The relationship between the development and use of teaching and learning support materials: the case of "A year of special days" booklet
- Authors: Urenje, Shepherd
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Southern African Development Community Teaching -- Aids and devices -- South Africa Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1724 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003607
- Description: This research is an interpretive case study, which investigated the relationship between the development and use of the teaching and learning support material, “A Year of Special Days”. An in depth investigation was conducted in South Africa and Zimbabwe where developers and users of the booklet were asked to contribute their experiences with the booklet through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and workshops. Developers contributed on the purpose for which the booklet was produced while the users explained how the booklet was being used in different contexts. The research also tracked the development and use of booklet in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region through a workshop held at the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) Conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in May 2005. Some personal interviews and informal encounters with people who have used it in the past and those using it now were also conducted at EEASA. This case study explored the axes of tension between the development and use of the resource material, “A Year of Special Days”, with the view to informing development and use of materials at the SADC Centre. A long-term intention is to use the framework developed, for similar work in the wider SADC region. The research recommended on how the SADC Centre can track the relationship between the materials developed at the Centre and their use in different contexts. The study established that the booklet “A Year of Special Days” was initially developed for informal education by faith communities mainly in the Anglican Church but turned out to be a resource more applicable for formal education mainly in the national school system of South Africa for environmental learning. That the resource material lacked effective monitoring support from the developers for the initial intended users where there was no formal education structure was an important link in materials development. It is important for resource materials developers to facilitate the participatory monitoring and evaluation of resource materials when they are in use. The study also established that SADC resources materials are easily adaptable and that the process of resource materials development offers important networking opportunities, which allow the adaptation and adoption of similar resource materials for local contexts. The booklet was adapted and adopted by at least eight countries in the form of a booklet, a calendar or a poster. This study provides some recommendations that may be used to guide the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (REEP) to enhance processes in the development and adaptation of teaching and learning support materials by environmental educators in southern Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Urenje, Shepherd
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Southern African Development Community Teaching -- Aids and devices -- South Africa Environmental education -- South Africa -- Case studies Environmental education -- Curricula -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1724 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003607
- Description: This research is an interpretive case study, which investigated the relationship between the development and use of the teaching and learning support material, “A Year of Special Days”. An in depth investigation was conducted in South Africa and Zimbabwe where developers and users of the booklet were asked to contribute their experiences with the booklet through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and workshops. Developers contributed on the purpose for which the booklet was produced while the users explained how the booklet was being used in different contexts. The research also tracked the development and use of booklet in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region through a workshop held at the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA) Conference in Lusaka, Zambia, in May 2005. Some personal interviews and informal encounters with people who have used it in the past and those using it now were also conducted at EEASA. This case study explored the axes of tension between the development and use of the resource material, “A Year of Special Days”, with the view to informing development and use of materials at the SADC Centre. A long-term intention is to use the framework developed, for similar work in the wider SADC region. The research recommended on how the SADC Centre can track the relationship between the materials developed at the Centre and their use in different contexts. The study established that the booklet “A Year of Special Days” was initially developed for informal education by faith communities mainly in the Anglican Church but turned out to be a resource more applicable for formal education mainly in the national school system of South Africa for environmental learning. That the resource material lacked effective monitoring support from the developers for the initial intended users where there was no formal education structure was an important link in materials development. It is important for resource materials developers to facilitate the participatory monitoring and evaluation of resource materials when they are in use. The study also established that SADC resources materials are easily adaptable and that the process of resource materials development offers important networking opportunities, which allow the adaptation and adoption of similar resource materials for local contexts. The booklet was adapted and adopted by at least eight countries in the form of a booklet, a calendar or a poster. This study provides some recommendations that may be used to guide the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (REEP) to enhance processes in the development and adaptation of teaching and learning support materials by environmental educators in southern Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Understanding workplace-based learning contexts to inform curriculum development: the case of a Level 5 Environmental Education, Training and Development Practice Qualification
- Authors: Wigley, Jonathan James
