Revitalisation and indigenisation of the Science curriculum through drum making, drumming, music and dance
- Authors: Liveve, Angelius Kanyanga
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Curriculum change Namibia , Science Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia , Traditional ecological knowledge Namibia , Drum Performance , Drum making , Pedagogical content knowledge , Social learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405482 , vital:70175 , DOI 10.21504/10962/405482
- Description: The integration of IK is a common phenomenon in many postcolonial states, where it is viewed as a means to redress the injustices of the colonial era. It is believed that the recognition of IK in education represents an acknowledgement of diversity and other ways of knowing. In Namibia, for instance, the National Curriculum for Basic Education encourages the integration of IK in Science teaching. However, this goal is still far from being achieved because the curriculum seems to be silent on how teachers should integrate IK into their teaching. As a result, research shows that many Science teachers in Namibia seem to find it difficult to integrate IK into their science teaching because they were not properly trained to do so during both their pre-service and in-service training. This suggests that there is a dire need to empower science teachers who are implementers of the curriculum on appropriate pedagogical content knowledge on how to integrate IK into their science teaching in particular. It is against this backdrop that this interventionist study sought to explore how to mobilise the indigenous technology of drum making, drumming, music and dance for cultural revitalisation and indigenisation of the science curriculum. The study is underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm and augmented with an indigenous research paradigm. The interpretivist paradigm enabled me to understand the teachers’ perspectives in their contexts. On the other hand, within the indigenous research paradigm, I used the Ubuntu perspective which afforded each of us an opportunity to understand each other’s ways of knowing, doing and being. Within these two complementary paradigms, a qualitative case study approach was employed. The case study was in the form of intervention with six Grade 10 Physics teachers from three senior secondary schools in the Kavango West Region in Namibia. Moreover, a critical friend who was a lecturer at the university and expert community members of the Unongo Cultural Youth Group who are the custodians of the cultural heritage. Data were generated using semi-structured interviews, workshop discussions (audio-recorded), observations (participatory and lesson observations), stimulated recall interviews as well as journal reflections. Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory, Ogunniyi’s Contiguity Argumentation Theory and Mavhunga and Rollnick’s Topic-specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge were used as the theoretical lenses in this study. The data gathered were analysed thematically and then categorised into sub-themes and themes. The findings of the study revealed that tapping into the cultural heritage of community members through giving them a voice has great potential to revitalise and indigenise the science curriculum. It also emerged in this study that storytelling is a potential instructional strategy to make science accessible and relevant to learners. The use of the indigenous technology of drum making, drumming, music and dance contributed to the Physics teachers’ agency and empowered them to co-develop their learning and teaching support materials in the form of exemplar lesson plans that integrated IK. Moreover, their pedagogical content knowledge was enhanced through enacting such exemplar lessons and thereafter reflecting on them. The study thus recommends that those in academia should promote the use of indigenous technologies as hubs for mediating the learning of science concepts. It also recommends that learners should be taken out of their science classrooms into the community to learn IK and wisdom from expert community members, something which could assist them in understanding the science taught at school. This might also benefit teachers in effectively implementing the integration of IK in schools and thereby use learners’ cultural heritage as a starting point to enrich meaningful and authentic learning. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Liveve, Angelius Kanyanga
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Curriculum change Namibia , Science Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia , Traditional ecological knowledge Namibia , Drum Performance , Drum making , Pedagogical content knowledge , Social learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405482 , vital:70175 , DOI 10.21504/10962/405482
