Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2001. / Title from title page screen, viewed April 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: Paul Baker (Chair), Dianne Ashby, Deborah Curtis, Susan Lenski, Glenn Schlichting. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-219) and abstract. Also available in print.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Since the onset of democracy in 1994, education in South Africa has undergone many developments and changes due to curriculum innovations and interventions. For more than two decades, the government has been seeking to eliminate the divisions of the past by establishing a society based on democratic values, social justice and the observance of fundamental human rights as described in Act 108 of 1996 in the Constitution. The curriculum changes in South Africa after 1994 had a huge impact on the education system as a whole, and classroom teaching shifted from being largely teacher- centered to being predominantly learner-centered. Hence, the newly revised Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) was introduced (DBE, 2011) to provide all teachers with the same outline of what should be taught, when and how. The government's efforts at improving teaching and learning as well as maintaining a high standard of education are commendable, however, findings through this research demonstrate that CAPS disregards the massive differences in terms of contexts within which schools operate and the general lack of resources faced by certain schools. The main aim of this research was to explore the nature of the capability sets of teachers with respect to the implementation of the CAPS curriculum in a no fee school community in the Western Cape. The research was conducted within the framework of a qualitative research approach with a case study design. Classroom observation, focus group interviews and document analysis were utilized as data collection methods. The capability approach of Amartya Sen was applied to unveil the nature of teachers' capability sets in a no fee school in the Western Cape. This study has established that there are several factors inside and outside the school, which influence the implementation of CAPS during the teaching and assessment processes. Therefore, recommendations are made that the policymakers should take into account the context and socio economic background of the school and learners before changing the curriculum.

This study investigates the actions, roles and beliefs of curriculum leaders and managers as they work to secure improvements in curriculum delivery and in managing curriculum change, using the context of an academically successful rural secondary school as a case study. This study acknowledges that curriculum reforms are far from over in South African education scape and that these reforms are unlikely to neglect the school as a curriculum management site. The rationales of this study are threefold. First, in view of the challenges facing curriculum managers at school level, as well as the questionability of the school managements’ capacity to mediate the curriculum, there is a need for empirical investigation as to how successful rural schools manage the curriculum effectively. Secondly, to gain a greater understanding how school leaders might influence curriculum delivery through effective instructional leadership. Thirdly, given that South African principals have little experience of instructional leadership and managing, teaching and learning is one of the core modules in the new qualification for school principals, this study aims to contribute case study evidence in this field. This study was conducted within two research paradigms. Firstly, this study assumes that in a school setting there are key participants who are informative about the research foci. These participants have something important to say about curriculum management processes, curriculum change and instructional leadership. This assumption is located within phenomenology. Secondly, symbolic interaction is another conceptual paradigm in that curriculum management is studied as a complex process requiring interaction among role players. Findings indicated that the principal impacts positively on teaching and learning if he focuses on instructional leadership. Secondly, the effective use of regular meetings is essential in order to clarify the vision and build an organization and culture where teaching and learning flourish. Thirdly, curriculum managers are directly involved in curriculum management, albeit at different angles. Fourthly, the capacity of the School Management Team (SMT) needs to be strengthened through use of innovative practices and lastly, the principal needs to be a proactive leader who observes and takes ownership of curriculum changes. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

Over the past ten years, South Africa has undergone substantial changes, following the advent of democracy. Key amongst these changes being the transformation of educational policy. These policy changes have introduced new structural frameworks within which we operate (including myself as a subject advisor) and new roles for educators. These policy changes affect all the levels of the education system, and have an impact at school level, where teachers are now responsible for learning programme development (including a focus on lesson planning). Lesson planning in an outcomes-based education framework is a challenging aspect of policy implementation. South Africa is faced with the challenges associated with policy change and implementation. The role of the subject advisors and facilitators who support the teachers to make sense of the curriculum is crucial, as they provide the interface between policy and practice. They are the people who work most with teachers, and have a responsibility for curriculum implementation. This study aimed to explore the strategies which are used by subject advisors and facilitators to support teachers develop lesson plans with an environmental learning focus. A qualitative case study was conducted in which I looked at how the support processes were provided by the subject advisors and facilitators in the Eastern Cape in particular the NEEP-GET cluster in the Makana district. The study employed a range of data producing techniques such as questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and observation. The data was analysed to report the findings. The research indicates that some strategies are used to provide curriculum and pedagogical support and guidance, but that these are superficially treated and others have not been attempted at all. This therefore shows that further growth in this area is possible amongst the subject advisors. Recommendations relevant to both the subject advisors and the Department of Education so as to enhance the support processes and professional development of subject advisors have been made.