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: South African Qualifications Authority National Qualifications Framework (South Africa) Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Curriculum planning -- South Africa Competency-based education -- South Africa Vocational qualifications -- South Africa Education and state -- South Africa Education -- Standards -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Standards
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1808 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003694
- Description: This is an interpretive case study that explores the workplace epistemologies and institutional structures of two nested cases within the broader context of the Environmental Education, Training and Development Practices - Level 5 qualification (EETDP qualification) that is registered on the South African National Qualifications Framework. The study provides insights to inform EETDP curriculum development that is enabling of reflexive environmental education and training processes. The study develops an understanding of workplace epistemologies related to environment and education, the structural factors that enable and constrain agency of environmental educators and the role of reflexivity in practice and in education in two nested cases: the agricultural and local government sectors. It draws on findings from workshops, semistructured interviews and document analysis of education materials in these two nested cases. The study notes that there are diverse and seemingly ambiguous understandings of both environment/sustainability and education processes in the two nested cases. This ambiguity seems to relate to environmental education practitioners drawing on different forms of knowledge, including differentiated or theoretical knowledge, and 'common-sense' ways of knowing, in their education practice. The understandings related to theoretical knowledge are, in both nested cases, dominated by scientific or technical understandings where environment is understood in the terms of the natural sciences and education is seen in instrumentalist terms as the transfer of mainly technical environmental knowledge to learners in order to effect behaviour change. The study opens up deeper understandings of the epistemological, socio-cultural and structural features of context, in the two nested cases, that have a bearing on environmental educators. It provides insights into workplace structures that can be both enabling and constraining of agency and notes that the causal power of structures to enable or constrain does not lie only in the structures but also in relation to the intentionality of the environmental education practitioners/agents. The study then examines reflexivity as one of the means through which environmental educators in the nested cases are able to consider appropriate actions or responses to structural constraints or enablements. Based on the insights offered by the research findings, the study makes recommendations for the EETDP curriculum development. It frames these recommendations within an understanding of curriculum as a contextualised social process that involves structural aspects of curriculum such as materials, as well as socio-cultural processes such as learning on the course and in the workplace.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Wigley, Jonathan James
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: South African Qualifications Authority National Qualifications Framework (South Africa) Environmental education -- Study and teaching -- South Africa Curriculum planning -- South Africa Competency-based education -- South Africa Vocational qualifications -- South Africa Education and state -- South Africa Education -- Standards -- South Africa Education, Higher -- South Africa -- Standards
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1808 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003694
- Description: This is an interpretive case study that explores the workplace epistemologies and institutional structures of two nested cases within the broader context of the Environmental Education, Training and Development Practices - Level 5 qualification (EETDP qualification) that is registered on the South African National Qualifications Framework. The study provides insights to inform EETDP curriculum development that is enabling of reflexive environmental education and training processes. The study develops an understanding of workplace epistemologies related to environment and education, the structural factors that enable and constrain agency of environmental educators and the role of reflexivity in practice and in education in two nested cases: the agricultural and local government sectors. It draws on findings from workshops, semistructured interviews and document analysis of education materials in these two nested cases. The study notes that there are diverse and seemingly ambiguous understandings of both environment/sustainability and education processes in the two nested cases. This ambiguity seems to relate to environmental education practitioners drawing on different forms of knowledge, including differentiated or theoretical knowledge, and 'common-sense' ways of knowing, in their education practice. The understandings related to theoretical knowledge are, in both nested cases, dominated by scientific or technical understandings where environment is understood in the terms of the natural sciences and education is seen in instrumentalist terms as the transfer of mainly technical environmental knowledge to learners in order to effect behaviour change. The study opens up deeper understandings of the epistemological, socio-cultural and structural features of context, in the two nested cases, that have a bearing on environmental educators. It provides insights into workplace structures that can be both enabling and constraining of agency and notes that the causal power of structures to enable or constrain does not lie only in the structures but also in relation to the intentionality of the environmental education practitioners/agents. The study then examines reflexivity as one of the means through which environmental educators in the nested cases are able to consider appropriate actions or responses to structural constraints or enablements. Based on the insights offered by the research findings, the study makes recommendations for the EETDP curriculum development. It frames these recommendations within an understanding of curriculum as a contextualised social process that involves structural aspects of curriculum such as materials, as well as socio-cultural processes such as learning on the course and in the workplace.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006