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Resource Teachers in Zimbabwe: The Challenges of Becoming a Teacher
Leader While Trying to Change One’s Own Beliefs and Practice

By

Scott R. Johnston

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of Teacher Education

2000

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ABSTRACT
RESOURCE TEACHERS IN ZIMBABWE: THE CHALLENGE OF BECOMING A
TEACHER LEADER WHILE TRYING TO CHANGE ONE’S OWN BELIEFS AND
PRACTICE
By

Scott Johnston

The professional development of teachers is one aspect of current
educational reforms in Zimbabwe. Numerous projects are underway to help
teachers improve their teaching. However, there are few studies that closely
examine what beliefs and experiences teachers bring to a project as well as what
and how teachers learn during these professional development opportunities.
This study examines how three practicing biology teachers in Zimbabwe, enrolled
in a part-time degree program at the University of Zimbabwe, respond to the
project in terms of their own teaching and how they implement the new role of

resource teacher.

I came with two specific questions. How do the teachers’ prior experiences
and beliefs influence their teaching and their work as resource teachers? How do

these teachers make sense of what they are introduced to in the project?

I utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods. Initially, all 48
participants answered a questionnaire that asked about their beliefs about
teaching and Ieaming. This study focuses on three biology teachers, whom I
interviewed, observed teaching in the classroom, and observed organizing and

carrying out workshops for other teachers.

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This research found that the beliefs and experiences that the three biology
teachers brought to the professional development opportunity influenced what
they focused their learning on. While all the teachers learned about changing
classroom practice and working with other teachers, they differed in how they
thought their SEITT experience affected their classroom practice. For example,
one teacher did not change his classroom teaching in the wake of SEITT;
another used SEITT to fine-tune his practice; and the third reshaped the

organization of her classroom by incorporating group work introduced by SEITT.

The professional development opportunity also prepared these teachers to
be teacher leaders. While studying in the project, these teachers led workshops
for other teachers in their regions. All three teachers attended to technical
aspects of leading these workshops; they followed their schedules and used
carefully scripted plans. They carried out the workshop without necessarily
thinking about how this helped the learners learn and they avoided any conflict
with other teachers. In this way, both working with teachers and students the

three teachers’ tacit beliefs about learning remained unchanged.

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Copyright by
Scott R. Johnston
2000

To my Mom and Dad, who taught me to always do my best at whatever I

attempted.

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation has its roots in my interest in education in other
countries. I started thinking about returning to graduate school while still teaching
in Japan in 1990. Since 1993, my life has pretty much revolved around my family
and my quest for Ieaming. Many individuals and organizations had a role in
helping me complete this tome, as John Metzler, one of my committee members,
kept referring to my dissertation. As time passed, I agreed with his terminology.

In Zimbabwe, the Faculty of Education at the University of Zimbabwe
accepted me as a research associate and everyone made me feel at home.
Ernst Engels, particularly, encouraged me to come to Zimbabwe to carry out my
research. Dr. Albert Natsa and Dr. Josephine Zesaguli, two Michigan State
University graduates from the doctoral program in education, were valuable
intellectual guides. l was very fortunate to have had them both listen to me and
provide ideas for my research and analysis.

Thank you also to the participants in the first cohort of the SEI'I'I' project.
Particularly, I wish to thank the seven resource teachers who allowed me to
observe and interview them in their schools.

On my return to MSU in 1998, I became part of a study group of doctoral
students. We helped each other with conceptual, writing and emotional problems.
While membership in this group changed as some finished their dissertations and
others joined, SeiJin Chung and Phone-mei Chou were always available to

discuss my tome.

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My dissertation committee also guided me through the years—Professors
Jack Schwille, Lynn Paine, Tom Bird, John Metzler, and Teresa Tatto. Jack
supported me as I began to think about Zimbabwe as the research site. He
nudged me to think deeper and to go beyond some of my simplistic ideas about
the research. Lynn, who took a leading role in September 1998, also guided me
and continued, as Jack did, to encourage me to think more deeply about my data
and ideas. I was very honored to have had Jack and Lynn working with me on
my dissertation. During this time, I experienced an educational mentor-mentee
relationship that is often sought but that is seldom achieved.

I also want to thank the National Science Foundation for financial support.
They provided a Dissertation Enhancement grant through the Division of
International Programs to carry out the research in Zimbabwe.

