3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to promote critical thinking in a grade ten Life science class(2019) Luo, Mei JuneThis report investigates the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to promote and enhance critical thinking in learners in a secondary school in South Africa. The aim is to uncover how a teacher incorporated ICTs in her classroom teaching in order to develop the five intellectual resources within critical thinking, as argued by Bailin (1999). The focus is on how the teacher found a preferable teaching approach to enhance critical thinking through specific ICT tools. Case study findings illustrate how ICTs were incorporated within a grade ten class to promote critical thinking. In order to promote the five intellectual resources of the critical thinking process in line with Bailin (1999), data was analysed qualitatively from class observation, a questionnaire, interview and samples of learners’ tasks. The theoretical focus comprises of constructivism theory, the critical thinking perception of Bailin (1999), and the specific five intellectual resources. The main purpose of the report is to explore how the teacher used ICTs to create a learning environment where learners were encouraged to interact and engage with their peers and teacher. Thus, this report demonstrates the ICT types that the teacher incorporated in her Life Science classroom to stimulate and promote those intellectual resources that learners require for deliberate thinking.Item Science talk: exploring students and teachers understanding of argumentation in grade 11 science classrooms(2016) Mphahlele, Maletsau JacqualineThe merits of argumentation for science teaching and learning have been established not just for South Africa, but globally. However, little is known about what both students and teachers understand by argumentation for science learning and teaching. This study aimed to investigate what seventy nine students and two teachers understood about argumentation and to examine the nature of students written scientific arguments. A sample of 79 students from two high schools in the north of Johannesburg, South Africa, was selected to complete a questionnaire that included a single Multiple Choice Question task. Students’ respective teachers were interviewed for their understanding on argumentation. The interviews were inductively analysed to extract themes related on teachers’ perspectives on argumentation. The MCQ task item was analysed using Toulmins Argumentation Pattern as adapted by Erduran et al, to show levels of argumentation. The rest of the questions on the questionnaire were analysed according to my research questions to get students’ understanding on argumentation. Three main findings were found from the study. Firstly, students understand what a good scientific argument constitutes of. They mentioned debates and discussions as an opportunity to engage in an argument. Secondly, teachers demonstrated an understanding that argumentation requires facts and evidence to support claims. Meanwhile, findings also show that teachers value science arguments as they demand students to use evidence, rather than opinions to support their claims. Thirdly, most students struggled to construct levels at a higher level. This meant that most students wrote arguments that consisted of a claim, data/ evidence or a weak warrant. Hence, arguments were at levels 1, 2 and seldom at level 3. Students written scientific arguments revealed that only 24 out of 79 students were able select the correct scientific answer. The remaining fifty students selected the wrong answer and their arguments were based on the incorrect scientific justification that, when a solid substance is in a gaseous phase in a closed system it would have lesser mass, simply because gas weighs less than a solid. This was a common misconception that most students had. These outcomes imply that there is a need to train teachers how to help students write valid scientific arguments, the inclusion of more debates and consideration to ideas as to how students can construct written argument. Lastly, those argumentation practices should assist teachers on how to minimise students’ misconception on the law of the conservation of mass. As such, argumentation can serve as an instruction for learner-centred approach to teaching and learning of science. Keywords: argumentation, written argument, nature of an argumentItem Exploring the nature of grade 7 science learners' untutored ability in argumentation(2016) Moyo, Thulani MkhokheliArgumentation is viewed as an important pedagogical tool that is central to the teaching and learning of science. Research has shown argumentation as one of the pedagogical practices that promote meaningful learner talk and engagement. In South Africa, most such research has been carried out in high schools and universities on tutored ability in argumentation. There is no research on untutored learner ability in argumentation in primary school science. This study sought to address this gap by determining untutored learner argumentation in science in a Gauteng primary school. I wanted to establish whether and how untutored learners argue and the nature of their arguments. I also wanted to examine the evidence that they give to support assertions. I observed learner