are produced by a diverse range of knowledge agents in an open knowledge space.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Boothway, Reinetta Louina
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Mpophomeni Sanitation Education Project (South Africa) , Water quality management -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Knowledge and learning
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115377 , vital:34121
- Description: This study took place within the broader context of water resources management in South Africa. With the democratisation of water stewardship through an enabling international and South African water policy landscape, an opportunity opened up for citizens to participate in the effective management of their own water resources. In this context, a community-engaged citizen science project known as the Mpophomeni Sanitation Education Project emerged to demonstrate how a diverse range of knowledge agents can work and learn together to better manage their water resources and address problems of sewage pollution threatening their provincial water source. The following study aimed to shed light on the learning and emerging knowledge in the MSEP. The study was conducted in three phases. Wenger’s Communities of Practice (CoP) theory provided a lens to look at Phase One, which aimed to answer the following sub-question: Is the MSEP a CoP? Wenger’s CoP theory also assisted with the investigation during Phase Two, which looked at the following question: What is the nature of learning in the MSEP? Social realist theories of knowledge and education, and Tàbara and Chabay with their Ideal Type (IT) worldviews, provided suitable lenses for Phase Three’s investigation of the following question: What is the nature of emerging knowledge in the MSEP? The main finding for Phase One is that the MSEP does function as a CoP. With its strong focus on relationships, it’s clearly defined joint enterprise of solving the problem of sewage pollution, individual and joint commitment to engage with the problem and the sharing of a repertoire of tools, ideas and practices it is cultivating a culture conducive to purposeful learning. Regarding the exploration of the nature of learning in Phase Two, findings confirming the engagement of identity with learning and the importance of context for meaning-making emerged. Finally, study findings about the nature of knowledge in the MSEP found that the knowledge practices in the MSEP that are both social and epistemic in nature are produced by a diverse range of knowledge agents in an open knowledge space.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Recontextualisation of biodiversity knowledge in the Senior Phase Natural Sciences curriculum
- Authors: Mmekwa, Makwena
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Science -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Biodiversity -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Environmental protection -- South Africa , Biodiversity Conservation -- South Africa , Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Program) , South African National Biodiversity Institute. Life: the state of South Africa's biodiversity
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92694 , vital:30723
- Description: This study explored the nature of biodiversity knowledge in the Senior Phase Natural Sciences curriculum in relation to international and national scientific documents. Significant biodiversity key features were identified from a review of these documents. These concepts were then explored in terms of how they had been presented and recontextualised in the Senior Phase Natural Sciences CAPS policy document and a selection of three commonly used textbooks for this subject in South Africa. Using Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the Pedagogic Device, the study traces how biodiversity knowledge was de-located from the scientific Field of Production (FOP) and relocated into the Official Recontextualisation Field (ORF) and Pedagogical Recontextualisation Field (PRF). In exploring the continuity, changes and discontinuities in the biodiversity content, as it has been recontextualised, the study utilised Bernstein’s concepts of selective appropriation and ideological transformation. The study is a qualitative case study that drew on document analysis and structured interviews to generate data. Data analysis for this study consisted of two phases. Phase One involved an analysis of biodiversity knowledge in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) and Life: The State of South Africa’s Biodiversity (SANBI, 2013) which represented the FOP. This was in order to explore the nature of biodiversity knowledge in those documents. This knowledge was then compared to the Senior Phase Natural Sciences curriculum which represented the ORF and selection of textbooks representing the PRF. Phase Two sought to investigate the role players in the recontextualising fields and what roles did they play in the recontextualisation of biodiversity knowledge. This phase entailed an analysis of interviews. The findings showed that both the international document and the national document presented biodiversity knowledge in terms of their fundamental value to humans. In addition, these documents illustrated human-environmental interactions. They presented procedural knowledge that allow us to understand ecosystems and their services to human well-being. The documents also described how ecosystem services are in decline in many places around the world. The documents presented knowledge of threats to biodiversity such as habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, and overharvesting. They also included knowledge of conservation and sustainability which focused on preventing ongoing degradation and restoration and reversal of degradation of ecosystems. In comparing the ORF and the PRF this study showed that the CAPS policy document appears to present concepts foundational to understanding biodiversity rather than discussing biodiversity itself. The textbooks contextualise these foundational concepts and broaden them mostly through pictorial illustrations, as case studies and contextual examples. A recommendation from the research is that the official recontextualisation process should review opportunities to draw on international and national documents that present concepts and contemporary cases of biodiversity content knowledge to ensure that the complexities around biodiversity are presented in the curriculum. This study may contribute to the development and review of the Natural Sciences curriculum and environmental education in South Africa. The study also suggests areas of biodiversity knowledge that might be included as curriculum content in the future. It further suggests that curriculum developers consider including new environmental knowledge which deals with local, national and global needs and expectations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Mmekwa, Makwena
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Science -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Biodiversity -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa , Environmental protection -- South Africa , Biodiversity Conservation -- South Africa , Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Program) , South African National Biodiversity Institute. Life: the state of South Africa's biodiversity
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92694 , vital:30723
- Description: This study explored the nature of biodiversity knowledge in the Senior Phase Natural Sciences curriculum in relation to international and national scientific documents. Significant biodiversity key features were identified from a review of these documents. These concepts were then explored in terms of how they had been presented and recontextualised in the Senior Phase Natural Sciences CAPS policy document and a selection of three commonly used textbooks for this subject in South Africa. Using Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the Pedagogic Device, the study traces how biodiversity knowledge was de-located from the scientific Field of Production (FOP) and relocated into the Official Recontextualisation Field (ORF) and Pedagogical Recontextualisation Field (PRF). In exploring the continuity, changes and discontinuities in the biodiversity content, as it has been recontextualised, the study utilised Bernstein’s concepts of selective appropriation and ideological transformation. The study is a qualitative case study that drew on document analysis and structured interviews to generate data. Data analysis for this study consisted of two phases. Phase One involved an analysis of biodiversity knowledge in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA, 2005) and Life: The State of South Africa’s Biodiversity (SANBI, 2013) which represented the FOP. This was in order to explore the nature of biodiversity knowledge in those documents. This knowledge was then compared to the Senior Phase Natural Sciences curriculum which represented the ORF and selection of textbooks representing the PRF. Phase Two sought to investigate the role players in the recontextualising fields and what roles did they play in the recontextualisation of biodiversity knowledge. This phase entailed an analysis of interviews. The findings showed that both the international document and the national document presented biodiversity knowledge in terms of their fundamental value to humans. In addition, these documents illustrated human-environmental interactions. They presented procedural knowledge that allow us to understand ecosystems and their services to human well-being. The documents also described how ecosystem services are in decline in many places around the world. The documents presented knowledge of threats to biodiversity such as habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, and overharvesting. They also included knowledge of conservation and sustainability which focused on preventing ongoing degradation and restoration and reversal of degradation of ecosystems. In comparing the ORF and the PRF this study showed that the CAPS policy document appears to present concepts foundational to understanding biodiversity rather than discussing biodiversity itself. The textbooks contextualise these foundational concepts and broaden them mostly through pictorial illustrations, as case studies and contextual examples. A recommendation from the research is that the official recontextualisation process should review opportunities to draw on international and national documents that present concepts and contemporary cases of biodiversity content knowledge to ensure that the complexities around biodiversity are presented in the curriculum. This study may contribute to the development and review of the Natural Sciences curriculum and environmental education in South Africa. The study also suggests areas of biodiversity knowledge that might be included as curriculum content in the future. It further suggests that curriculum developers consider including new environmental knowledge which deals with local, national and global needs and expectations.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A case study of emergent environmental pedagogical content knowledge in a Fundisa for Change teacher professional development course
- Authors: Brundrit, Susan
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Career development -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa , Teachers -- Training of --South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Fundisa for Change
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62850 , vital:28301