Finally, and most importantly, thanks to my family—my wife Yoko and
daughter Tabatha. When I suggested in 1991, while we were living in Japan, that
I would like to return to Michigan to study, Yoko supported me even when the
original idea of three years stretched to six. Both Yoko and Tabatha have
encouraged me to continue the work that I had started. In the last year of writing
this dissertation, Tabatha would often say, “Daddy, are you still working on your

dissertation?” Now I can answer, "I am finished.“

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TAB LE OF CONTENTS

 

 

LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................. XII
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ XIII
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .............................................................................. XIV
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CONNECTING MY PAST TO A QUESTION
AND PLACE - __ - - _- ___________________________________ 1
My Path to Learning ........................................................................................ 2
Conceptual Framework: Learners and Opportunities ...................................... 7
Teachers’ Beliefs on Teaching & Learning and Their Prior Experiences 8
Teachers’ Knowledge .............................................................................. 13
Professional Development Opportunities ................................................. 17
Teachers’ concerns ............................................................................ 17
Professional development opportunities: Form and content ............... 18
Zimbabwe: Context of Teacher Learning ...................................................... 21
Educational History .................................................................................. 21
Schooling Structure ................................................................................. 24
School Types and Operation ................................................................... 26
Teacher Qualifications ............................................................................. 28
Syllabus and Examinations ...................................................................... 32
Summary ................................................................................................. 35
Arriving at the Questions ............................................................................... 36
CHAPTER 2 PATH OF INQUIRY ....................................................................... 39
Gaining Access: A Predissertation Trip in 1995 ............................................ 40
Research Design ........................................................................................... 41
Discovering the Context of Learning: Exploratory Fieldwork .................... 42
Teachers’ Views of Teaching and Leaming: Questionnaire ..................... 44
Selection of Teachers .............................................................................. 45
Resource Teachers as Learners: Qualitative ........................................... 49
Probing learning and views on learning: Interviews ............................ 49
Teaching practice and opportunities to Ieam: Observations ............... 53
Data Analysis ................................................................................................ 55
Limitations of the Research ........................................................................... 59
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 60
CHAPTER 3 THE PROJECT, THE PARTICIPANTS AND RESIDENTIAL
PERIOD THREE ..... 61
SEITT Project ................................................................................................ 61
SEITT Staff .............................................................................................. 62
Historical Perspective .............................................................................. 64
SEITT Objectives ..................................................................................... 65
The SEITT Model ..................................................................................... 68

viii

1. Teachers’ Centers .......................................................................... 70

 

 

2. Training of resource teachers ......................................................... 72
3. Integrated evaluation ...................................................................... 78
4. Networking of teachers ................................................................... 80
5. Curriculum materials development ................................................. 81
Resource Teachers ....................................................................................... 81
Selection of SEITI' participants ................................................................ 82
The Participants ....................................................................................... 83
Types of schools ................................................................................ 84
Resource teachers’ academic and professional qualifications ........... 85
Residential Period 3 and Preparing for Biology Workshops .......................... 87
The Preparation of the Biology Groups .................................................... 87
Overview of the residential period ...................................................... 87
The Joyce and Showers model .......................................................... 90
Initial Focus on the Student ..................................................................... 92
First week ........................................................................................... 92
One strategy fits ................................................................................. 97
Shift Focus to Workshops for Teachers: Focusing on Strategies for the

Workshops ............................................................................................... 97
Rehearsals ............................................................................................ 103
Human Activities (Ecology) rehearsal ............................................... 103
Genetic Engineering rehearsal ......................................................... 107
The Project’s Enacted Conceptual Framework ...................................... 110
Summary ..................................................................................................... 1 1 1
CHAPTER 4 RUMBI: A RESOURCEFUL LEARNER CAUGHT BETWEEN THE
OLD AND THE NEW 114
R'umbi the Learner ...................................................................................... 1 15
Motivation: To Improve Teaching and Understanding of Biology ........... 115
Strictness, Subject Matter, and Pedagogy: Learning from Experiences 116
Conceptions of Learning and Teaching: Covering the Syllabus ............ 120
Conceptions about Subject Matter ......................................................... 124
Learning from Constructing and Applying .............................................. 127
Rumbi’s Opportunities to Learn in the Project ............................................. 128
Communicating to and with Others ........................................................ 128
Working with Others in Preparing a Workshop ...................................... 129
Carrying Out Workshops: Sharing ......................................................... 134
What Does Rumbi Make of the Project? ..................................................... 138
Teaching: In-between in Teaching New Ways ....................................... 139
Teacher Education: In-between a Teacher and Teacher Educator ........ 146
Summary ............................................................................................... 147
CHAPTER 5 TENDAI: A TECHNICIAN WITH PEERS 150
Tendai the Learner ...................................................................................... 150
Motivation to Participate in SEITT .......................................................... 150
Educational Background ........................................................................ 153

ix

 

