A teacher's conceptions and practices of active learning in science teaching amid large scale curriculum reforms

This case study provided important insights into teacher agency amid large-scale curriculum reforms. As Priestly et.al. (2015) indicated, large-scale curriculum reforms involve changes in many areas, levels, and extent of the education system. In the current study, the focus was on a teacher’s agency, specifically on conceptions and practices of active learning in science teaching. That is, at the classroom level of curriculum enactment for educational change. Conceptions and practices are important aspects of a teacher’s role in curriculum enactment, especially in continuously changing teaching and learning contexts. In such contexts, different schools and their teachers would have been differently affected.

This study was inspired by Connell’s (1992) notion of a curriculum as a process unfolding in a social milieu. Undeniably, this process would be complex and dynamic because of the nature of social interactions involved. However, the researchers managed to establish, through continuously changing, the teacher’s conceptions and practices for his active learning teaching. Of course, attempts to understand a teacher’s engagements physically and mentally, events and processes within this complexity, were bound to be a challenge. Hence, not every aspect of this unfolding social process can be simultaneously and effectively captured and understood. Therefore, the researchers only managed to highlight some important aspects of the teacher’s conceptions and teaching practices amid the context of change.

The highlights in the study are specific to a teacher in the midst of a social and dynamic context of curriculum change. This study reports on individual components of a conception and their collective meanings for understanding active learning. With this study, the researchers indicate the importance of the completeness and/or adequacy of a teacher’s conception of active learning or any other phenomenon in their work. Therefore, teaching situations require that a teacher represent relatively complete and adequate conceptions for their learners’ comprehensibility. Such conceptions must ensure that learners are co-constructors of meanings for active learning purposes with their teacher. Therefore, this study provides an approach for deeper analysis of a teacher’s knowledge through his conceptions. Hence, through this approach, the researchers managed to establish finer details about the teacher’s conceptions and, subsequently, knowledge of and/or about active learning teaching.

Furthermore, with this study, contradictions between concepts and beliefs within a teacher’s conception could be established. Again, with such depth of understanding of conceptions, the researchers are able to track sources of distortions in understanding a teacher or his/her learners’ knowledge or its construction. Further, the study has provided important findings relating to a teacher’s practices of active learning teaching approaches. Generally, there was an apparent effect of the changing context on this teacher’s practices. In fact, Holland and Lave (2009) opine about the struggles that individuals face in social transitions such as those experienced by teachers in curriculum reforms. In this case, the teacher struggled implement into the active learning teaching approaches in the context of large-scale curriculum reforms.

Limitations of the study and possibilities for further research

In the study, limitations were encountered, such as in many similar complex studies. The main limitation in this study is effective accessibility. First, the researchers could not access all of the components of the teacher’s conception as they are mental and not easily identifiable with the methods used. Even if it was possible to do so, the participant may not have accessed them on his own based on his extant knowledge. According to Dochy (1992), the availability of aspects of the mind is determined by recall at particular instances or times. Another limitation stemmed from the continuously changing components constituting the teacher’s conception. This was because curriculum change requires certain knowledge or levels of understanding for teachers. Therefore, a teacher has to change his or her extant knowledge to adapt to both their conceptions and practices.

Finally, implications for this study relate particularly to teacher knowledge and practices in the midst of large curriculum changes. These are two important factors for success in curriculum enactment, among others. That is, classroom enactment requires teachers with appropriate knowledge and teaching skills for the curriculum changes introduced. Thus, appropriate teacher knowledge and/or skills should be a basic requirement for curriculum reform. In conclusion, the study has effectively provided a framework to be used to address specific inadequacies in conceptions and for practice amid curriculum reforms. In fact, the framework may be used to address the two issues mentioned in-depth for teacher understanding and curriculum enactment in the classroom.

Acknowledgements

As researchers and authors of this article, the researchers thank the Mpumalanga Department of Basic Education in South Africa for granting permission to conduct this study. The researchers would also like to thank the school, the principal, and the teacher for giving them the opportunity to work at their school. The researchers also want to thank the Grade 11 learners who participated in this study during lesson observations.