- Description: This study set out to explore and describe in the form of a qualitative case study, an iteration of a Fundisa for Change teacher professional development programme, in this case the Teaching Life & Living short course presented to seventeen teachers as part of their Advanced Certificate in Teaching (ACT) Senior Phase Natural Sciences, at the University of Cape Town. The focus of the research was on describing how the development of teacher environmental pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was supported and constructed in the course. The Consensus Model of Teacher Professional Knowledge and Skill, an outcome of the 2012 PCK Summit, was used to define the concept of PCK and also contributed the concept of amplifiers and filters as processes that mediate the development of teacher PCK. The study drew on Borko’s (2004) model of a professional development system, using the elements of course, teachers, facilitators and context as an analytical framework. Data generated included a teacher contextual profile questionnaire, audio-recordings of group work, course outputs and reflection and evaluation forms. Data analysis had two phases: the first phase concentrated on the development of analytic memos based on particular data sources whereas the second phase worked across data sources to present the evidence relating to each of the professional development system elements. The study found that teachers were supported in the development of their environmental PCK by the collaborative learning opportunities afforded by the course. Emergent PCK was organised according to five components: assessment knowledge; pedagogical knowledge; content knowledge; knowledge of learners; and, curricular knowledge. Emergent teacher learning ranged in specificity from general, to subject-specific, to domain-specific, and lastly to topic-specific knowledge. Teacher beliefs and orientations, prior knowledge and contexts brought into the professional development system were described as amplifiers and filters to teacher learning of PCK. In particular there were several contextual factors that emerged as themes from the data that had potentially filtering effects. Recommendations included that facilitators create an atmosphere conducive to collaborative learning, that evidence of learner conceptual understanding be examined during the course, that teachers be exposed to in-depth examples of canonical PCK and that more modelling of formative assessment strategies are presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Brundrit, Susan
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Career development -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa , Teachers -- Training of --South Africa , Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Fundisa for Change
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62850 , vital:28301
- Description: This study set out to explore and describe in the form of a qualitative case study, an iteration of a Fundisa for Change teacher professional development programme, in this case the Teaching Life & Living short course presented to seventeen teachers as part of their Advanced Certificate in Teaching (ACT) Senior Phase Natural Sciences, at the University of Cape Town. The focus of the research was on describing how the development of teacher environmental pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) was supported and constructed in the course. The Consensus Model of Teacher Professional Knowledge and Skill, an outcome of the 2012 PCK Summit, was used to define the concept of PCK and also contributed the concept of amplifiers and filters as processes that mediate the development of teacher PCK. The study drew on Borko’s (2004) model of a professional development system, using the elements of course, teachers, facilitators and context as an analytical framework. Data generated included a teacher contextual profile questionnaire, audio-recordings of group work, course outputs and reflection and evaluation forms. Data analysis had two phases: the first phase concentrated on the development of analytic memos based on particular data sources whereas the second phase worked across data sources to present the evidence relating to each of the professional development system elements. The study found that teachers were supported in the development of their environmental PCK by the collaborative learning opportunities afforded by the course. Emergent PCK was organised according to five components: assessment knowledge; pedagogical knowledge; content knowledge; knowledge of learners; and, curricular knowledge. Emergent teacher learning ranged in specificity from general, to subject-specific, to domain-specific, and lastly to topic-specific knowledge. Teacher beliefs and orientations, prior knowledge and contexts brought into the professional development system were described as amplifiers and filters to teacher learning of PCK. In particular there were several contextual factors that emerged as themes from the data that had potentially filtering effects. Recommendations included that facilitators create an atmosphere conducive to collaborative learning, that evidence of learner conceptual understanding be examined during the course, that teachers be exposed to in-depth examples of canonical PCK and that more modelling of formative assessment strategies are presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
An Investigation of the usage of teaching methods and assessment practices in environmental learning processes and emergent curriculum and sustainability competencies
- Authors: Mkhabela, Antonia T
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa , Life sciences -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7812 , vital:21301
- Description: This study explores the teaching and assessment practices used by teachers in environmental learning processes and emergent curriculum and sustainability competencies. The focus is the school subject Life Sciences in the Further Education and Training Phase. The study is based on four cases of teachers in schools in the Midlands area, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Lenses used to review the data included curriculum defined cognitive skills and cognitive levels to review the curriculum competencies and a systems approach to teaching and learning (Wiek, Withycombe, Redman & Mills, 2011) to review emergent sustainability competencies. This study employed qualitative methods, namely a questionnaire, stimulated recall interviews, observations (of lesson plan implementation in classrooms) and document analysis (detailing lesson plans, assessment tasks and learners’ work) to generate data. Analysis took place in four phases and included: a descriptive contextual analysis of factors influencing teaching and assessment practices; a descriptive analysis of teacher intentionality, topics, assessment planned and resources used; an analysis of emergent curriculum competencies in informal and formal assessment tasks; and, finally, a second layer of analysis describing emergent sustainability competencies in the environmental learning processes. Ethical considerations included permission for access, anonymity, participant rights and awareness of my role as cluster leader for the group of teachers involved. The study found that the nature of Life Sciences environmental topics and implementation influences the development of curriculum and sustainability competencies. Also, the choice of teaching methods influenced the emergence of particular curriculum and sustainability competencies. The findings also suggested that switching between isiZulu and English, unfamiliarity with action verbs, and the inconsistent use of higher order questions in classroom discussion, informal and formal assessment tasks might have affected success in the development of higher order thinking skills. Finally, the study revealed that environmental learning has the potential to support the development of integrated sustainability competencies. This study was driven by an interest in environmental content knowledge, teaching and assessment within the South African Fundisa for Change network of environmental educators. It is hoped that the study’s illustration of how consideration of curriculum and sustainability competencies can contribute to quality education practices in environmental learning, will be of use in this network.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mkhabela, Antonia T
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Environmental education -- South Africa , Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa , Life sciences -- Study and teaching -- South Africa -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7812 , vital:21301
- Description: This study explores the teaching and assessment practices used by teachers in environmental learning processes and emergent curriculum and sustainability competencies. The focus is the school subject Life Sciences in the Further Education and Training Phase. The study is based on four cases of teachers in schools in the Midlands area, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Lenses used to review the data included curriculum defined cognitive skills and cognitive levels to review the curriculum competencies and a systems approach to teaching and learning (Wiek, Withycombe, Redman & Mills, 2011) to review emergent sustainability competencies. This study employed qualitative methods, namely a questionnaire, stimulated recall interviews, observations (of lesson plan implementation in classrooms) and document analysis (detailing lesson plans, assessment tasks and learners’ work) to generate data. Analysis took place in four phases and included: a descriptive contextual analysis of factors influencing teaching and assessment practices; a descriptive analysis of teacher intentionality, topics, assessment planned and resources used; an analysis of emergent curriculum competencies in informal and formal assessment tasks; and, finally, a second layer of analysis describing emergent sustainability competencies in the environmental learning processes. Ethical considerations included permission for access, anonymity, participant rights and awareness of my role as cluster leader for the group of teachers involved. The study found that the nature of Life Sciences environmental topics and implementation influences the development of curriculum and sustainability competencies. Also, the choice of teaching methods influenced the emergence of particular curriculum and sustainability competencies. The findings also suggested that switching between isiZulu and English, unfamiliarity with action verbs, and the inconsistent use of higher order questions in classroom discussion, informal and formal assessment tasks might have affected success in the development of higher order thinking skills. Finally, the study revealed that environmental learning has the potential to support the development of integrated sustainability competencies. This study was driven by an interest in environmental content knowledge, teaching and assessment within the South African Fundisa for Change network of environmental educators. It is hoped that the study’s illustration of how consideration of curriculum and sustainability competencies can contribute to quality education practices in environmental learning, will be of use in this network.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
An examination of teaching strategies for mediating the construction of environmental content knowledge: a case of Grade 11 Life Sciences teaching in two Eastern Cape schools
- Authors: Chitsiga, Christina
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/361 , vital:19953
- Description: In South Africa the new Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS) introduced a more strongly content referenced curriculum which has commitments to active and critical approaches to learning, and to environment and sustainability content. Successful implementation of CAPS requires that teachers attain the requisite knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for working with environmental and sustainability content. The study examined teachers’ knowledge of environmental content as well as how teachers are mediating learning, through exploring the classroom techniques used by teachers working with environmental content. This was to examine how teachers are through their teaching bridging the gap in the understanding, investigation and application of environmental content in the curriculum. The study used a number of approaches from the field of environmental education which offer different lenses (or pedagogical sensitizing constructs) for viewing mediation processes as a relational process of knowledge construction. These pedagogical constructs were: knowledge co-construction where perspectives and understandings are shared in the process of social relations (deliberation); relating environmental content knowledge to cultural historical context (situated learning); relating environmental content knowledge to everyday and intergenerational knowledge through hands on experience (proximity experience) and developing an iterative relationship between environmental content knowledge and sustainability practices (practical reasoning). Practice theory as suggested by Schatzki (2005) and a theory of practice architectures elaborating on Schatzki’s practice theory (Kemmis & Heikkinen, 2011) was used as the ontological lens to help in understanding the mediation of environmental content knowledge. Practice theory was used for exploring pedagogical practice in terms of sayings, doings and relatings by teachers, and practice architectures that represent enabling or constraining factors of teachers practice. This research was an interpretive case study drawing on findings from lesson observations, semi structured interviews, stimulated recall interviews and document analysis. The research found that teachers used different strategies to enhance their environmental content and pedagogical content knowledge to present the mediation. Teachers are supporting situated learning and deliberation in environmental learning. Another finding was that teachers could be enabled to enhance proximity experiences and practical reason in their mediating approaches in environmental learning. The research further showed that teachers could benefit from teacher professional development programmes that explicitly develop pedagogical content knowledge to support critical deliberation, proximity encounters, situated learning and practical reasoning in order to work with the diverse complex places-based, socio-cultural-historical nature of environmental curriculum content in the context of sustainability practices. Findings also showed that there were constraining factors to mediation of environmental learning. These constraining factors from the research were firstly in material economic arrangements of timetable compliance in CAPS, ability to find internet resources and availability of resources. Secondly, present were constraining factors of socio-political arrangements of CAPS curriculum document prescriptiveness, multiculturalism, learning institution management and governance. Thirdly, cultural discursive arrangements of teacher learner language, knowledge of the language of the field affected mediation. Teachers passion for environmental content topics, the ability of teachers’ to improvise resources in mediating environmental content lessons and the ability of teachers’ to navigate a stringent CAPS timetable were found in this research to be enabling mediation. Recommendations from the research are ongoing teacher refresher workshops on the environmental content in the CAPS curriculum, teachers’ need more input on strategies to mediate environmental content, teachers’ prior knowledge of new knowledge can be used to strengthen teacher professional development processes, teachers’ prior knowledge needs to be deepened and reinforced, there is need to develop quality educational resources encompassing a variety of pedagogical sensitizing constructs and support needs to be given for familiarising teachers with teaching materials and their appropriate use . These could help to strengthen mediation of environmental content knowledge in the Grade 11 CAPS Life Sciences and inform South African teacher professional development programmes seeking to understand classroom practices in relation to environmental content.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Chitsiga, Christina
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/361 , vital:19953
- Description: In South Africa the new Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement (CAPS) introduced a more strongly content referenced curriculum which has commitments to active and critical approaches to learning, and to environment and sustainability content. Successful implementation of CAPS requires that teachers attain the requisite knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for working with environmental and sustainability content. The study examined teachers’ knowledge of environmental content as well as how teachers are mediating learning, through exploring the classroom techniques used by teachers working with environmental content. This was to examine how teachers are through their teaching bridging the gap in the understanding, investigation and application of environmental content in the curriculum. The study used a number of approaches from the field of environmental education which offer different lenses (or pedagogical sensitizing constructs) for viewing mediation processes as a relational process of knowledge construction. These pedagogical constructs were: knowledge co-construction where perspectives and understandings are shared in the process of social relations (deliberation); relating environmental content knowledge to cultural historical context (situated learning); relating environmental content knowledge to everyday and intergenerational knowledge through hands on experience (proximity experience) and developing an iterative relationship between environmental content knowledge and sustainability practices (practical reasoning). Practice theory as suggested by Schatzki (2005) and a theory of practice architectures elaborating on Schatzki’s practice theory (Kemmis & Heikkinen, 2011) was used as the ontological lens to help in understanding the mediation of environmental content knowledge. Practice theory was used for exploring pedagogical practice in terms of sayings, doings and relatings by teachers, and practice architectures that represent enabling or constraining factors of teachers practice. This research was an interpretive case study drawing on findings from lesson observations, semi structured interviews, stimulated recall interviews and document analysis. The research found that teachers used different strategies to enhance their environmental content and pedagogical content knowledge to present the mediation. Teachers are supporting situated learning and deliberation in environmental learning. Another finding was that teachers could be enabled to enhance proximity experiences and practical reason in their mediating approaches in environmental learning. The research further showed that teachers could benefit from teacher professional development programmes that explicitly develop pedagogical content knowledge to support critical deliberation, proximity encounters, situated learning and practical reasoning in order to work with the diverse complex places-based, socio-cultural-historical nature of environmental curriculum content in the context of sustainability practices. Findings also showed that there were constraining factors to mediation of environmental learning. These constraining factors from the research were firstly in material economic arrangements of timetable compliance in CAPS, ability to find internet resources and availability of resources. Secondly, present were constraining factors of socio-political arrangements of CAPS curriculum document prescriptiveness, multiculturalism, learning institution management and governance. Thirdly, cultural discursive arrangements of teacher learner language, knowledge of the language of the field affected mediation. Teachers passion for environmental content topics, the ability of teachers’ to improvise resources in mediating environmental content lessons and the ability of teachers’ to navigate a stringent CAPS timetable were found in this research to be enabling mediation. Recommendations from the research are ongoing teacher refresher workshops on the environmental content in the CAPS curriculum, teachers’ need more input on strategies to mediate environmental content, teachers’ prior knowledge of new knowledge can be used to strengthen teacher professional development processes, teachers’ prior knowledge needs to be deepened and reinforced, there is need to develop quality educational resources encompassing a variety of pedagogical sensitizing constructs and support needs to be given for familiarising teachers with teaching materials and their appropriate use . These could help to strengthen mediation of environmental content knowledge in the Grade 11 CAPS Life Sciences and inform South African teacher professional development programmes seeking to understand classroom practices in relation to environmental content.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Presentation and representation of environmental problems and problem-solving methods and processes in the Grade 10 Geography syllabus: a Namibian case study
- Authors: Zokka, Herman Kankara
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2074 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021253
- Description: Environmental issues in Namibia are considered to be one of the major threats to the lives of the Namibian people (Namibia. Ministry of National Planning Commission [MNPC], 2004). This study explored problem solving as one of the teaching methods used in Grade 10 Geography syllabuses as a response to such environmental issues/risks. Geography provides learners with an understanding of the issues and risks in their world that need to be addressed in order to improve the quality of their lives and health of their environment. This study focused on how environmental problems and problem-solving methods are presented in the Namibian Grade 10 Geography syllabus and how these are represented and implemented through teacher intentionality and practice. The theoretical framework for this study was informed by two theories namely risk society and social constructivism. This study was conducted at three schools in the Rundu circuit in the Kavango region and one teacher was involved in the study at each school. This study was conducted within an interpretive research tradition and was qualitative in nature. The study used document analysis, focus group discussion and classroom observation as data generation methods. The findings of the study reveal that the complexity of environmental issues is highlighted in the syllabus and in teachers’ intentionality and practice. The findings also show that a limited variety of teaching methods were used in problem solving strategies. The study also found that problem solving was influenced by different constructivist learning principles. The study further found that limited numbers of problem-solving steps were used in the process of problem solving. The study concludes by calling for further research into problem solving strategies. This can be done to empower Geography teachers to use more complex problem solving strategies to deepen problem solving and to engage problems in more depth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Zokka, Herman Kankara
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2074 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021253
- Description: Environmental issues in Namibia are considered to be one of the major threats to the lives of the Namibian people (Namibia. Ministry of National Planning Commission [MNPC], 2004). This study explored problem solving as one of the teaching methods used in Grade 10 Geography syllabuses as a response to such environmental issues/risks. Geography provides learners with an understanding of the issues and risks in their world that need to be addressed in order to improve the quality of their lives and health of their environment. This study focused on how environmental problems and problem-solving methods are presented in the Namibian Grade 10 Geography syllabus and how these are represented and implemented through teacher intentionality and practice. The theoretical framework for this study was informed by two theories namely risk society and social constructivism. This study was conducted at three schools in the Rundu circuit in the Kavango region and one teacher was involved in the study at each school. This study was conducted within an interpretive research tradition and was qualitative in nature. The study used document analysis, focus group discussion and classroom observation as data generation methods. The findings of the study reveal that the complexity of environmental issues is highlighted in the syllabus and in teachers’ intentionality and practice. The findings also show that a limited variety of teaching methods were used in problem solving strategies. The study also found that problem solving was influenced by different constructivist learning principles. The study further found that limited numbers of problem-solving steps were used in the process of problem solving. The study concludes by calling for further research into problem solving strategies. This can be done to empower Geography teachers to use more complex problem solving strategies to deepen problem solving and to engage problems in more depth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
