<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> <p align="left">The aim of the study was to investigate the nature of biology practical work and associated discourses in two Namibian secondary schools. The purposive sample consisted of three biology teachers and 36 grade 11 students who enrolled for NSSC Higher- and Ordinary-level biology in 2004 and 2005. The study adopted a descriptive and an in-depth qualitative design involving the use of interviews and observation schedules (Video Observation Quoting Schedules-VOQS). The quality of VOQS instruments were established through a panel of independent experts who critically assessed the quality of the items and later discussed to reach consensus. Their rating of the items helped in the establishment of interrater reliability.</p> </font></font></p>

Sammanfattning Laborationer i naturvetenskapliga ämnen är en naturlig del av undervisningen. Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att ta reda på om man tar bort en möjlighet till inlärning och förståelse för eleverna om laborationer inte används i undervisningen. Vidare ville jag undersöka om lärare och elever anser att laborationer utvecklar förståelsen av naturvetenskap, dessutom om eleverna förstår syftena med laborationerna. Undersökningen utfördes genom att kvalitativa intervjuer gjordes med fyra lärare och sex elever i en gymnasieskola. Resultatet visar att lärarna har olika åsikter om laborationens betydelse för förståelsen av ämnet. Däremot anser eleverna att laborationer utvecklar deras förståelse för naturkunskap. Undersökningen visar också att eleverna är osäkra på lärarens syfte och de förstår inte alltid vad laborationen ska ge för kunskap. Detta visar att det är viktigt att laborationsinstruktioner tydliggör syftet och den kunskap det är meningen att laborationen ska ge. Dessutom har diskussionerna under laborationen stor betydelse för lärandet av naturvetenskap. Nyckelord: Förståelse, kunskap, laborationer/experiment/praktiskt arbete, syfte/mål / Abstract Laboratory experiments in science are a natural part of the education. The purpose of this composition is to find out whether one removes a possibility of learning and understanding for students if one does not use laboratory experiments in education. Moreover, I wanted to examine if teachers and students are of the opinion that laboratory experiments help in deepening the understanding of natural science, and if the students understand the purposes of these experiments. To carry out the study, qualitative interviews were made with four teachers and six students at an upper secondary school. Result shows that teachers are of different opinions about the importance of the laboratory experiments for the understanding of the subject. However, the students’ opinions are that laboratory experiments help in deepening their understanding for natural science. The study also shows that students feel uncertain of the teacher’s purpose and what knowledge the laboratory experiment is meant to give. This shows that it is important to explain the purpose of the experiment, and what knowledge it is meant to give, in laboratory instructions. Furthermore, the discussions during laboratory work are of considerable significance for learning natural science. Keywords: Understanding, knowledge, laboratory experiments/experiments/practical work, purpose

<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> <p align="left">The aim of the study was to investigate the nature of biology practical work and associated discourses in two Namibian secondary schools. The purposive sample consisted of three biology teachers and 36 grade 11 students who enrolled for NSSC Higher- and Ordinary-level biology in 2004 and 2005. The study adopted a descriptive and an in-depth qualitative design involving the use of interviews and observation schedules (Video Observation Quoting Schedules-VOQS). The quality of VOQS instruments were established through a panel of independent experts who critically assessed the quality of the items and later discussed to reach consensus. Their rating of the items helped in the establishment of interrater reliability.</p> </font></font></p>

Med begränsade ekonomiska resurser finns en risk att laborationsundervisningen blir lidande, t ex genom att inte tillräcklig laborationsutrustning finns tillgänglig. Med syfte att på ett djupare plan tränga in i denna frågeställning och erhålla en förståelse för vad som upplevs begränsande för dagens undervisning på skolnivå, hur undervisningen är upplagd och vad det upplevs kunna ge för konsekvenser har en exemplifierande fallstudie utförts. Studien utfördes i form av en deltagande observation i åk 7-9 vid en kommunal grundskola i en tätort med ca 70 000 invånare. Studien inkluderade intervjuer med lärare, rektor och elever samt laborationshandledningar och fältanteckningar. Vissa av kunskapskraven i styrdokumenten är direkt knutna till den laborativa verksamheten och således svåra att uppfylla utan den. Samtidigt ses i studien att både rektor, lärare och elever uppskattade laborationer, eftersom de ger möjlighet att skapa intresse, självförtroende och en lust att lära genom att lära genom att göra, att använda flera sinnen och att variera undervisningen. Därav finns det fog för att säga att laborationsundervisningen är här för att stanna. Studien visar att lärarna utförde laborationer utan kostsam utrustning. Lärarna använde vad som fanns. Undervisningen bestod främst av klassiska laborationer med enkelt material där frågeställning och metod var given och till viss del var även resultatet slutet. Rektor och lärarna var väl medvetna om att pedagogisk ämneskunskap och struktur på undervisningen påverkar lärandet. Lärarna såg förberedelsetid och trångboddhet som begränsande. Trångboddheten försvårade bl a förberedelse och materialanvändning. De uttryckte att de var glada att arbeta på en gammal skola med material från 50/60-talet och använde artefakterna i sin undervisning. De tyckte sig inte sakna artefakter, förutom en av lärarna som uttryckte att tillräcklig utrustning fanns för undervisning på den nivå som efterfrågades, men själv tyckte att nivån var för låg. Sammanfattningsvis är laborationsundervisningen under ekonomisk och pedagogisk press.

