3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Teachers’ indigenous knowledge and the possibilities of integrating it with life sciences teaching and learning(2021) Ahanonye, Uchechi AgnesThe teaching and learning of Sciences in schools in South Africa can be challenging for teachers and learners. Therefore, the focus of Science education is to make Science accessible and attractive to all learners in the classroom. This study explores teachers’ Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and the possibilities of integrating it with Life Sciences teaching and learning in the classroom context. However, in South Africa, teachers are struggling with how IK should be integrated with science for a culturally relevant science classroom. Therefore the following research questions were posed: How is IK represented in the grade 10, 11 and 12 Life Sciences curricula in South Africa classroom? What perception do teachers have of Indigenous Knowledge? What are teachers’ experience and the possibilities of integrating IK and Life Sciences’ concepts to promote Science in the classroom? A qualitative case study research approach was adopted for this study. A purposive sampling strategy was used to select the participants of this study. Grades 10, 11 and 12 Life Sciences teachers in four peri-urban high schools (13 teachers) in South Africa were involved in this study. This study adopted the constructivist theory as the suitable theoretical framework to unpack the research questions. Interviews, questionnaire as well as content analysis of the NCS and CAPS document were used to collect rich qualitative data in this study. The questionnaires were piloted, and several changes made before it was administered for the main study. Findings from this study revealed that; although the curriculum called for inclusion of IK in the teaching and learning of Science in the classroom, how teachers should integrate both worldviews were not explicitly provided; teacher’s view of IK and Westernized Science is that both worldviews are ways of knowing and they both share common grounds as to their scientific nature; teachers’ view of IK indicated that teachers are aware of their IK and the possibilities of integrating such knowledge in their Life 3 Sciences classrooms were emphasized. From the findings, it was recommended that the curriculum need to be explicit with the information on how teachers should integrate IK and Westernized Science in their teaching practice. Also, cultural artefacts should be made available for teachers to effectively integrate IK and Westernized Science. The implication of this study to Science education is that the integration of IK and Westernized Science in the Science classroom influences the need for a more culturally relevant classroom to make Science more meaningful to learners.Item Investigating PGCE pre-service teachers' level of understanding of life sciences as a scientific discipline(2017) Ahanonye, Uchechi AgnesThe aim of this study was to investigate PGCE pre-service teachers’ level of understanding of life sciences as a scientific discipline. The investigation was carried out at a Higher Education institution where Life science is studied. A questionnaire containing a Likert scale section with twenty two items, and open ended section with two statements was administered for this study. The participants were sixteen Postgraduate certificate in Education (PGCE) Life science pre-service teachers at a South African Higher Educational institute. Also, an interview was conducted with the participating students and two teacher educators who teach in the PGCE program. The theoretical framework adopted for this research is built on Bernstein’s legitimation code theory (LCT). The data was deductively analysed qualitatively by using the legitimation code theory (LCT) dimensions to answer the research questions posed for this study. The findings of this study revealed that PGCE Life science pre-service teachers show an understanding of their disciplinary knowledge in terms of its important knowledge content (specialization), diversified nature of the disciplinary knowledge (density) and the emergent and existence of the accumulated knowledge (Temporality). Also in their responses, it was evident that they recognize the place of Nature of science (NOS) as part of their disciplinary knowledge, that is, they have a better gaze of the need for SMK, inquiry based skills, and history of science (HoS). The educational implications as well as recommendations of this study were explained. The recommendation for this study is that, the nature of Life science as a discipline of knowing should be made explicit to students.