Preliminary field-based context analysis

This section presents a situational analysis of teaching and learning of biology in two schools. The researcher conducted three unstructured classroom observations during the context analysis stage of the study in order to investigate the current situation in the teaching and learning biology in secondary schools. This included how teachers

prepared for the teaching and the instructional methods they used in classroom

interactions. Another reason was to solicit collaboration with the key participants of the study in order to ascertain potential causes of prolonged use of ineffective instructional approaches in the teaching and learning of science (biology), and gain insights about their possible needs. Three teachers’ in two schools were involved in the classroom observations (Table 2.2) after granting permission to be observed.

Table 2.2: The profile of teachers involved in the classroom observation Schools Participants Sex Qualification Teaching

Experience

No. of students

S1 Teacher A F Dip 16 years 52

Teacher B M B Ed. Sc 8 years 55

S2 Teacher C F Dip 10years 48

The observed lessons and length were:

 Transport in living things taught to Form II students (teacher A). Lesson time 80 minutes;

 Classes of division (angiospermophyta ) taught to Form III students (teacher B). lesson time 80 minutes; and

 HIV and AIDS (the causes, transmission and prevention) taught to Form I students (teacher C). Lesson time 40 minutes.

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The lessons were audio-recorded, transcribed, and qualitative content analysis was used to summarise data and categorise them into themes indicating the observed

instructional activities such as general observation, lesson introduction, presentation and conclusion. Information from teachers’ lesson plans was sought to support findings from classroom observations and the researcher’s field notes. The following sections provide descriptive analysis of the preliminary field-bsed classroom observations.

General observation. School S1 had one laboratory used by all science subjects while school S2 had two laboratories, one for chemistry and biology subjects and another for physics. A few students in school S2 had biology textbooks on their desks which were not used during the lesson. The nature of interaction between the teacher and students in all classes was unidirectional because most of instructional time was dominated by the teacher’s explanation of the lesson facts and writing notes or diagrams on the blackboard. There were no teaching aids apart from using blackboard illustrations which were meant for students to copy and not for supporting students’ understanding of teachers’ explanations. Students remained passive listeners, they neither asked questions nor were they involved in doing practical work or in discussions. The main student activities were copying notes from the blackboard and teachers’ explanations, and occasionally, answering a few questions from their teachers.

Lesson introduction. The initial activity observed across all teachers was reviewing the previous lesson. Two teachers used a question and answer technique while the other teacher provided students with a summary of the previous lesson on the distinctive features of angiospermophyta. Teachers used 4-6 minutes in the lesson for the introduction before an explanation of the new lessons.

Lesson presentation. Most of the instructional time was used in this part of a lesson (i.e. 25-45 minutes) which was dominated by teachers’ explanations of the lesson facts and writing of short notes on the blackboard. While Teacher A and B drew diagrams on the blackboard to support their explanations of the lessons, Teacher C read her lesson notes, whilst writing on the blackboard. Students remained passive listeners and sometimes, they were copying notes and diagrams.

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Lesson conclusion. The lesson conclusion was characterised by students copying notes from the blackboard; in Teacher C’s class it was hard to differentiate between the previous part of the lesson and the conclusion because the same activities continued throughout. There was no explicit attempt by teachers to summarise or evaluate the taught concepts or to use other techniques to check for students’ understanding. Teacher B asked one question from his lesson content but students’ answers were superficial which did not impress their teacher who continued asking for further information.

Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse data from teachers’ lesson plans to find out how teachers prepared for the observed lessons and whether their instructional practices were in line with intentions indicated in their lesson plans. Findings show that all teachers had specific lesson objectives, two teachers’ had indicated that students would be involved in doing experimentation and observations, but there were no specific strategies about how to implement the activities including the required materials stated in their lesson plans. These findings contradicted the observed teachers’ classroom practices.

The findings from this field-based investigation suggested that teachers might have realised the importance of using experiments and observations in their lessons (as also indicated in their syllabuses), but they did otherwise. The informal discussion with teachers after each classroom observation confirmed that teachers preferred to use chalk and talk methods because it helped them to cover a larger amount of lesson content which would enable them to teach all the required biology topics in the syllabus in time available. Two teachers said that they faced challenges in using practical

activities including laboratory experiments with students because they were unfamiliar with their preparation and organisation, and the fact that their schools did not have laboratory technicians to provide assistance made it more difficult to conduct experiments with students. They further argued that sometimes, they read about procedures for conducting practical activities from biology textbooks.

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