The purpose of the study was to investigate what a teacher with good prerequisites and opportunities considers it necessary to create a qualitative technology education. The good prerequisites of the study are teachers' continuing education in technology as well as access to custom technology materials. The study was conducted with three different methods to get broader and deeper results, as the study only examined a teacher. The methods were a performance map in conversation with the teacher, an observation of a technology lesson designed by the teacher and finally a qualitative interview that evaluated the lesson and the teacher's views on technology teaching. The study shows that the subject of technology is characterized by a particular character with great focus on practical work to develop students' creativity and thought processes. The subject matter requires the opportunity to be incorporated into larger contexts that deal with the subject matter of the technical subject to man, society and the environment. Technology teaching is influenced by the teacher's view of technology and that the teacher's technical didactic skills contribute to a qualitative technology education. The subject matter needs to be visualized in school, given time for reflection and discussion, as well as given custom material to create qualitative technology education based on the syllabus criteria. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka vad en lärare med goda förutsättningar och möjligheter, anser krävs för att skapa en kvalitativ teknikundervisning. De goda förutsättningarna i studien handlar om lärares fortbildning i teknik samt tillgång till anpassat teknikmaterial. Studien genomfördes med tre olika metoder för att få ett bredare och djupare resultat, då studien endast undersökte en lärare. Metoderna var en föreställningskarta i samtal med läraren, en observation på en tekniklektion utformad av läraren och slutligen en kvalitativ intervju som utvärderade lektionen och lärarens åsikter om teknikundervisning. Studien visar på att teknikämnet präglas av en speciell karaktär med stort fokus på praktiskt arbete för att utveckla elevers kreativitet och tankeprocess. Teknikämnet kräver tillfällen för att sättas in i större kontexter som behandlar teknikämnets relationer till människan, samhället och miljön. Teknikundervisningen påverkas av lärarens syn på teknik och att lärarens teknikdidaktiska kompetens bidrar till en kvalitativ teknikundervisning. Teknikämnet behöver synliggöras i skolan, ges tid till reflektion och diskussion samt ges anpassat material för att kunna skapa en kvalitativ teknikundervisning utifrån kursplanens kriterier.

In the form of teacher didactical design research, this work addresses a didactical issue encountered during physics teaching in a Swedish upper secondary school. A need for renewed practical laboratory work related to Newtonian mechanics is met by proposing and designing an activity based on high- speed photography using the nowadays omnipresent smartphone, thus bringing new technology into the classroom. The activity – video analysis of the collision physics of football kicks – is designed and evaluated by following a didactical design cycle. The work elaborates on how the proposed laboratory activity relates to the potential and complications of experimental activities in science education, as described in the vast literature on the topic. It is argued that the use of smartphones constitutes an interesting use of new technology for addressing known problems of practical work. Of particular interest is that smartphones offer a way to bridge the gap between the everyday life of students and the world of physics experiments (smartphones are powerful pocket laboratories). The use of smartphones also avoids using unfamiliar laboratory equipment that is known to hinder focus on intended content, while at the same time exploring a powerful tool for data acquisition and analysis. Overall, the use of smartphones (and computers) in this manner can be seen as the result of applying Occam’s razor to didactics: only familiar and readily available instrumentation is used, and skills learned (movie handling and image analysis) are all educationally worthwhile. Although the activity was judged successful, a systematic investigation of learning outcome was out of scope. This means that no strong conclusions can be drawn based on this limited work. Nonetheless, the smartphone activity was well received by the students and should constitute a useful addition to the set of instructional approaches, especially since variation is known to benefit learning. The main failure of the design was an overestimation of student prior knowledge on motion physics (and its application to image data). As a consequence, the activity took required more time and effort than originally anticipated. No severe pitfalls of smartphone usage were identified, but it should be noted that the proposed activity – with its lack of well-defined results due to variations in kick strength – requires that the teacher is capable of efficiently analysing multiple student films (avoiding the feedback process to become overwhelmingly time consuming). If not all student films are evaluated, the feedback to the students may become of low quality, and misconceptions may pass under the radar. On the other hand, given that programming from 2018 will become compulsory, an interesting development of the activity would be to include handling of images and videos using a high-level programming language like Python.