- Description: The integration of IK is a common phenomenon in many postcolonial states, where it is viewed as a means to redress the injustices of the colonial era. It is believed that the recognition of IK in education represents an acknowledgement of diversity and other ways of knowing. In Namibia, for instance, the National Curriculum for Basic Education encourages the integration of IK in Science teaching. However, this goal is still far from being achieved because the curriculum seems to be silent on how teachers should integrate IK into their teaching. As a result, research shows that many Science teachers in Namibia seem to find it difficult to integrate IK into their science teaching because they were not properly trained to do so during both their pre-service and in-service training. This suggests that there is a dire need to empower science teachers who are implementers of the curriculum on appropriate pedagogical content knowledge on how to integrate IK into their science teaching in particular. It is against this backdrop that this interventionist study sought to explore how to mobilise the indigenous technology of drum making, drumming, music and dance for cultural revitalisation and indigenisation of the science curriculum. The study is underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm and augmented with an indigenous research paradigm. The interpretivist paradigm enabled me to understand the teachers’ perspectives in their contexts. On the other hand, within the indigenous research paradigm, I used the Ubuntu perspective which afforded each of us an opportunity to understand each other’s ways of knowing, doing and being. Within these two complementary paradigms, a qualitative case study approach was employed. The case study was in the form of intervention with six Grade 10 Physics teachers from three senior secondary schools in the Kavango West Region in Namibia. Moreover, a critical friend who was a lecturer at the university and expert community members of the Unongo Cultural Youth Group who are the custodians of the cultural heritage. Data were generated using semi-structured interviews, workshop discussions (audio-recorded), observations (participatory and lesson observations), stimulated recall interviews as well as journal reflections. Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory, Ogunniyi’s Contiguity Argumentation Theory and Mavhunga and Rollnick’s Topic-specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge were used as the theoretical lenses in this study. The data gathered were analysed thematically and then categorised into sub-themes and themes. The findings of the study revealed that tapping into the cultural heritage of community members through giving them a voice has great potential to revitalise and indigenise the science curriculum. It also emerged in this study that storytelling is a potential instructional strategy to make science accessible and relevant to learners. The use of the indigenous technology of drum making, drumming, music and dance contributed to the Physics teachers’ agency and empowered them to co-develop their learning and teaching support materials in the form of exemplar lesson plans that integrated IK. Moreover, their pedagogical content knowledge was enhanced through enacting such exemplar lessons and thereafter reflecting on them. The study thus recommends that those in academia should promote the use of indigenous technologies as hubs for mediating the learning of science concepts. It also recommends that learners should be taken out of their science classrooms into the community to learn IK and wisdom from expert community members, something which could assist them in understanding the science taught at school. This might also benefit teachers in effectively implementing the integration of IK in schools and thereby use learners’ cultural heritage as a starting point to enrich meaningful and authentic learning. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
The incorporation of GeoGebra as a visualisation tool to teach calculus in teacher education institutions: the Zambian case
- Authors: Kangwa, Lemmy
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: GeoGebra , Calculus Study and teaching (Secondary) Zambia , Visual learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405470 , vital:70174 , DOI
- Description: This qualitative case study investigated teacher educators’ (lecturers) use of the dynamic mathematics software, GeoGebra, to teach calculus in three teacher education institutions (TEIs) in Zambia. Visualisation, a key characteristic of GeoGebra, is increasingly gaining recognition of playing a critical role in mathematics teaching and learning, especially in problem solving tasks. It is considered a powerful didactical tool for students to construct mental and physical representations that can enhance conceptual understanding of mathematics. GeoGebra is a visualisation tool that can be used for problem-oriented teaching and foster mathematical experiments and discoveries. GeoGebra’s inherent visualisation characteristics align well with the teaching of calculus, the mathematical domain of this study. The study (whose research methodology was underpinned by the interpretive paradigm) was undertaken with a broader goal of designing and implementing GeoGebra applets and instructional materials on various calculus topics. The study is located within the “Teaching and Learning Mathematics with GeoGebra (TLMG) project” – a project that involves mathematics teachers and lecturers in Zambia. The case in this study is the six mathematics lecturers who co-designed and used GeoGebra applets to teach derivatives and integrals to pre-service mathematics teachers in TEIs. The unit of analysis therefore is the six lecturers’ use of GeoGebra as a visualisation tool to teach calculus to enhance conceptual understanding, their perceptions and experiences of using GeoGebra and the enabling and constraining factors of using GeoGebra to teach and learn mathematics. The data for the study were video recordings of observations and interviews of lecturers. The data was analysed thematically and was guided and informed by an analytical framework adopted from the theory of constructivism – the umbrella theoretical framework of this study – and the models of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). A detailed analysis of the lecturers’ interactions with the applets enabled me to gain insights into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of GeoGebra applets in the teaching and learning process. The findings of the study revealed that the visualisation characteristics of GeoGebra generally enhanced the conceptual understanding of calculus. It also revealed that adequate training, coupled with sufficient knowledge of the subject matter in calculus, were necessary for lecturers to use GeoGebra effectively, and that the lack of resources and expertise were major hindrances in the use of GeoGebra to teach mathematics in TEIs. It also revealed that there is a need to equip GeoGebra with other features that would make it more versatile, and suggested a teaching approach that would complement the use of conventional methods and GeoGebra to provide a link between abstract and concrete concepts of calculus. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Kangwa, Lemmy
