The role of beliefs, conceptualisations and experiences of OBE in teaching practice

[摘要] The implementation of OBE has significant implications for teachers' work; adopting anOBE approach entails reconstruction of professional knowledge and a redefinition ofplanning procedures, teaching approaches and assessment practices. A teacher attempting tomake sense of OBE, learning outcomes, assessment standards, band levels, NQF, etc. willinevitably bring his/her worldviews, past experiences and beliefs into the process ofteaching and learning, and would also need to engage with new concepts to keep track ofthe changes in meaning and priorities. Within this changing education scenario OBE, as aninitiative, offers opportunities for new pedagogies to flourish, marking a departure from thesafe haven of traditional pedagogy. Therefore a perspective on teachers' beliefs regardingOBE can provide an alternative interpretive lens for researchers through understandingteachers' actions and thoughts.Purpose: The aim was to examine strategies teachers employ in their classrooms in responseto their beliefs about OBE. Teachers' epistemological beliefs were explored and linked toOBE pedagogical frameworks and classroom management practices. Their belief systemswere divided into three categories – the teachers' views about OBE, mathematics knowledge,and the teaching and learning of mathematics. This study was based on the belief thatconceptions are specific meanings given to phenomena, derived from different experiencesinvolved in helping individuals make sense of their world. Furthermore, those worldviews inturn influence how new information is perceived.Methodology: The researcher adopted a qualitative exploratory design. The method of choicefor this study was a combination of elements of phenomenology and ethnography. Nineteenteachers were interviewed and observed. The sample was drawn from two former Model Cschools and three township schools. Data were analysed qualitatively.Findings: The findings confirmed that there are multiple beliefs that constitute apersonal epistemology. Therefore, to investigate some unique entities of the beliefsystem such as OBE requires examining the broader belief system. The majority ofteachers responded to OBE implementation with uncertainty, anger, frustration andanxiety. In the absence of certainty about OBE and faced with a myriad of classroomivchallenges, teachers relied on their experience to make decisions regarding what wasimportant to know, they drew on their own personal teaching theories more than whatthey thought about OBE to make judgments of learning processes.This study concludes that the link between teachers' beliefs, conceptualisation of OBEand teaching practice is weak. Their beliefs about the nature of mathematics knowledge,teaching and learning mathematics had stronger connections with, and represented thebasis for teachers' pedagogical purpose behind their preferred teaching practice.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University