Assessment, an integral part of teaching and learning, is a planned process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about the performance of students. However, concerns have been raised about how assessment is being conducted in schools and so the aim of this study is to investigate and improve assessment practices used by Grade 12 secondary school Physics teachers in Mozambique, Africa. The study addresses the question of what assessment practices do Grade 12 teachers in Physics in Mozambique apply and how can they be improved? and it adopted a twofold research approach. A Baseline Survey aimed at gaining an overall impression of the assessment practices used by secondary school Physics teachers and an Intervention Study aimed at producing improvements on teacher assessment practices. The preliminary research followed a survey research method, while the intervention applied an educational design research approach. In the survey three questions were investigated: (i) What assessments practices do Grade 12 Physics teachers apply? (ii) What is the quality of the assessment practices? and (iii) How relevant can the assessment practices be for student learning?To address these questions a purposive sample of 12 Physics teachers, four school directors and five educational officers was selected. The survey was conducted in six secondary schools purposefully selected throughout the country and data were collected via interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations and written notes. The Intervention Study was designed to answer the question of how teacher assessment practices can be improved.This phase of the study involved a design, a classroom tryout, and a systematic evaluation of a series of exemplary Physics assessment materials (prototypes) in a context of demonstration experiments. The prototypes were developed for the concepts of force and inertia and their validity and practicality were verified using appraisal by experts, university students, teachers, and students. Classroom tryout was conducted with two teachers and their 62 students in two secondary schools. Baseline Survey findings indicate that the most used assessment practices in schools are paper-and-pencil tests, verbal tests, and homework, while projects, portfolios, and peer assessments are the less frequently used ones. Oral communication during lessons, written work, presentations, notebooks, laboratory work, and ability to solve problems were used as quality criteria for the teachers’ assessment. It was shown that the most frequently assessed student activity was written work, followed by the ability of students to solve problems, while laboratory work was the activity that was never assessed by many of the researched teachers. Another quality criterion used was the type of feedback given by teachers to students, which indicated that teachers were giving expressed (both congratulatory and critical), personal and timely feedback. It emerged that teachers often involve the students in the evaluation of their performance through reflection of assessment results and in addition, encourage students to engage in active learning. Findings from the Intervention Study indicate that (i) teachers liked the presentation and structure of the materials following the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy and regarded their personal commitment as crucial for achieving the desired experimental results; (ii) students also liked most the POE strategy because it allowed them to develop their own explanations of the observed events and highlighted the role of teachers during the tryout as crucial for the success of the experiments. The main conclusion of this study is that assessment practices undertaken by Physics teachers in Mozambican secondary schools are of poor quality and there is a need for improvement. This must be done by developing and applying exemplary assessment materials with the potential to improve performance assessment practices associated with demonstration experiments in Physics. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Culture and teacher training institutions should promote the training of teachers in developing exemplary assessment materials for their own use in schools. These materials should contain specific guidelines on how to conduct effective assessment practices. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The aim of the study was to investigate the nature of biology practical work and associated discourses in two Namibian secondary schools. The purposive sample consisted of three biology teachers and 36 grade 11 students who enrolled for NSSC Higher- and Ordinary-level biology in 2004 and 2005. The study adopted a descriptive and an in-depth qualitative design involving the use of interviews and observation schedules (Video Observation Quoting Schedules-VOQS). The quality of VOQS instruments were established through a panel of independent experts who critically assessed the quality of the items and later discussed to reach consensus. Their rating of the items helped in the establishment of interrater reliability.