An investigation of socio-ecological issues and risks and capabilities in the 'my future is my choice' HIV and AIDS programme : a case in northern Namibia
- Authors: Tjiveze, Wakaa
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: My Future is My Choice (Program : Namibia) , HIV infections -- Social aspects -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Study and teaching -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Risk factors -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2050 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017769
- Description: The HIV and AIDS crisis can be presented as a socio-ecological issue, with an ever-increasing impact on both human beings and the environment. Teaching about socio-ecological issues and the consideration of individual capabilities has become crucial within HIV and AIDS education programmes. Issues of deforestation, land degradation and other environmental problems have worsened since the advent of HIV and AIDS, especially in developing countries. The My Future is My Choice (MFMC) programme has been identified as an important HIV and AIDS education initiative that caters for young people in Namibian secondary schools (Grades 8-12). One of the themes within the programme (Facing HIV and AIDS) is highlighted in this study. This study was constituted as a case study of one school in rural Omuthiya, in the Oshikoto region. The study investigated the opportunities for the integration of a focus on socio-ecological issues and risks, within the MFMC education programme. The study also investigated the way in which the program develops learners‟ capabilities to respond to HIV and AIDS related socio-ecological issues and risks/vulnerabilities. The study also presents the constraints and enabling factors influencing the implementation of the programme. This study used a qualitative, interpretive case study methodology. The research methods included the analysis of eight documents and nineteen semi-structured interviews, with the Programme Coordinator, the Programme Facilitator, the School Principal and with the programme participants. The analysis also included two focus group discussions with a group of learners; and two classroom observations; and the learners' submissions (reflection sheets). Convenience sampling was used, and ethical issues were taken into consideration throughout the study. The study revealed the following as key findings: The aims and objectives of the HIV and AIDS education programme can enhance and constrain the development of capabilities, as well as opportunities and challenges for the integration of a focus on socio-environmental issues and risks as additional learning content. Teaching and learning methods that are participatory and rooted within the learner centered approach can make the integration of HIV and AIDS inherent socio-environmental issues and risks into the MFMC education programme possible. The values and beliefs inherent within the MFMC education programme stand as opportunities for the successful development of capabilities in the education programme. The study concluded by recommending that capabilities within the MFMC programme be developed through teaching learners about their rights, respect for human dignity, and the right to health and to living the life free from discriminatory practices, as a moral entitlement of each and every individual. While teaching learners about their right to health and the importance of healthy diets, this study found that the programme could include learning about food production and handling practices for the benefit of those living with HIV and AIDS, while caring for the environment. Another recommendation was that future research should consider actively involving young people in decision-making with regard to the programme, as this will allow them to choose and decide on what knowledge and skills they need and want to acquire. The study further explained that this will promote the programme participants‟ sense of agency, and their freedom to choose what they value being and doing as an important element in enhancing learner capabilities. Ultimately, this will also enable the learners to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge they need in order to respond to the socio-ecological problems they face in their communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Tjiveze, Wakaa
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: My Future is My Choice (Program : Namibia) , HIV infections -- Social aspects -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Study and teaching -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Risk factors -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Moral and ethical aspects -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2050 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017769
- Description: The HIV and AIDS crisis can be presented as a socio-ecological issue, with an ever-increasing impact on both human beings and the environment. Teaching about socio-ecological issues and the consideration of individual capabilities has become crucial within HIV and AIDS education programmes. Issues of deforestation, land degradation and other environmental problems have worsened since the advent of HIV and AIDS, especially in developing countries. The My Future is My Choice (MFMC) programme has been identified as an important HIV and AIDS education initiative that caters for young people in Namibian secondary schools (Grades 8-12). One of the themes within the programme (Facing HIV and AIDS) is highlighted in this study. This study was constituted as a case study of one school in rural Omuthiya, in the Oshikoto region. The study investigated the opportunities for the integration of a focus on socio-ecological issues and risks, within the MFMC education programme. The study also investigated the way in which the program develops learners‟ capabilities to respond to HIV and AIDS related socio-ecological issues and risks/vulnerabilities. The study also presents the constraints and enabling factors influencing the implementation of the programme. This study used a qualitative, interpretive case study methodology. The research methods included the analysis of eight documents and nineteen semi-structured interviews, with the Programme Coordinator, the Programme Facilitator, the School Principal and with the programme participants. The analysis also included two focus group discussions with a group of learners; and two classroom observations; and the learners' submissions (reflection sheets). Convenience sampling was used, and ethical issues were taken into consideration throughout the study. The study revealed the following as key findings: The aims and objectives of the HIV and AIDS education programme can enhance and constrain the development of capabilities, as well as opportunities and challenges for the integration of a focus on socio-environmental issues and risks as additional learning content. Teaching and learning methods that are participatory and rooted within the learner centered approach can make the integration of HIV and AIDS inherent socio-environmental issues and risks into the MFMC education programme possible. The values and beliefs inherent within the MFMC education programme stand as opportunities for the successful development of capabilities in the education programme. The study concluded by recommending that capabilities within the MFMC programme be developed through teaching learners about their rights, respect for human dignity, and the right to health and to living the life free from discriminatory practices, as a moral entitlement of each and every individual. While teaching learners about their right to health and the importance of healthy diets, this study found that the programme could include learning about food production and handling practices for the benefit of those living with HIV and AIDS, while caring for the environment. Another recommendation was that future research should consider actively involving young people in decision-making with regard to the programme, as this will allow them to choose and decide on what knowledge and skills they need and want to acquire. The study further explained that this will promote the programme participants‟ sense of agency, and their freedom to choose what they value being and doing as an important element in enhancing learner capabilities. Ultimately, this will also enable the learners to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge they need in order to respond to the socio-ecological problems they face in their communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Environmental citizenship in citizen science: a case study of a volunteer toad conservation group in Noordhoek, South Africa
- Authors: Van Wyk, Sheraine Maud
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Toad NUTS (Noordhoek, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Environmental education -- Citizen participation , Social learning -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Toads -- Conservation -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Toads -- Conservation -- Citizen participation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2048 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017359
- Description: The endangered Western Leopard Toad (Amietophrynus pantherinus) is endemic to the winter-rainfall parts of the Western Cape, areas which are also favoured for human settlement. Residents in the Noordhoek area witnessed many toads being killed on roads during their annual migration to breeding ponds. Concerned citizens mobilised a volunteer group to mitigate this threat to the species. Toad NUTS (Noordhoek Unpaid Toad Savers), a well-established and successful citizen science group is explored as a case study of how environmental citizenship emerges in a citizen science group. This research has three research goals. Firstly to probe the enabling and constraining factors shaping the Toad NUTS practices, secondly to investigate the learning dynamics in the citizen science group and thirdly to understand how participation in citizen science develops environmental citizenship. Practice architectures theory (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008) was used to explore how cultural-discursive, economic-material and social-political arrangements shape the practices of the Toad NUTS group. The Toad NUTS group was identified as a community of practice, therefore Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice theory was used to better understand the social learning processes within the group. The Global Citizenship Education international policy document was used to capture the aims of citizenship education as it relates to environmental issues and identifies the competencies that citizenship education initiatives should develop. The practices of the Toad NUTS group were investigated for evidence of the goals and competencies identified in the Global Citizenship Education policy documents of environmental citizenship. Data was generated through documentary research, surveys, a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and observations. The data was stored, organised and analysed using NVivo data management software in three phases corresponding to the three research goals. With respect to Goal 1, the evidence suggested that there are various shaping arrangements of cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political configurations which influence Toad NUTS practices. Volunteers must learn to navigate these arrangements in order to successfully implement conservation strategies. The shaping features identified were the WhatsApp group communication system used by volunteers; public awareness and education strategies; equipment, material and funding required