3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The impact of a learning study on the practice of experienced Physical Sciences teachers topic specific PCK in Stoichiometry(2018) Malcolm, Stephen AndrewThe topic of stoichiometry, which deals with the quantitative aspects of chemical reactions, is considered difficult to teach. Students’ poor performance in the topic is also well documented in the literature. In the South African context, students’ poor performance in final exit examinations, particularly on the mole, have sparked concerns over the teaching and learning of the topic, which has, in turn, highlighted the need for professional development. This thesis reports on a study conducted to determine the potential of a Learning Study as a professional development activity to develop teachers’ topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge in the mole. The study was conducted using a mixed methods research methodology in two distinct phases. In the first phase, the quality of experienced teachers’ topic-specific PCK was determined using instruments to measure teachers’ TSPCK and content knowledge. Responses to the instrument were used to determine the quality of teachers’ teaching approaches when teaching stoichiometry. This phase of the study highlighted that most teachers teach stoichiometry algorithmically. These results were used to inform the second phase of the study, particularly the focus of the professional development activity. During the second phase of the study, a Professional Learning Community was formed with three teachers selected from those who had completed the instruments in the first phase of the study. These teachers were enrolled in a post-graduate program, with the Professional Learning Community forming part of their own research component. Together with their supervisors as experts, we planned a lesson on the mole, explicitly using the construct of TSPCK in a Learning Study. During the Learning Study, the lesson was critically discussed and improved on over three cycles. These discussions formed the basis of determining the development of teachers’ TSPCK. The study found that the critical engagement of the lessons resulted in an improvement of the teachers’ TSPCK in the topic of stoichiometry. The impact of the Learning Study, in terms of the collective topic-specific PCK evident in a Professional Learning Community being enacted in the teaching practices of the teachers in the Learning Study highlighted that they delivered significantly better lessons than a comparison group that did not work together collaboratively. Participation in a Learning Study with the explicit inclusion of TSPCK not only develops teachers’ TSPCK but has a significant impact on the lessons delivered by the teachers working collaboratively. The study also contributes to the understanding of TSPCK enactment, and provides empirical evidence in terms of the emerging patterns during TSPCK enactment that supports the consensus model of teacher knowledge.Item Examining the development of topic specific PCK in stoichiometry of three practicing teachers through a lesson study(2017) Mudzatsi, TarisaiProfessional learning communities are generally regarded as having a positive impact in improving and developing teacher knowledge. Literature has shown that group planning and professional learning communities have an impact on the quality of teaching and subsequent improvement in learner performance. Practicing teachers, preservice teachers, education authorities, curriculum advisors and teacher educators all thrive to find out about the kind of teaching that brings about effective learning inside classrooms, the most appropriate approach to improve teaching and learning in class, and in particular, science classes, remains vague, though. This study examines how teacher knowledge is developed in the context of a lesson study within a specific concept of the topic stoichiometry: the ‘mole’. The case of three practicing science teachers is considered through the observation of their interactions with teacher educators during the five (5) weeks in which the participant teachers planned, taught and reflected on the mole concept together with science teacher educators and science teacher education specialists. A pretest is administered to the participant teachers at the beginning of the study; this is followed by intervention discussions based on the concept of the mole. Each of the participants then teaches the lesson to 11th grade learners in their school, each lesson is reflected upon and an iterative cycle of teaching and re-teaching the concept describes the lesson study approach used in this study. At the end of the intervention, a post-test is administered to the three participant teachers. The analysis and description of the teachers’ responses to structured test items before and after the topic specific intervention and verbal contributions during meetings are sources of qualitative data in this study. The qualitative data about topic specific pedagogy and the interaction of TSPCK components obtained in this study is used as evidence to show that topic-specific interventions assist teachers in developing pedagogical content knowledge in science education.Item A self-study on the development of my topic specific PCK while teaching stoichiometry within a lesson study(2017) Sibanda, Edmore ThaboItem Examining the development of topic specific pedagogical content knowledge in stoichiometry in pre-service teachers(2017) Ndlovu, Bongani PrinceOver the past three years, National Senior Certificate diagnostic reports reported that learner performance in key chemistry topics remains an aspect for concern. In these reports, poor understanding of stoichiometry is identified as an underlying factor. On the other hand, the status of mathematics and science teaching has been under critique by several education researchers, pointing to poor teacher training in the subjects. One possible way to respond to the challenge in science education is to introduce and emphasize the development of Topic Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK) as the professional knowledge for teaching science topics in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme. TSPCK is renowned for enabling teachers to pedagogically transform difficult content of specific science topics into forms best understandable by learners. This study examined the impact on the quality of TSPCK following an intervention that explicitly targeted the development of the competence to transform content knowledge using stoichiometry as a topic of learning. This examination happened as teacher plan to teach the topic. The study followed a Mixed Method research design and a case study as a research strategy. It was located in the methodology class of physical science IV. The participants were 10 pre-service teachers who were in their final year of Bachelor study in education (B. Ed). They were bound by the requirements of the course and their common choice of physical science as their major subject. These pre-service teachers were exposed to a TSPCK based intervention that explicitly targeted the development of TSPCK component interaction. More evidence of component interactions was comprehended as developing quality of TSPCK. Quantitative data was collected as a set of pre- and post-intervention TSPCK tests using existing, specially designed tools that were developed and validated in a separate study. Five (5) of the then pre-service were followed a year later after the intervention to measure the quality of TSPCK in the topic of intervention in order to determine the extent of retention of the quality of TSPCK since the intervention. Qualitative data was collected through face to face interviews to confirm observed patterns of retention. The findings in this study indicated that pre-service teachers experienced a visible improvement in the quality of their TSPCK in stoichiometry as a direct result of the intervention. Pre-service teachers showed more evidence of component interactions post the intervention. The results further indicated that pre-service teachers experienced the components of TSPCK to have different levels of difficulty when using them to transform the content in stoichiometry during planning. The component of ―conceptual teaching strategies‖ was found to be the most difficult. A year later, the quality of TSPCK in planning to teach the topic of the intervention was found to have been retained by the then pre-service teachers. Recommendations about the implementation of TSPCK in core topics in ITE are made. Firstly, for initial teacher education, it is recommended that courses such as methodology for teaching chemistry be structured as TSPCK based intervention. Secondly, more work need to be done in the examination of retention span of TSPCK. Thus, similar studies must be conducted in an effort to increase empirical evidence about the extent at which TSPCK is retained by beginning teachers.