The study sought to understand how Grade 9 History teachers perceive and implement learner-centered education (LCE) in selected schools in Caprivi educational region in the Republic of Namibia. It concentrated on three teachers in two combined and junior secondary schools. The research employed a qualitative approach and three data instruments were used: interviews, class observations and document analysis. The findings of the study show that in their interview discussions of the principles, intent and recommended key features of LCE, the three participating teachers generally correctly captured some of the essential intentions of a LCE approach. At times in the interviews they seemed to strongly grasp the essence of a key strategy and its intent, but at other times their views were sketchy. Their view of different teaching strategies at times appeared integrated but not always that strongly. When it came to their classroom practice they could and did use a number of appropriate LCE teaching approaches. The level of effectiveness in their use of many of the approaches varied from effective to far from ideal and in need of quite big improvement. In the area of resources the three classrooms were extremely limited in what they displayed, had and used. There were too few textbooks and almost no posters and wall displays on history and the geography of the world and its peoples that the students were studying. An especially interesting feature was that they all seemed to be consciously engaged in an on-going teaching experiment with the LCE approaches. The LSC [sic] practices were clearly not yet strongly imbedded as solid classroom habits or dispositions, with perhaps the exception of questioning. But this experimenting made them much more self-conscious and reflective about their experiences. They all frankly identified some tensions that they felt existed between the espoused official features of a LCE class and the demands of the covering the curriculum, size of classes etc. Overall it was an encouraging picture of teachers eager to find ways to improve their teaching and experiment with new ideas. But also a picture of people not properly exposed to good or best practice in each teaching strategy and having to reinvent and rediscover on their own even the basics of reasonable practice often making very basic mistakes, for example in questioning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:rhodes/vital:1988 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Sibeya, Nestor Mutumba |
| Publisher | Rhodes University, Faculty of Education, Education |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MEd |
| Format | 166 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | Sibeya, Nestor Mutumba |
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