for implementing the group’s practices; power balances and exchanges between stakeholders in the conservation field; bureaucratic processes and scientist-lay person exchanges. Very important for facilitating social-political connections to various stakeholders, is the membership Toad NUTS enjoys on the Western Leopard Toad Conservation Committee. With respect to Goal 2, four interconnected components of learning were investigated. These were: learning as belonging, learning as doing, learning as meaning-making experience and learning as becoming. Members learn by doing things together like training, patrolling and deliberating problems in the field. They learn by exploring what is collectively known from past and unfolding experiences. Evidence showed that learning deepens as Toad NUTS members perceive their praxis as meaningful and their identities evolve as their knowledge and experience grows. This strengthens members’ sense of belonging and identification with the Toad NUTS group. In time the group develops a reputation and the wider community acknowledges the expertise and knowledge that resides with the group. With respect to Goal 3, it was found that volunteers who have a predisposition for environmental citizenship are more likely to join a citizen science group. Although volunteers care about nature and want to make a difference, it is after gaining access to the embedded knowledge and knowledge processes of the citizen science group that they realise meaningful sustainable solutions to the issue(s) that the project is concerned with. It was found that knowledge paired with reasoned practice enables the agency of volunteers to bring about positive and meaningful change in the local environment. If facilitated carefully, citizen science can make positive contributions to the field, in this instance, conservation, while allowing volunteers to exercise environmental citizenship engaging in participative governance with regard to the project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Van Wyk, Sheraine Maud
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Toad NUTS (Noordhoek, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Environmental education -- Citizen participation , Social learning -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Toads -- Conservation -- South Africa -- Noordhoek , Toads -- Conservation -- Citizen participation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2048 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017359
- Description: The endangered Western Leopard Toad (Amietophrynus pantherinus) is endemic to the winter-rainfall parts of the Western Cape, areas which are also favoured for human settlement. Residents in the Noordhoek area witnessed many toads being killed on roads during their annual migration to breeding ponds. Concerned citizens mobilised a volunteer group to mitigate this threat to the species. Toad NUTS (Noordhoek Unpaid Toad Savers), a well-established and successful citizen science group is explored as a case study of how environmental citizenship emerges in a citizen science group. This research has three research goals. Firstly to probe the enabling and constraining factors shaping the Toad NUTS practices, secondly to investigate the learning dynamics in the citizen science group and thirdly to understand how participation in citizen science develops environmental citizenship. Practice architectures theory (Kemmis & Grootenboer, 2008) was used to explore how cultural-discursive, economic-material and social-political arrangements shape the practices of the Toad NUTS group. The Toad NUTS group was identified as a community of practice, therefore Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice theory was used to better understand the social learning processes within the group. The Global Citizenship Education international policy document was used to capture the aims of citizenship education as it relates to environmental issues and identifies the competencies that citizenship education initiatives should develop. The practices of the Toad NUTS group were investigated for evidence of the goals and competencies identified in the Global Citizenship Education policy documents of environmental citizenship. Data was generated through documentary research, surveys, a questionnaire, semi-structured interviews and observations. The data was stored, organised and analysed using NVivo data management software in three phases corresponding to the three research goals. With respect to Goal 1, the evidence suggested that there are various shaping arrangements of cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political configurations which influence Toad NUTS practices. Volunteers must learn to navigate these arrangements in order to successfully implement conservation strategies. The shaping features identified were the WhatsApp group communication system used by volunteers; public awareness and education strategies; equipment, material and funding required for implementing the group’s practices; power balances and exchanges between stakeholders in the conservation field; bureaucratic processes and scientist-lay person exchanges. Very important for facilitating social-political connections to various stakeholders, is the membership Toad NUTS enjoys on the Western Leopard Toad Conservation Committee. With respect to Goal 2, four interconnected components of learning were investigated. These were: learning as belonging, learning as doing, learning as meaning-making experience and learning as becoming. Members learn by doing things together like training, patrolling and deliberating problems in the field. They learn by exploring what is collectively known from past and unfolding experiences. Evidence showed that learning deepens as Toad NUTS members perceive their praxis as meaningful and their identities evolve as their knowledge and experience grows. This strengthens members’ sense of belonging and identification with the Toad NUTS group. In time the group develops a reputation and the wider community acknowledges the expertise and knowledge that resides with the group. With respect to Goal 3, it was found that volunteers who have a predisposition for environmental citizenship are more likely to join a citizen science group. Although volunteers care about nature and want to make a difference, it is after gaining access to the embedded knowledge and knowledge processes of the citizen science group that they realise meaningful sustainable solutions to the issue(s) that the project is concerned with. It was found that knowledge paired with reasoned practice enables the agency of volunteers to bring about positive and meaningful change in the local environment. If facilitated carefully, citizen science can make positive contributions to the field, in this instance, conservation, while allowing volunteers to exercise environmental citizenship engaging in participative governance with regard to the project.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Investigating quality in Education through the use of an active learning framework : the case of an intervention in the Namibian Environmental Studies curriculum
- Authors: Jacobs, Nicola Clara
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- Activity programs -- Namibia -- Windhoek , Active learning -- Namibia -- Windhoek , Education -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2058 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019803
- Description: The study was conducted to explore the relationship between active learning processes emerging from the use of O’Donoghue’s (2001) active learning framework and a series of education quality indicators proposed by Nikel and Lowe (2010). To achieve this aim a professional educational intervention was conducted encouraging the use of this active learning framework in the Namibian Environmental Studies Curriculum, in order to strengthen educational quality within the Environmental Studies Curriculum. The research was conducted in the Windhoek region at the school where I am currently teaching. Four teachers took part in this study, including myself in the role of a participantobserver. The active learning framework was used to guide us in the planning and presentations of environmental learning lessons. The study was conducted within the interpretive paradigm and was qualitative in nature as well as focusing on a quantitative aspect to analyse some of the data (learners’ written work). Qualitative data were generated through individual interviews, focus-group discussions, lesson observations and document analysis. The key findings of the study were that: a) prior to the intervention with the active learning framework the teachers who took part in the study did not ask learners to explore environmental issues in the environment or to respond to particular environmental issues; b) active learning processes have the potential to facilitate the exploration of environmental issues in the environment, and responses to particular environmental issues. Active learning also have the potential to strengthen all aspects of education quality indicated in Nikel and Lowe’s (2010) quality model, namely effectiveness, efficiency, equity, relevance, responsiveness, reflexivity and sustainability; c) the active learning framework encouraged teachers to use a variety of situated learning approaches, such as the collaborative method, the cooperative method, the problem-solving method and the enquiry method, in order to strengthen the educational quality in Environmental Studies classrooms; and d) teachers find the active learning framework useful as a tool for planning and presenting environmental learning lessons. The findings of the study have the potential to inform curriculum developers, materials developers and educators with an interest in improving education quality through environmental learning processes within the Environmental Studies Curriculum in Namibia. Furthermore, Nikel and Lowe’s education quality indicators provided an informative and comprehensive understanding of education quality and provided a useful tool in evaluating and reflecting on education quality as well as my own work as a teacher.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Jacobs, Nicola Clara
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- Activity programs -- Namibia -- Windhoek , Active learning -- Namibia -- Windhoek , Education -- Evaluation
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:2058 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019803
- Description: The study was conducted to explore the relationship between active learning processes emerging from the use of O’Donoghue’s (2001) active learning framework and a series of education quality indicators proposed by Nikel and Lowe (2010). To achieve this aim a professional educational intervention was conducted encouraging the use of this active learning framework in the Namibian Environmental Studies Curriculum, in order to strengthen educational quality within the Environmental Studies Curriculum. The research was conducted in the Windhoek region at the school where I am currently teaching. Four teachers took part in this study, including myself in the role of a participantobserver. The active learning framework was used to guide us in the planning and presentations of environmental learning lessons. The study was conducted within the interpretive paradigm and was qualitative in nature as well as focusing on a quantitative aspect to analyse some of the data (learners’ written work). Qualitative data were generated through individual interviews, focus-group discussions, lesson observations and document analysis. The key findings of the study were that: a) prior to the intervention with the active learning framework the teachers who took part in the study did not ask learners to explore environmental issues in the environment or to respond to particular environmental issues; b) active learning processes have the potential to facilitate the exploration of environmental issues in the environment, and responses to particular environmental issues. Active learning also have the potential to strengthen all aspects of education quality indicated in Nikel and Lowe’s (2010) quality model, namely effectiveness, efficiency, equity, relevance, responsiveness, reflexivity and sustainability; c) the active learning framework encouraged teachers to use a variety of situated learning approaches, such as the collaborative method, the cooperative method, the problem-solving method and the enquiry method, in order to strengthen the educational quality in Environmental Studies classrooms; and d) teachers find the active learning framework useful as a tool for planning and presenting environmental learning lessons. The findings of the study have the potential to inform curriculum developers, materials developers and educators with an interest in improving education quality through environmental learning processes within the Environmental Studies Curriculum in Namibia. Furthermore, Nikel and Lowe’s education quality indicators provided an informative and comprehensive understanding of education quality and provided a useful tool in evaluating and reflecting on education quality as well as my own work as a teacher.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