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: GeoGebra , Calculus Study and teaching (Secondary) Zambia , Visual learning
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405470 , vital:70174 , DOI
- Description: This qualitative case study investigated teacher educators’ (lecturers) use of the dynamic mathematics software, GeoGebra, to teach calculus in three teacher education institutions (TEIs) in Zambia. Visualisation, a key characteristic of GeoGebra, is increasingly gaining recognition of playing a critical role in mathematics teaching and learning, especially in problem solving tasks. It is considered a powerful didactical tool for students to construct mental and physical representations that can enhance conceptual understanding of mathematics. GeoGebra is a visualisation tool that can be used for problem-oriented teaching and foster mathematical experiments and discoveries. GeoGebra’s inherent visualisation characteristics align well with the teaching of calculus, the mathematical domain of this study. The study (whose research methodology was underpinned by the interpretive paradigm) was undertaken with a broader goal of designing and implementing GeoGebra applets and instructional materials on various calculus topics. The study is located within the “Teaching and Learning Mathematics with GeoGebra (TLMG) project” – a project that involves mathematics teachers and lecturers in Zambia. The case in this study is the six mathematics lecturers who co-designed and used GeoGebra applets to teach derivatives and integrals to pre-service mathematics teachers in TEIs. The unit of analysis therefore is the six lecturers’ use of GeoGebra as a visualisation tool to teach calculus to enhance conceptual understanding, their perceptions and experiences of using GeoGebra and the enabling and constraining factors of using GeoGebra to teach and learn mathematics. The data for the study were video recordings of observations and interviews of lecturers. The data was analysed thematically and was guided and informed by an analytical framework adopted from the theory of constructivism – the umbrella theoretical framework of this study – and the models of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). A detailed analysis of the lecturers’ interactions with the applets enabled me to gain insights into the participants’ experiences and perceptions of GeoGebra applets in the teaching and learning process. The findings of the study revealed that the visualisation characteristics of GeoGebra generally enhanced the conceptual understanding of calculus. It also revealed that adequate training, coupled with sufficient knowledge of the subject matter in calculus, were necessary for lecturers to use GeoGebra effectively, and that the lack of resources and expertise were major hindrances in the use of GeoGebra to teach mathematics in TEIs. It also revealed that there is a need to equip GeoGebra with other features that would make it more versatile, and suggested a teaching approach that would complement the use of conventional methods and GeoGebra to provide a link between abstract and concrete concepts of calculus. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
The role of visualisation in redefining the pedagogy of fractions in mathematics classrooms among senior primary school teachers
- Authors: Ausiku, Charity Makwiliro
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) Namibia , Fractions Study and teaching (Elementary) Namibia , Visualization , Visual learning , Dual-coding hypothesis , Constructivism (Education) Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405456 , vital:70173 , DOI 10.21504/10962/405456
- Description: This mixed methods study explored the impact of the use of a visualisation approach on the pedagogy of eight teacher participants who were involved in the Rundu Campus Fraction Project (RCFP). The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which participants incorporated visualisation processes in the pedagogy of fractions, in view of their exposure to visualisation activities in the RCFP. Since fractions are difficult to teach and learn, visualisation was considered as an alternative approach to the pedagogy of fractions because it presents learners with opportunities to improve their proportional and spatial reasoning. This study was founded on the premise that the incorporation of both verbal and nonverbal cues can enhance the teaching and learning of fractions rather than the use of a single cue. Hence, the two theories underpinning this study are the Dual Coding Theory and the Constructivist Theory. While the Dual Coding Theory advocates for the use of verbal and nonverbal codes, the Constructivist theory states that meaningful learning occurs when learners are presented with opportunities to construct their own knowledge. Thus, the two codes are intertwined. In other words, the active construction of knowledge among learners is aided by using constructivist teaching approaches through the incorporation of both verbal and nonverbal codes. Although this study was predominantly qualitative, quantitative methods were also used in the data collection process. A questionnaire was administered to identify teacher participants for this study, based on their teaching orientations. Their views on best practices in mathematics classrooms in general and the incorporation of visualisation processes in particular, were instrumental in the selection of participants for this study. In addition, observations and semi-structured interviews were also used as research methods. Twenty-five lesson samples were video recorded, transcribed and analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Moreover, each of the eight participants was exposed to a set of pre- and post-observation interviews during which they were expected to express their views on the selection, incorporation and impact of visualisation processes on the teaching of fractions. Data sets from all three instruments were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings indicate that the RCFP had an impact on the teaching strategies employed by the participants as they all incorporated visualisation processes into their teaching to some extent. In some lessons, the visual code was effectively blended into the verbal code while in others, the purpose of and connection between the two codes was not evident. Hence, although all the participants embraced the incorporation of visualisation in the pedagogy of mathematics, some of them struggled to find its rightful position in the teaching of fractions. The findings suggest that despite the participants’ eagerness to use visualisation in their fraction lessons, some of them did not have adequate knowledge to successfully merge it with the conventional verbal code. Thus, for the integration of visuals to be impactful, it should be carefully merged in the teaching of fractions by taking into account various factors. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
- Authors: Ausiku, Charity Makwiliro
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Elementary) Namibia , Fractions Study and teaching (Elementary) Namibia , Visualization , Visual learning , Dual-coding hypothesis , Constructivism (Education) Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/405456 , vital:70173 , DOI 10.21504/10962/405456
- Description: This mixed methods study explored the impact of the use of a visualisation approach on the pedagogy of eight teacher participants who were involved in the Rundu Campus Fraction Project (RCFP). The aim of this study was to determine the extent to which participants incorporated visualisation processes in the pedagogy of fractions, in view of their exposure to visualisation activities in the RCFP. Since fractions are difficult to teach and learn, visualisation was considered as an alternative approach to the pedagogy of fractions because it presents learners with opportunities to improve their proportional and spatial reasoning. This study was founded on the premise that the incorporation of both verbal and nonverbal cues can enhance the teaching and learning of fractions rather than the use of a single cue. Hence, the two theories underpinning this study are the Dual Coding Theory and the Constructivist Theory. While the Dual Coding Theory advocates for the use of verbal and nonverbal codes, the Constructivist theory states that meaningful learning occurs when learners are presented with opportunities to construct their own knowledge. Thus, the two codes are intertwined. In other words, the active construction of knowledge among learners is aided by using constructivist teaching approaches through the incorporation of both verbal and nonverbal codes. Although this study was predominantly qualitative, quantitative methods were also used in the data collection process. A questionnaire was administered to identify teacher participants for this study, based on their teaching orientations. Their views on best practices in mathematics classrooms in general and the incorporation of visualisation processes in particular, were instrumental in the selection of participants for this study. In addition, observations and semi-structured interviews were also used as research methods. Twenty-five lesson samples were video recorded, transcribed and analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Moreover, each of the eight participants was exposed to a set of pre- and post-observation interviews during which they were expected to express their views on the selection, incorporation and impact of visualisation processes on the teaching of fractions. Data sets from all three instruments were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings indicate that the RCFP had an impact on the teaching strategies employed by the participants as they all incorporated visualisation processes into their teaching to some extent. In some lessons, the visual code was effectively blended into the verbal code while in others, the purpose of and connection between the two codes was not evident. Hence, although all the participants embraced the incorporation of visualisation in the pedagogy of mathematics, some of them struggled to find its rightful position in the teaching of fractions. The findings suggest that despite the participants’ eagerness to use visualisation in their fraction lessons, some of them did not have adequate knowledge to successfully merge it with the conventional verbal code. Thus, for the integration of visuals to be impactful, it should be carefully merged in the teaching of fractions by taking into account various factors. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
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