Investigating how meaning making opportunities manifest in biology lectures by teacher educators at a South African university

Abstract

The motivation for this study stemmed from reflections on my personal experiences as a former pre-service biology teacher at a South African university. As a biology teacher educator, I now recognise that my most impactful lecture experience was where teacher educators engaged me in meaning making empowering me to support my students more effectively. In contrast, lectures where I learned little left me with knowledge gaps, requiring me to re-learn certain topics to engage the content meaningfully with my students. This realisation suggested a serious need for students to make meaning of the material shared in lectures hence the need to investigate the opportunities created by the teacher educators to enable meaning making in the classroom. Thus, this thesis aims to explore the manifestations of meaning making opportunities in higher education biology classrooms. While the construct of meaning making exists and has been widely researched, there has been no research that has focused on the manifestation of meaning making opportunities and their enactment in lectures. In this study, the concept of meaning making opportunities was explained as a teaching and learning ‘chance’ which permits the students to make sense of the knowledge presented. A meaning making opportunity was characterised by the manifestation of at least two forms of social exchanges (such as visual representations, writing and/or drawing, gestures and/or actions, and talk), with talk being a required component. Also, in this study, “manifesting” refers to the emergence and enactment of meaning making opportunities during biology lectures. It captures how such opportunities become observable in real-time through teacher educators planned strategies and spontaneous social exchanges, enabling students to connect new concepts with prior knowledge for meaningful learning. This thesis was underpinned by two primary theoretical frameworks namely, sociocultural theory and meaningful learning theory, which were selected for their complementary perspectives on learning as a social activity and cognitive development. Four biology teacher educators were purposefully and conveniently sampled from a South African university, and their teaching was observed. The data collection methods employed were video and audio recordings of the lectures, collection of slides used during the lectures, and Video Stimulated Recall Interviews. Data analysis included both deductive and inductive approaches which informed and strengthened the development of the analytical framework used in this thesis which led to a comprehensive understanding of how meaning making opportunities manifested in the biology lectures observed. Key findings from this study demonstrate that meaning making opportunities in biology lectures often do not always happen by chance but are the result of deliberate planning and the creative use of social exchanges. The results of this study also showed that by employing social exchanges in diverse combinations, biology teacher educators promoted the manifestation of a diverse range of meaning making opportunities. The study also found a direct relationship between the complexity of social exchanges, manifestation of meaning making opportunities and student engagement. Ultimately, this study advances the knowledge of how meaning making opportunities manifest in biology lectures and offers practical insights for teacher educators aiming to create meaningful learning experiences.