An investigation of stakeholder participation and learning in two schools within the Seychelles Eco-School programme
- Authors: Emilie, Shane Antonio
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Seychelles Schools -- Environmental aspects -- Seychelles Education, Primary -- Parent participation -- Seychelles Education, Secondary -- Parent participation -- Seychelles Student participation in administration -- Education (Primary) -- Seychelles Student participation in administration -- Education (Secondary) -- Seychelles Student participation in curriculum planning -- Education (Primary) -- Seychelles Student participation in curriculum planning -- Education (Secondary) -- Seychelles Education, Primary -- Seychelles Education, Secondary -- Seychelles
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1969 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011961
- Description: The aim of this study was to investigate stakeholder participation and learning in the Seychelles Eco-School programme within a primary school context and a secondary school context. Findings from each Eco-School have been presented in two case studies with the goal to explore and describe how teachers, students, parents and organizations are participating and learning in the Eco-School programme. Six elements of school community were used to deepen understanding of the participatory and learning processes in each Eco-School, namely, leadership, management and administration, curriculum planning, teaching and learning, resource use and management, management of physical surrounds of the school and networks and partnerships. Some of the contextual variables in each Eco-School that were constraining and enabling stakeholder participation and learning in the programme have also been explored within this study. Data in this study was generated from historical documents analysed, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and field notes. Data was also generated from questionnaires completed by organizations involved in the programme at each Eco- School. Data was analysed in two phases, the first phase involved reading across data generated from the methods mentioned above to organize the data under broad themes in relation to the elements of school community. The second phase of analysis involved the use of the conceptual framework of situating learning in a community of practice to interpret and discuss the participatory and learning processes across the two cases. The study showed that in each Eco-School there is a community of practice with the active involvement of teachers and students and the occasional involvement of parents and organizations. Students and adults are learning as they engage together in classroom and field-work interactions, environmental projects, environmental activities to commemorate environmental theme days, environmental campaigns and co-curricular activities through the practices of each Eco-School community. It was also discovered that students and adults are making different contributions in the Eco-School community based on their level of participation in the programme. It is hoped that the findings in this research contribute information regarding community participation in environmental education programmes like the Seychelles Eco-School programme. In addition, findings will inform the Seychelles Government and its partners to consider the possibility of enhancing school and community partnerships to respond to some of the challenges of participation and learning in the Eco-School programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Emilie, Shane Antonio
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Seychelles Schools -- Environmental aspects -- Seychelles Education, Primary -- Parent participation -- Seychelles Education, Secondary -- Parent participation -- Seychelles Student participation in administration -- Education (Primary) -- Seychelles Student participation in administration -- Education (Secondary) -- Seychelles Student participation in curriculum planning -- Education (Primary) -- Seychelles Student participation in curriculum planning -- Education (Secondary) -- Seychelles Education, Primary -- Seychelles Education, Secondary -- Seychelles
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1969 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011961
- Description: The aim of this study was to investigate stakeholder participation and learning in the Seychelles Eco-School programme within a primary school context and a secondary school context. Findings from each Eco-School have been presented in two case studies with the goal to explore and describe how teachers, students, parents and organizations are participating and learning in the Eco-School programme. Six elements of school community were used to deepen understanding of the participatory and learning processes in each Eco-School, namely, leadership, management and administration, curriculum planning, teaching and learning, resource use and management, management of physical surrounds of the school and networks and partnerships. Some of the contextual variables in each Eco-School that were constraining and enabling stakeholder participation and learning in the programme have also been explored within this study. Data in this study was generated from historical documents analysed, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and field notes. Data was also generated from questionnaires completed by organizations involved in the programme at each Eco- School. Data was analysed in two phases, the first phase involved reading across data generated from the methods mentioned above to organize the data under broad themes in relation to the elements of school community. The second phase of analysis involved the use of the conceptual framework of situating learning in a community of practice to interpret and discuss the participatory and learning processes across the two cases. The study showed that in each Eco-School there is a community of practice with the active involvement of teachers and students and the occasional involvement of parents and organizations. Students and adults are learning as they engage together in classroom and field-work interactions, environmental projects, environmental activities to commemorate environmental theme days, environmental campaigns and co-curricular activities through the practices of each Eco-School community. It was also discovered that students and adults are making different contributions in the Eco-School community based on their level of participation in the programme. It is hoped that the findings in this research contribute information regarding community participation in environmental education programmes like the Seychelles Eco-School programme. In addition, findings will inform the Seychelles Government and its partners to consider the possibility of enhancing school and community partnerships to respond to some of the challenges of participation and learning in the Eco-School programme.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
An investigation of how enquiry-based fieldwork develops action competence in Grade 12 Geography: a Namibian case study
- Authors: Simasiku, Frederick
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Competency-based education -- Namibia -- Hardap Geography -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia -- Hardap Student-centered learning -- Namibia -- Hardap Active learning -- Namibia -- Hardap Environmental education -- Namibia -- Hardap Environmental education -- Activity programs -- Namibia -- Hardap
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1629 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003511
- Description: The goal of the study was twofold: firstly to investigate and describe how senior secondary school geography teachers were implementing enquiry-based learning through fieldwork. Secondly, to investigate and document how enquiry-based learning through fieldwork facilitated the development of action competence amongst learners in a geography classroom. In order to address the first goal, a survey questionnaire was utilised to generate descriptive data from a sample of seven geography teachers in the Hardap region of Namibia. Although teachers engaged learners with enquiry-based fieldwork learning activities it is suggested, based on the findings of data of this goal, that teachers face severe limitations in terms of integrating environmental learning into the geography curriculum. The main limitations of the teachers include: limited practical knowledge of and training in how to teach fieldwork skills; a lack of teaching resource materials; time constraints; heavy personal loads; and lack of school support for environmental education. In addressing the second goal an enquiry-based fieldwork learning unit was planned and implemented in the researcher’s classroom. Observation, focus group interviews, and audio records of learning interactions, were used as data generation methods for this cycle of the study. An indicator framework for identifying action competence in learners was constructed as a data analysis tool. In terms of the findings of goal two it is evident that enquiry-based learning through fieldwork facilitated the development of action competence amongst learners. Six overarching benefits of this type of learning were identified in this study, namely: - It empowered learners to develop contextual knowledge and understanding of issues that they investigated. - It facilitated commitment thus motivated learners to take indirect action. - It promoted social interaction and group cohesion amongst learners thus enhanced their decision-making ability for problem-solving and action taking. - It elicited emotional responses and a greater understanding of learners’ own and others’ attitudes and values towards issues. - It fostered critical thinking thus permitted learners to envisage a future based on their learning experiences. - It enabled learners to plan and take indirect action during the learning process. Based on the research findings, some lessons learned are presented in an attempt to contribute to the effective implementation of enquiry-based fieldwork at the classroom level.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Simasiku, Frederick
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Competency-based education -- Namibia -- Hardap Geography -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia -- Hardap Student-centered learning -- Namibia -- Hardap Active learning -- Namibia -- Hardap Environmental education -- Namibia -- Hardap Environmental education -- Activity programs -- Namibia -- Hardap
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1629 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003511
- Description: The goal of the study was twofold: firstly to investigate and describe how senior secondary school geography teachers were implementing enquiry-based learning through fieldwork. Secondly, to investigate and document how enquiry-based learning through fieldwork facilitated the development of action competence amongst learners in a geography classroom. In order to address the first goal, a survey questionnaire was utilised to generate descriptive data from a sample of seven geography teachers in the Hardap region of Namibia. Although teachers engaged learners with enquiry-based fieldwork learning activities it is suggested, based on the findings of data of this goal, that teachers face severe limitations in terms of integrating environmental learning into the geography curriculum. The main limitations of the teachers include: limited practical knowledge of and training in how to teach fieldwork skills; a lack of teaching resource materials; time constraints; heavy personal loads; and lack of school support for environmental education. In addressing the second goal an enquiry-based fieldwork learning unit was planned and implemented in the researcher’s classroom. Observation, focus group interviews, and audio records of learning interactions, were used as data generation methods for this cycle of the study. An indicator framework for identifying action competence in learners was constructed as a data analysis tool. In terms of the findings of goal two it is evident that enquiry-based learning through fieldwork facilitated the development of action competence amongst learners. Six overarching benefits of this type of learning were identified in this study, namely: - It empowered learners to develop contextual knowledge and understanding of issues that they investigated. - It facilitated commitment thus motivated learners to take indirect action. - It promoted social interaction and group cohesion amongst learners thus enhanced their decision-making ability for problem-solving and action taking. - It elicited emotional responses and a greater understanding of learners’ own and others’ attitudes and values towards issues. - It fostered critical thinking thus permitted learners to envisage a future based on their learning experiences. - It enabled learners to plan and take indirect action during the learning process. Based on the research findings, some lessons learned are presented in an attempt to contribute to the effective implementation of enquiry-based fieldwork at the classroom level.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Investigating the incorporation of education about, in/through and for the environment in the Geography junior phase curriculum: a case study of three Namibian schools
- Authors: Anyolo, Eveline Omagano
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Namibia -- Case studies Education, Primary -- Curricula -- Namibia Geography teachers -- Namibia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1594 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003476
- Description: This study was carried out to investigate how education about, in/through and for the environment is incorporated in the Namibian Geography Junior Phase curriculum in three schools in Oshana Education Region. Education about, in/through and for the environment are three forms of environmental education identified by Fien (1998). This study is a qualitative, interpretive case study. It reviews the activities, content knowledge, methods, competencies and resources and describes how they were used by teachers in fostering education about, in/through and for the environment in the curriculum. Data was generated through document analysis, observations and semi-structured interviews. The results were interpreted and discussed in relation to the research question which is: How is education about, in/through and for the environment incorporated in the Geography Junior Phase curriculum? Key findings of the study suggested that teachers incorporated education about, in/through and for the environment in their teaching. Teachers used the prescribed syllabus to structure their environmental learning lessons. Most methods, resources and activities used by the teachers promoted education about the environment. The study also found that most types of knowledge about the environment were covered by the teachers. This enabled learners to examine the complexity and interrelatedness of natural systems. The study found that the way the resources were used exclusively supported education about the environment. Linking learning to local context in this study encouraged education in/through the environment and enhanced the learning process through real life experience. The study also found that, although teachers taught their learners for the environment, they did not empower them in taking actions towards environmental problems. Based on the insights offered by this research, the study identified further support required by teachers and made recommendations for effective incorporation of about, in/through andfor the environment in the curriculum.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Anyolo, Eveline Omagano
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Namibia -- Case studies Education, Primary -- Curricula -- Namibia Geography teachers -- Namibia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1594 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003476
- Description: This study was carried out to investigate how education about, in/through and for the environment is incorporated in the Namibian Geography Junior Phase curriculum in three schools in Oshana Education Region. Education about, in/through and for the environment are three forms of environmental education identified by Fien (1998). This study is a qualitative, interpretive case study. It reviews the activities, content knowledge, methods, competencies and resources and describes how they were used by teachers in fostering education about, in/through and for the environment in the curriculum. Data was generated through document analysis, observations and semi-structured interviews. The results were interpreted and discussed in relation to the research question which is: How is education about, in/through and for the environment incorporated in the Geography Junior Phase curriculum? Key findings of the study suggested that teachers incorporated education about, in/through and for the environment in their teaching. Teachers used the prescribed syllabus to structure their environmental learning lessons. Most methods, resources and activities used by the teachers promoted education about the environment. The study also found that most types of knowledge about the environment were covered by the teachers. This enabled learners to examine the complexity and interrelatedness of natural systems. The study found that the way the resources were used exclusively supported education about the environment. Linking learning to local context in this study encouraged education in/through the environment and enhanced the learning process through real life experience. The study also found that, although teachers taught their learners for the environment, they did not empower them in taking actions towards environmental problems. Based on the insights offered by this research, the study identified further support required by teachers and made recommendations for effective incorporation of about, in/through andfor the environment in the curriculum.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
School grounds as a place for environmental learning in the life skills learning programme
- Authors: Mambinja, Sindiswa
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa --Grahamstown Life skills -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa Education -- South Africa -- Curricula Education, Elementary -- South Africa School grounds -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Curriculum-based assessment -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1757 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003642
- Description: With the intention of improving my own practice, the study investigated how school grounds could be used for environmental learning in the Foundation Phase Life Skill Learning Programme within the Revised National Curriculum Statement. The research was conducted in the Grade One class of Ntaba Maria Primary School situated in Grahamstown East. The study was an action research case study based on interpretive approach to research. It had two cycles comprised of two lesson plans. The first Lesson Plan focused on an audit of the school grounds to identify environmental issues. The second Lesson Plan was informed by the audit, and addressed one of the identified environmental issues. Data was gathered through analysis of curriculum documents, video recordings and photographs of learning interactions, journal entries and learners’ work. The study highlighted that school grounds provided a context for environmental learning within Life Orientation Learning Area especially when integrated with other learning areas. There were cases however, where assessment standards were only partly addressed. The study also revealed that the Life Orientation Learning Area was also limiting for school grounds learning opportunities in some cases. In other cases the study highlighted the open-ended nature of some of its assessment standards. The study also revealed how school grounds related activities offered opportunities and challenges for constructivist, situated and active learning. Opportunities and challenges regarding group work, language use, active engagement with information learning in authentic settings, and action and action competence; emerged as issues from the analysis. Finally, the study shed light on how reflection on learners’ work and assessment of these could help teachers modify activities and do them differently so as to enhance the achievement of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values. The achievement of investigative and problem-solving skills through the two lesson plans was critically evaluated as the processes of values education employed in the lesson implementation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Mambinja, Sindiswa
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa --Grahamstown Life skills -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa Education -- South Africa -- Curricula Education, Elementary -- South Africa School grounds -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Curriculum-based assessment -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1757 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003642
- Description: With the intention of improving my own practice, the study investigated how school grounds could be used for environmental learning in the Foundation Phase Life Skill Learning Programme within the Revised National Curriculum Statement. The research was conducted in the Grade One class of Ntaba Maria Primary School situated in Grahamstown East. The study was an action research case study based on interpretive approach to research. It had two cycles comprised of two lesson plans. The first Lesson Plan focused on an audit of the school grounds to identify environmental issues. The second Lesson Plan was informed by the audit, and addressed one of the identified environmental issues. Data was gathered through analysis of curriculum documents, video recordings and photographs of learning interactions, journal entries and learners’ work. The study highlighted that school grounds provided a context for environmental learning within Life Orientation Learning Area especially when integrated with other learning areas. There were cases however, where assessment standards were only partly addressed. The study also revealed that the Life Orientation Learning Area was also limiting for school grounds learning opportunities in some cases. In other cases the study highlighted the open-ended nature of some of its assessment standards. The study also revealed how school grounds related activities offered opportunities and challenges for constructivist, situated and active learning. Opportunities and challenges regarding group work, language use, active engagement with information learning in authentic settings, and action and action competence; emerged as issues from the analysis. Finally, the study shed light on how reflection on learners’ work and assessment of these could help teachers modify activities and do them differently so as to enhance the achievement of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values. The achievement of investigative and problem-solving skills through the two lesson plans was critically evaluated as the processes of values education employed in the lesson implementation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Information and communication technology driven teaching and learning opportunities in support of environmental education processes: a case of the eno-environment online programme at Treverton Preparatory School, South Africa