Prior Experiences and Beliefs ................................................................ 154

 

 

Limited talk on experiences .............................................................. 154
Learning pedagogy in college ........................................................... 154
Biology content from the B.Ed. program ........................................... 156
Conceptions of Teaching Biology: Taking Old Examinations ................. 157
Tendai’s Views of His Own Learning ..................................................... 163
Learning Opportunities for Tendai in the Project ......................................... 164
Sharing and Thinking about Altematives in the Classroom ................... 165
Learning to Facilitate Workshops: From Participant to Facilitator .......... 166
Facilitating feedback in the ecology group ........................................ 167
Learning from participating in the genetic engineering workshop ..... 170
Carrying Out Workshops ....................................................................... 172
Sharing around the classroom .......................................................... 173
Answers and time ............................................................................. 175
View of a Resource Teacher ................................................................. 177
What Does Tendai Make of the Project? ..................................................... 178
Teacher Education: A Narrow Facilitator Role ....................................... 178
Concern with Facts ................................................................................ 180
Lagging Behind ...................................................................................... 181
CHAPTER 6 BATSIRAI: REFINING TEACHING AND DEVELOPING AN
AWARENESS OF COLLEGIAL TENSIONS 183
Batsirai the Learner ..................................................................................... 183
Conceptions of Learning and Teaching: Motivating Students to Leam.. 184
Educational Background ........................................................................ 192
Overview .......................................................................................... 192
Doing and talking .............................................................................. 192
Acquiring subject matter: University and professional education ...... 195
Reasons to Participate in SEITT ............................................................ 197
Learning for Batsirai in the Project .............................................................. 198
Refining Beliefs and Practice ................................................................. 198
Workshops: Organizing Activities and Thinking about Colleagues ........ 202
Learning to do a workshop: Peer tension ......................................... 202
Organizing activities in a workshop .................................................. 206
Learning about Teachers Versus Learning to Work with Teachers ....... 208
Batsirai’s Role in Teacher Education ..................................................... 211
Teacher Education: Nurture Versus Conflict .......................................... 212
Summary ..................................................................................................... 215
CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION: INTERACTION BETWEEN TEACHER AND
OPPORTUNITY 217
Three Resource Teachers .......................................................................... 217
Teaching ..................................................................................................... 21 9
Teacher Education: Technical Yet Discussion-Based ................................. 222
Teacher Education: Relationships with Peers ............................................. 223
Tendai, Rumbi, Batsirai and Professional Development ............................. 226

 

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Implications ................................................................................................. 228

APPENDIX A

 

ZIMBABWE MAP ........................................................................................

APPENDIX B

 

TIME LINE FOR RESEARCH .....................................................................
OBSERVATION AND INTERVIEWS ..........................................................

APPENDIX C

 

QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SEITT RESOURCE TEACHERS .........................

APPENDIX D

 

INTERVIEWS WITH TEACHERS ...............................................................

APPENDIX E

 

OBSERVATION GUIDE ..............................................................................

APPENDIX F

 

THE OUELEA PROBLEM ...........................................................................

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

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237

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238

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244

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250

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 Stages of Concern .............................................................................. 18
Table 1.2 School Structure and Grade Levels in Zimbabwe ............................... 25
Table 1.3 Enrollment and Promotion Rate .......................................................... 25
Table 1.4 Scheme of Assessment ...................................................................... 34
Table 2.1 Selection of Teachers ......................................................................... 46
Table 3.1 Outline of Residential Periods and General Content .......................... 76
Table 3.2 Resource Teachers Regional Distribution .......................................... 84
Table 3.3 Authority of Resource Teachers’ Schools ........................................... 85
Table 3.4 Resource Teachers’ Academic and Professional Qualifications ......... 85
Table 3.5 Overseas B.Sc. Degrees .................................................................... 86
Table 3.6 Biology Group’s Schedule .................................................................. 89
Table 3.7 Activity Sheet: Lesson Planning ......................................................... 96
Table 3.8 Workshop Preparation Activity Sheet ................................................. 98
Table 3.9 Workshop to Prepare for Activities During the Workshop ................... 99
Table 3.10 Rehearsal Evaluation Worksheet ................................................... 101

xii

 