In today’s digitalised society we spend a lot of time indoors, kids included, and not as much time outdoors in nature. Thoughts that might appear because of this include what children’s relation to nature looks like and what we as teachers can do to improve this relation. The purpose of this study is therefore to contribute with knowledge about teachers’ thoughts and use of outdoor education, and how they view pupils’ relation to nature based on their outdoor education. The method used in this study was to conduct interviews with five different teachers about their work with outdoor education, along with their thoughts and views on it. A thematic analysis was used to extract different themes from the teachers’ interview answers. This analysis resulted in six different themes covering teachers’ thoughts and outdoor education. The results show that outdoor education often consists of group-based activities with a focus on practical work where many senses are activated and stimulated. According to the teachers, the way that they work with outdoor education also contributes to a more positive relation between pupils and nature, by improving their interest, but also by giving a better understanding of the interaction between humans, animals and plants, as well as our connection to them. Based on these findings, it is important that teachers try to use more of this kind of outdoor education to help develop and improve the pupils’ relation to nature, while ensuring a productive and healthy environment. / I dagens digitaliserade samhälle spenderar vi mycket av vår tid inomhus, även barnen, och inte lika mycket tid ute i naturen. Tankar som kan komma upp på grund av detta är hur barns relation till naturen ser ut och vad vi som lärare kan göra för att stärka denna relation. Syftet med denna studie är därför att bidra med kunskaper kring lärares tankar och användande av utomhusundervisning samt hur de ser på elevers relation till naturen utifrån sin utomhusundervisning. Metoden som användes för studien var intervjuer med fem olika lärare kring deras arbete med utomhusundervisning och deras tankar och syn kring det. Intervjuerna transkriberades och en tematisk analys användes för att ta fram olika teman i lärarnas intervjusvar. Denna analys resulterade i sex olika teman kring lärares tankar och utomhusundervisning. Resultaten visade att utomhusundervisning oftast innebär arbete i grupp med fokus på ett praktiskt arbetssätt där många sinnen aktiveras och stimuleras. Detta sätt som lärare arbetar med utomhusundervisning på bidrar, enligt lärarna, även till positivare relationer mellan elever och naturen genom ökat intresse samt förståelse och känsla för samspelet som finns mellan människor, djur och växter. Utifrån det som framkommit ur denna studie är det viktigt för elevers relation till naturen att lärare försöker att använda sig mer av utomhusundervisning, med förutsättning att de jobbar på det sätt som beskrivs.

The University of South Africa (Unisa) as comprehensive open distance learning institution (ODL institution) in South Africa is fulfilling a critical social mandate to serve people who would otherwise not have access to education, either for financial reasons, being employed, living in remote areas, or because they cannot access residential universities owing to disability (Unisa, 2008[a]: 15). In facilitating the entrée of the previously identified groups into tertiary education, Unisa has an open admission policy where students mostly have unlimited access to the system. The policy aims to cross the time, geographical, economic, social, educational, and communication distance between students, academics, courseware, and their peers and to accommodate these prospective students from diverse backgrounds (Unisa, 2008: 2). Unisa’s self-evaluation portfolio for the Commonwealth Audit during 2008 mentioned that this policy leads to the revolving door syndrome where students have unlimited access to the system but then often without success (Unisa, 2008[a]: 27). Open access poses a challenge for the training of student social workers within an ODL context. The Department of Social Work at Unisa, currently trains 70% of all social workers in South Africa (Department of Social Work - Unisa, 2008: 5). Coupled with the former, is the fact that Unisa is regarded in the tertiary landscape of South Africa as the most affordable university with the result that it attracts large number of students who have come straight from school (Kilfoil cited in Schenck, 2009: 299). In coping with the large student numbers the Department of Social Work at Unisa is challenged, apart from addressing the theoretical social work programme, to also meet the practical work requirements as set out by the Standard Generating Body of Social Work, in that it needs to provide practical placements for students to conduct their social work practical work training in completion of their Bachelor’s degree in Social Work (BSW) (Lawlor, 2008: 19). The current state of affairs is that the numbers of students requiring practical placements for social work practical work training outnumber the number of practical placements available. In responding to and addressing these challenges, the Bright Site of Sunnyside Service-learning Centre (hereafter called “Bright Site” or the Bright Site”) was established in October 2008 as a strategic project by Unisa’s Department of Social Work. The Bright Site was developed in accordance with the service-learning model proposed by the Council for Higher Education (CHE) with the emphasis on service through learning, and learning through service (Department of Social Work Unisa, 2008:6). / Social Work / M.A. (Social Science)