- Authors: Snow, Janet P
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Treverton School (Natal, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Case studies , Computer-assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- Computer assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- South Africa -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Educational technology -- South Africa -- Case studies , Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1575 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003457 , Treverton School (Natal, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Case studies , Computer-assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- Computer assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- South Africa -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Educational technology -- South Africa -- Case studies , Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Description: This research looks at a global virtual web-based programme for environmental awareness and education for sustainable development (ENO-Environment Online). It is a case study of Treverton Preparatory school in South Africa, one of several schools where the programme is implemented. One of the themes within the programme (“This is our culture”) is highlighted. A mixed method, interpretive case study methodology is used. Research methods include two focus group interviews with a selected group of learners, observations of four computer-based lessons and one practical session, document analysis of the three forms of learners’ submissions (‘blog’ site submission, presentation of material and ‘chat’ session), and two interviews conducted with the Treverton form teacher and ENO programme co-ordinator. The research views the Treverton ENO activities in relation to: academic rigour in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use, the teacher’s role in ICT pedagogy, and active learning in ICT applications. As the theme is culturally based with a global perspective, the research also considers these activities from the perspectives of education for cultural knowledge (multicultural education) and in terms of mobilising indigenous knowledge and global education. These perspectives on the ENO activities are analysed in relation to dimensions of teaching and learning guidelines pertinent to Education for Sustainable Development in a southern African context. The research shows that the ENO theme supported a variety of learning contexts, a sense of community, modelling of behaviours and actions, debate, sharing of information and improved communication skills. Learners were exposed to cultural diversity, contradictory cultural values, cultural and global inclusivity. Knowledge of social cultural practices and indigenous knowledge was shared. Academic rigour in the ENO theme was noted with reflection being the predominant activity. Based on these key findings, recommendations to the ENO programme, schools and teachers have been made. These include: exploring possibilities for increasing focus on sustainable development actions, improving access to relevant information, encouraging critical debate and critical engagement with cultural diversity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Snow, Janet P
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Treverton School (Natal, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Case studies , Computer-assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- Computer assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- South Africa -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Educational technology -- South Africa -- Case studies , Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1575 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003457 , Treverton School (Natal, South Africa) , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Case studies , Computer-assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- Computer assisted instruction -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Preschool -- South Africa -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- South Africa -- Case studies , Educational technology -- South Africa -- Case studies , Ethnoscience -- Study and teaching -- South Africa
- Description: This research looks at a global virtual web-based programme for environmental awareness and education for sustainable development (ENO-Environment Online). It is a case study of Treverton Preparatory school in South Africa, one of several schools where the programme is implemented. One of the themes within the programme (“This is our culture”) is highlighted. A mixed method, interpretive case study methodology is used. Research methods include two focus group interviews with a selected group of learners, observations of four computer-based lessons and one practical session, document analysis of the three forms of learners’ submissions (‘blog’ site submission, presentation of material and ‘chat’ session), and two interviews conducted with the Treverton form teacher and ENO programme co-ordinator. The research views the Treverton ENO activities in relation to: academic rigour in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) use, the teacher’s role in ICT pedagogy, and active learning in ICT applications. As the theme is culturally based with a global perspective, the research also considers these activities from the perspectives of education for cultural knowledge (multicultural education) and in terms of mobilising indigenous knowledge and global education. These perspectives on the ENO activities are analysed in relation to dimensions of teaching and learning guidelines pertinent to Education for Sustainable Development in a southern African context. The research shows that the ENO theme supported a variety of learning contexts, a sense of community, modelling of behaviours and actions, debate, sharing of information and improved communication skills. Learners were exposed to cultural diversity, contradictory cultural values, cultural and global inclusivity. Knowledge of social cultural practices and indigenous knowledge was shared. Academic rigour in the ENO theme was noted with reflection being the predominant activity. Based on these key findings, recommendations to the ENO programme, schools and teachers have been made. These include: exploring possibilities for increasing focus on sustainable development actions, improving access to relevant information, encouraging critical debate and critical engagement with cultural diversity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Food gardens, environmental lesson planning and active learning in the life orientation learning area - foundation phase: a case study at Lungelolethu Lower and Higher Primary School
- Ncula, Ntombizandile Shirley
- Authors: Ncula, Ntombizandile Shirley
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: School gardens -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Gardening -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa --Eastern Cape Environmental education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1546 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003428
- Description: This study was conducted at Lungelolethu Lower/Higher Primary School in Keiskammahoek at a time when I was struggling to understand and implement the new South African curriculum policy, particularly in the Foundation Phase Life Skills Learning Programme. The research focused on my developing an understanding of key Learning Outcomes and linking them with the National Curriculum Statement principle of social justice, human rights, a healthy environment and inclusivity. During this time I was the key 4-H Programme educator in my school, responsible for school food garden activities. I used the school food garden for this study to explore the opportunities the garden might provide to develop the new curriculum using active learning approaches to teaching and learning; as well as to respond to environmental issues such as poverty. This research was an interpretive case study which supported my reflections within a practical action research framework. This framework suited my intention to change my classroom practice. I undertook three action research cycles with the first cycle aimed at gaining insights from the 4-H Programme teachers which informed 2 lesson plans for cycles 2 and 3 respectively. I generated data through focus group interviews, observations, document analysis, video and tape recording, and my research journal entries. The data indicated the value of school food gardens in meeting curriculum requirements, particularly in relation to learner centred ideologies and the first principle of the national curriculum. As both researcher and mediator of learning, I developed skills and knowledge that helped me to understand working in the Foundation Phase. The study also revealed a need for meaningful integration within and across Learning Areas when planning lessons in the Life Skills Learning Programme. The study indicated that there is a need to develop assessment practices beyond a technical exercise to a more interpretive approach. Lastly this study offers some recommendations for further research into the use of school food gardens through taking the context of learners into account and by encouraging school community relationships that will also contribute in poverty alleviation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Ncula, Ntombizandile Shirley
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: School gardens -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Gardening -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- South Africa --Eastern Cape Environmental education -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1546 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003428
- Description: This study was conducted at Lungelolethu Lower/Higher Primary School in Keiskammahoek at a time when I was struggling to understand and implement the new South African curriculum policy, particularly in the Foundation Phase Life Skills Learning Programme. The research focused on my developing an understanding of key Learning Outcomes and linking them with the National Curriculum Statement principle of social justice, human rights, a healthy environment and inclusivity. During this time I was the key 4-H Programme educator in my school, responsible for school food garden activities. I used the school food garden for this study to explore the opportunities the garden might provide to develop the new curriculum using active learning approaches to teaching and learning; as well as to respond to environmental issues such as poverty. This research was an interpretive case study which supported my reflections within a practical action research framework. This framework suited my intention to change my classroom practice. I undertook three action research cycles with the first cycle aimed at gaining insights from the 4-H Programme teachers which informed 2 lesson plans for cycles 2 and 3 respectively. I generated data through focus group interviews, observations, document analysis, video and tape recording, and my research journal entries. The data indicated the value of school food gardens in meeting curriculum requirements, particularly in relation to learner centred ideologies and the first principle of the national curriculum. As both researcher and mediator of learning, I developed skills and knowledge that helped me to understand working in the Foundation Phase. The study also revealed a need for meaningful integration within and across Learning Areas when planning lessons in the Life Skills Learning Programme. The study indicated that there is a need to develop assessment practices beyond a technical exercise to a more interpretive approach. Lastly this study offers some recommendations for further research into the use of school food gardens through taking the context of learners into account and by encouraging school community relationships that will also contribute in poverty alleviation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
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