interactions in my two Grade 7 science classes through small group discussions and whole class discussions. All the participants were from a public primary school in Gauteng. These learners were untutored (had not been taught) in argumentation, but as their teacher, I had been exposed to argumentation through participation in a masters course. I used qualitative research methodology and drew from Toulmin’s Argument Pattern (TAP) to determine the construction of arguments during the science lessons. I used an analytic frame work by Erduran, Simon and Osborne (2004) which helps to categorize the various components of an argument into different levels. My findings indicated that learners who are untutored in argumentation are able to formulate arguments. Literature has reported that untutored learners in high schools in South Africa present only level 2 arguments. In this study, Grade 7 learners who are untutored in argumentation were able to formulate level 3 arguments in some instances. The study further revealed that some of the learners were able to support their arguments using scientific evidence although most tended to be simple constructs consisting of only data and claims. The fact that they were taught by a teacher, who is tutored in argumentation, may have literature bearing on the learners’ argument ability. Current work in South Africa has shown how untutored teachers do not argue: how untutored learners do not argue: how tutored teachers learn to argue and how tutored learners can learn to argue. What we do not know is how untutored learners argue if they have a tutored teacher. Further research might inform teacher education and classroom argumentation in constrained environments where learners are generally untutored as is the case in many South African classrooms.Item The potential of microblogging as a conduit to promote critical thinking in higher education students.(2015-05-19) Rahiman, FatimaThis study focuses on the potential contribution of new information communication technologies in higher education, in particular the use of microblogging, in transforming teaching practices to enhance critical thinking skills. Recognising the dearth of critical thinking skills in higher education and its importance in the cultivation of an engaged citizenry which is necessary for the creation of a vibrant and thriving democracy, the study seeks to investigate teaching practices in the higher education sector, utilizing the Community of Inquiry model to examine the possible iterative dialogues between lecturer and students in a first year class , in the form of microblogging posts , for evidence of potential critical engagement. In its finding , the study, whilst not being able to demonstrate significant evidence of higher order thinking, ascribed to the use of the of the microblogging activity , does however support the notion that the microblogging platform offers the potential for critical engagement but emphasizes that this potential , is to a very large degree, dependent on the adoption of appropriate and sound pedagogical strategies .Item Philosophy for children : the quest for an African perspective.(2013-09-30) Ndofirepi, Amasa PhilipAn education that does not recognise schools as places for the mere transmission and assimilation of knowledge, but as places for critical and creative inquiry, is quality education. Philosophising with children in schools assumes that children are actively and deliberately encouraged in seeking responses to the questions about reality they raise at a very early age. The practice of philosophy is undoubtedly one of the underpinnings of a quality education for all. By contributing to opening children‘s minds, building their critical reflection and autonomous thinking, philosophy contributes to the protection against manipulation and exclusion at the hands of adults. If education in general must open up to children the maps of an intricate world in a continuous state of tension, then philosophy is a compass for navigating that world. Hence children, irrespective of their geographical location and regardless of their social milieu or state of development of their country, deserve to be equipped with the tools so motivated for. Using conceptual analysis as a tool, I explore the Lipman method of Philosophy for Children by presenting a case for an African perspective of the same. I situate doing philosophy with children in the context of the African philosophy debate. While Lipman‘s model provides the case for the role of rational, logical and systematic thinking in children, the African background promises the raw materials on which the said instruments work. I therefore settle for a hybridised Philosophy for Children programme that marries the universalist and the particularist views of doing philosophy. I argue that the traditional African notion of community plays a significant role in our understanding of the community of inquiry as pedagogy of doing philosophy with children. Embedded in African ―community‖ is the concept of ukama qua relationality, which constitutes a keystone in the envisaged African perspective of Philosophy for Children. I conclude that doing philosophy with children in schools in Africa contributes to the interpretation of the cultural, economic and circumstances of the African situation.