Orientadores: Angelica Maria Bicudo Zeferino , Marco Aurelio Da Ros / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T09:01:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Souza_PatriciaAlvesde_D.pdf: 1385571 bytes, checksum: a743e125b5721c2bea34a94edea68547 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: O Programa de Incentivo às Mudanças Curriculares nos Cursos de Medicina (PROMED) pelo Ministério da Saúde (MS) em parceria com o Ministério da Educação (MEC) do Brasil foi criado para financiar as reformas curriculares nos cursos de medicina, a fim de que o médico seja formado para atender as reais necessidades de saúde da população atendida no Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). O objetivo desta tese é avaliar as mudanças de tal programa nos cursos de medicina que receberam o financiamento, e, para isso, foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa e quantitativa com os coordenadores das mudanças curriculares. Foram entrevistados os 19 coordenadores de escolas médicas que receberam o PROMED e 12 destes responderam ao questionário. Foram utilizadas: a técnica da análise de conteúdo de Laurence Bardin, a base metodológica da pesquisa qualitativa de Cecília Minayo e a análise descritiva. Com os resultados pode-se observar que os cenários de práticas foram modificados e estiveram baseados na integração ao SUS e a inserção dos alunos em atividades na rede de saúde desde os primeiros anos. Percebeu-se a existência de resistências à mudança por alguns docentes e por profissionais da saúde, sendo que a estruturação de base do pensamento voltado ao processo saúde-doença não foi alterado. O PROMED facilitou as mudanças estruturais nas escolas que já possuíam alguma experiência com a comunidade e também contribuiu para demonstrar que uma mudança de fato e transformadora exige muito tempo e são necessárias novas iniciativas para que se consolidem essas novas reformas curriculares / Abstract: The Program for the Promotion of Changes in Medical School Curricula (PROMED), created by the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MS) and the Ministry of Education (MEC), was conceived to finance curricular changes in medical courses. It is based on the National Curricular Guides which assures the physician is educated to answer the real health needs of the population that have received treatment from the Brazilian National Healthcare System (SUS). The thesis aims to evaluate such changes taking into consideration the medical courses that received this financing. To accomplish this purpose, both a qualitative and quantitative survey was carried out involving the coordinators of the curricular changes, which consisted on nineteen interviews with the coordinators of medical schools that received PROMED and questionnaires that were answered by twelve of them. Concerning the methodological apparatus, it was used Laurence Bardin content analysis technique of Cecilia Minayo's qualitative research as well as a descriptive analysis. Results point out that the medical practice scenarios actually changed, based on two reasons: the interaction with SUS as well as the insertion of students in public health network activities since the very first years of the course. It is also possible to observe the resistance for changes by some of the professors and health professionals; however, the health-disease process framework has not been altered. As a result, it is possible to state that PROMED facilitated structural changes in schools that already had some experience with the community and also contributed to demonstrate that a real and transfomationalist change demands time. Therefore, new initiatives are necessary so as to consolidate these new curricular changes / Doutorado / Saude da Criança e do Adolescente / Doutor em Saude da Criança e do Adolescente

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en sciences psychologiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This study examines how the implementation of CAPS Life Skills curriculum training (as a recontextualising process) is engaging teachers in environmental education. The research was centred on training manuals for Life Skills (Official Recontextualisation Field) and their use in CAPS training at district level in two Eastern Cape sites of recontextualisation (Professional Recontextualisation Field). During the training, teachers developed lesson plans that were reviewed and group interviews were conducted on the training process and its outcomes. The manuals, training process, lesson plans and interview transcripts were analysed for evidence of environmental education, notably content, teaching and learning methods and assessment strategies. Bernstein’s (1990) framework of the pedagogic device underpins this study. Here the concept of the relay is key for tracking the "relay” of the content, teaching and learning methods and assessment strategies through the processes of recontextualisation into the lesson plans for the field of production. During the process of de-location and relocation, gaps are created and this study sought to track and probe patterns of omissions that took place during the relay process in two cases of training. The review of the in-service training course process of recontextualisation and its cascading approach exposed challenges of omission as it became clear that at each level of the recontextualisation process, gaps were apparent. The study highlighted how the 3-5 day workshop process reviewed was not a robust model for professional development. It was not effective and changes in the mode of delivery and processes of support that reach into curriculum practice in the context of the school are recommended. The study concludes that there is a need for continuous professional development as teachers need ongoing support especially for a "new” curriculum like CAPS that is content driven.

No description available.

This study, based on a sustained, qualitative investigation into the instructional decision-making of three Grade Nine Natural Science teachers, addresses the dichotomy between policy and practice in the post-apartheid South African context. The main research questions that guided this study were: 1. How do secondary school teachers understand the critical differences between the traditional curriculum, the new outcomes-based curriculum and the revised version of this new curriculum? 2. Why and how do these teachers make strategic curriculum decisions at the interface of the three curricula in their classrooms? A comparative case study approach was taken, during which evidence of what the science teachers were doing in their classes was collected through prolonged, non-participant classroom observation of close to 30 lessons each. Insight into the rationale behind their practices, i.e. their pre-active and interactive decision-making, was gleaned from intensive pre-lesson and post-lesson interviews. The video-recording lessons were played back to them for stimulated recall of their interactive thinking and decision-making. Together with biographical interviews, teacher diaries, and the researcher’s field-notes, these instruments helped get a sense of the mechanics and dynamics of how these two science teachers make planning, teaching and assessment decisions in the fluidity of the present curriculum habitat in South Africa. The main finding from this study is that teachers do not make extensive use of their considerable decision-making space; I characterize this phenomenon as passivity in decision-making. It was found, further, that a number of decision-making frame factors have a bearing on teachers’ tendency to abdicate their decision-making authority; However, an unexpected finding was the extent to which the commercially prepared ‘outcomes-based’ learning support material shapes what happens in science classrooms. In theorizing teachers’ passivity-in-decision-making during complex curriculum change, I draw on and extend the scholarship on the intensification of teachers’ work, by arguing that South African teacher essentially cede their decision-making authority to ‘outcomes-based’ texts, in order to cope with the overwhelming and multiple threats of intensification of their work. The evidence in this study demonstrate that the veritable threats of intensification of teachers’ work, which typically accompany radical curriculum change in developing countries, stifles teachers’ opportunities to bridge the gap between policy and practice. / Thesis (PhD (Education))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted