Student teachers' views: what is an interesting life sciences curriculum?

dc.creator	Rian de Villiers
dc.date	2011-01-01T00:00:00Z
dc.date.accessioned	2015-07-20T22:09:49Z
dc.date.available	2015-07-20T22:09:49Z
dc.identifier	0256-0100
dc.identifier	2076-3433
dc.identifier	https://doaj.org/article/e8710d2e939745d4a8dc8aed3101250e
dc.identifier.uri	http://evidence.thinkportal.org/handle/123456789/13121
dc.description	In South Africa, the Grade 12 'classes of 2008 and 2009' were the first to write examinations under the revised Life Sciences (Biology) curriculum which focuses on outcomes-based education (OBE). This paper presents an exploration of what students (as learners) considered to be difficult and interesting in Grades 10-12 Life Sciences curricula in the Further Education and Training (FET) phase. A sample of 125 first year, pre-service Life Sciences and Natural Sciences teachers from a university responded to a questionnaire in regard to their experiences with the newly implemented FET Life Sciences curricula. The responses to the questions were analysed qualitatively and/or quantitatively. Friedman tests were used to compare the mean rankings of the four different content knowledge areas within each curriculum, and to make cross-curricular comparisons of the mean rankings of the same content knowledge area for all three curricula. All four content areas of Grade 12 were considered as being more interesting than the other two grades. In terms of difficulty, the students found the Grade 10 curriculum themes the most difficult, followed by the Grade 12 and the Grade 11 curricula. Most of the students found the themes under the content area Diversity, change and continuity (Grades 10-12) more difficult to learn than the other three content areas. It is recommended that more emphasis needs to be placed on what learners are interested in, and on having this incorporated into Life Sciences curricula.
dc.language	English
dc.publisher	Education Association of South Africa (EASA)
dc.relation	http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0256-01002011000400006
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/0256-0100
dc.relation	https://doaj.org/toc/2076-3433
dc.source	South African Journal of Education, Vol 31, Iss 4, Pp 535-548 (2011)
dc.subject	curriculum
dc.subject	difficulty
dc.subject	interesting
dc.subject	Life Sciences
dc.subject	students
dc.subject	teachers
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	DOAJ:Education
dc.subject	DOAJ:Social Sciences
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.subject	Education (General)
dc.subject	L7-991
dc.subject	Education
dc.subject	L
dc.title	Student teachers' views: what is an interesting life sciences curriculum?
dc.type	article