Theme 7: Teaching and learning resources

 What resources are you using to teach Agricultural Sciences? Phase 1

During the first phase of reflections, educators reflected only on hardware resources (pragmatic reflections), such as textbooks, desks, dusters and computers, laboratory kits and on software resources (performance reflections) such as data projectors and internet. None of the participants reflected on the ideological-ware (psyche reflections) such as teaching approaches, principles or personal pedagogic philosophies as fundamental resources in pedagogy. They all talked about sharing of textbooks due to shortages, with some indicating that desks are insufficient due to the high number of class enrolment. For Instance, participant S1 indicated that, “learners do not only share textbooks but also share desks that are meant for only one person”. However, S3 indicated that “there are few learners who are doing Agricultural Sciences and so desks or seating benches are not a problem in Agricultural Sciences classes”.

The fact that all the participants were not vocal on their individual or personal approaches and philosophies during phase 1 revealed that they were not aware that pedagogic ideologies are also a resource, even though they are not tangible and visible. I gave them a few articles to read in order to understand the functioning words of resources (hardware, software and ideological-ware resources) (Khoza, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d).

Phase 2

Ideological-ware resource: Performance reflections

Participant S3 agreed with participant S1 that, “I mostly use teacher-centred approach primarily because of time constraints, but I also use learner-centred approach”, and S2B came with another perspective that, “I sometimes use in loco parentis as learner sometimes

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need to be motivated about life and not only for academic progression”. S2B further indicated that, such an attitude also enhances the subconscious mind of a child so that they can feel motivated to come to class. In addition, a child is able to a role model to look up to. This makes learners enjoy one’s lesson and may yield better results. During a focus group discussion all the participants agreed with S2B, as S1 said, “this approach also sets a positive teaching-learning environment and strengthens the teacher-learner relations”. S3 also said “my lessons and assessment strategies are always rooted on learning outcomes and in accordance with Bloom’s taxonomy”. The performance reflections revealed that they indeed educators transformed their way of thinking and recognised their approaches of teaching as part of day-to-day fundamental resources

The issue of ideology in education is viewed by Freire (2005) and Jansen (1999) as an imperative aspect and resource to facilitate and create a conducive teaching-learning environment. Hoadley (2012) also asserts that personal ideology and attitudes drive all other resources used in class, and thus Khoza (2012) indicates that any approach or object that communicates teaching is a teaching resource. This means that educators including their ideologies are a resource, and this is also in line with Fullan (1993) who states that the life and death of the curriculum is at the hands of educators as they are the agents of change. This suggests that educators use different ideologies to teach Agricultural Sciences CAPS, even though CAPS has a specific hierarchy of lesson topics. CAPS does not specify how each topic should be taught, thus educators have to incorporate their artistry (artistic approach) to teach and attain the intended curriculum.

Hardware resources: Pragmatic reflections

Participant S1, S2A and S2B agreed with a reflection made by S3 that “a chalk board, notebooks, textbooks and precious question papers are the main resources used to teach and assess learners”. Participant S2A added “the department issues a hard copy of an Annual Teaching Plan, lesson plan template and programme of assessment template”. During a focus group discussion, the participants also identified CAPS document as one resource that is important but hardy read; as S1 said, “I never read the CAPS document from cover to cover in order to understand every aspect of Agricultural Sciences Curriculum”, This suggests that

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some Agricultural Sciences CAPS educators do not really know what is entailed inside a CAPS document even though it is a guide to their practices of Agricultural Sciences. The further discussions also raised concerns about a shortage of seating [benches] for the learners, and the participants, also indicated that the schools regularly ran out of chalks for the chalkboard.

Software resources: Psyche reflections

Participant S1 indicated that, “there are computers in my school but they are not used because the school principal is claiming that it is going to be expensive to fix them, and as a result the computer room is not used. However, I sometimes use a school projector to show learner videos and pictures as part of my teaching”. This implies that learners are denied the opportunity to use computer programmes (software resource) in the school because of limited financial resources. “I use internet to download pervious question papers and memoranda using my smart phone, and I also have videos and PowerPoint slides that our subject advisor gave us”, said S3. S2B explained “I cannot download documents because technology is a challenge to me and this requires data bundles and the school does not provide for that”. Furthermore, during focus group discussion (Phase Two), the issue of time to install the devices (hardware) and access the programmes (software) was a challenge because before you gather the learners you need to first check if computers and projector are functioning properly. This resulted in very limited use of these resources, particularly in schools S1 and S2.

The above performance reflections clearly indicate that, not all educators have access or skills to operate software resources. This means that some educators cannot access while others cannot use, the modern technology either for work purposes, or social networks. Furthermore, during the focus group discussion, the participants suggested that time should also be included as one of the functioning archetypes of resources, and not be separated as an independent archetype. They (participants) also suggested that school gardens and the technical skills to work on school gardens become a vital resource and skill development process in agricultural science learning. Indeed, this is evidently showing that the participants were transformed by this study and their teaching practices were improved because they

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managed to have significant input that, time should me made a fourth functioning archetype of resources. Moreover, their ability to reflection on the three functioning words of resources is also evidence that this study has brought transformation in how they view teaching and learning resources.

Ndwandwe and Dlamini (2013) believe that the lack of natural resources such as agricultural land (gardens) affects knowledge transference and leads, in essence, to the fundamental nature of agriculture being ignored. CAPS does to the issue of having gardens in each and every school offering agricultural sciences. CAPS only focuses on resources used to transfer theoretical knowledge and ignores the practical know-how component of learning. Moreover, because CAPS is rooted on scientific research, the local context is not significantly recognised as it should be. Even though, CAPS is an instrumental curriculum, sometimes it is difficult to meet the policy’s aims and objectives with the school’s limited resources, particularly in remote areas. Therefore, teaching is a function of selecting curricular archetypes, understanding, and implementing the Nano-curriculum with learning resource (Khoza, 2015d). Teaching ideologies are not an exception to this assertion by Khoza, and educators can choose their own approach or strategy to employ in their own classrooms (Kehdinga, 2014a).

Furthermore, all the above reflections from both phases (Phase 1 and 2) show that educators teaching CAPS may choose to employ the instrumental/objective/product approach by Tyler (1959); process approach by Stenhouse (1975); pragmatic/critical approach by Freire (1985); and artistic approach by Eisner (1979).

4.3 Conclusion

This chapter presented the reflections (findings) from Agricultural Sciences CAPS educators. The findings (data) were analysed and discussed according to themes and categories that were entrenched on curricular archetypes. Functioning archetypes (words) for all the themes were entrenched on three prepositions of reflections; psyche, pragmatic, and performance reflections. Findings from this study showed a positive correlation between all the themes and how each theme stabilises the other and the curriculum practices. The findings from this

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study revealed that due to insufficient resources, time and occasionally the environment, including policies that are not well conducive to implement the intended curriculum, there is a gap between intended, implemented, and attained curriculum. It is also evident from the findings that reflections on practicing Agricultural Sciences Curriculum reflect instrumental/ vertical/collection curriculum as opposed to pragmatic/horizontal/integrated/competence curriculum. The summary of the study, the conclusions and the recommendations will be presented in Chapter Five.

150 CHAPTER 5

Summary, conclusions and recommendations

5.1 Introduction

The mail aim of this study was to explore educators’ reflections on their practices of agricultural sciences Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement.

The specific research questions were as follows:

 What are educators’ reflections on their implementation processes of the current South African Agricultural Sciences Curriculum (CAPS)?

 What informs educators’ reflection to be the way they are about executing their duties?

 What lessons can be learnt with educators’ reflection in implementing Agricultural Sciences (CAPS)

This section of the research will revisit the research questions mentioned above, summarize the research findings and offer conclusions based on the research findings, data analysis and discussions presented in the previous chapter. Recommendations for future research will also be presented. The conclusions will give direction of the reflections whether they were influenced by psyche, pragmatic and/or professional rationale. They (conclusions) will also be entrenched on the themes emerging from the data discussed in the previous chapter. Reasons for the direction/s will also be indicated. Thus, this chapter will also show how the above-mentioned research questions are addressed by the findings.