 

 

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Research Design ............................................................................... 42

xiii

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ZJC

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Advanced level

Department of Science and Mathematics Education,
University of Zimbabwe

Headmaster or Headmistress

ln-service Education and Training

Dual degree in B.Sc./B.Ed. from Cuba

Management Committee

Ministry of Education

Ordinary level

Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Teachers with
only B.Sc. degrees in a subject area need this
certificate to continue teaching at A-Ievel.

Post Graduate Diploma in Science Education
(INSET); 2 year part-time

School Development Association/Committee
Science Education In-service Teacher Training
Project

Science and Mathematics Center

Zimbabwe Science Teacher Training Program
Zimbabwe Junior Certificate

xiv

 

 

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CONNECTING MY PAST TO A QUESTION
AND PLACE

The path to my current interest in international models of professional
development did not follow a straight line. Nonetheless, it converges around the
role of experienced teachers interacting with the purpose of improving their ‘

teaching.

My growth follows a path similar to what one of the teachers experienced

 

in Featherstone’s (1993) Leaming From the First Year of Classroom Teaching: I
The Joumey In, the Journey Out. In this process, as I gain experience and reflect

back on my own Ieaming and its connection to present practice, I become aware

of my own shortcomings and then begin the process of change. This has been

my course to understanding my Ieaming and teaching in international situations,

and this path has led to an interest in understanding the paths that others follow.

I have lived or taught in China, Japan, the U.S., and Zimbabwe, four very
different countries. While living in these countries, I Ieamed many things about
my teaching and my views of Ieaming. At the time I was living in China, Japan
and the U.S., I did not really try to link these experiences in teaching and Ieaming
to a theory or philosophy, not because of a lack of interest, but because it never

crossed my mind. At Michigan State University, through reflecting on these
experiences and through readings, I began to make sense of my past and how it
is intricately tied to my current views of teaching and Ieaming. I found that

several issues seem to weave among the experiences and my Ieaming. These

 

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are prior experiences, beliefs about teaching & Ieaming, and how teachers

working together can influence their teaching and thinking.

My Path to Learning
How have these issues influenced me in my own experiences in Ieaming?

One critical incident in China highlights how my prior experiences, beliefs, and

interaction with another teacher put me on the path to critique my own Ieaming.

When I went to China in 1987, I had already earned my masters degree in

Teaching English as a Second Language and had taught in Japan for three
years. I felt fairly confident with my teaching. A critical incident in a classroom
challenged this lax attitude. I was teaching a writing class using the textbook, as
I had in every lesson before. One student read the story, I asked a few questions
and then each student wrote a short essay. This particular assignment was on
UFOs, not an everyday topic for these students. As I walked around the class, I
suddenly realized that the assignment was meaningless to the students. The
writing was a task and not a Ieaming experience. Not only was the topic
disconnected from their lives, I had not in any way tried to understand their
perspectives. At that moment, I felt disgusted with myself as a teacher. I thought
about the Classes I had taught during my master's program and how important it
was to involve the students. I realized that I was not doing that. l was ignoring
what I had Ieamed and was teaching like my own elementary, secondary, and
university teachers had taught me. After this class, I visited an American

colleague, Mike, and we had a late night “discussion“ over a bottle of Japanese

sake.

 

 

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This particular critical incident contains several of the issues that have
permeated my professional life. I was an experienced teacher, yet continued
teaching drawing on my own experiences as a young student rather than on my
professional education. The experiences in my Masters program arose at this
time as potentially powerful alternatives. However, I really did not know how to go
about teaching the way I had Ieamed in the Masters program. That program

offered a view of teaching that was conversation-based, while in this class in

China I was teaching writing.

As I now reflect on my experiences in the Masters program and the writing
class in China, I realize that l was teaching using strategies without thinking of
how students Ieamed. My beliefs about Ieaming did not include creating a
classroom atmosphere in which students’ experiences and thinking are part of

the content of Ieaming.

This Chinese incident also incorporates one other important issue:
interacting with colleagues. My late night discussion with Mike represents a
teacher reaching out to another teacher. It was the beginning of a collegial
interaction with a peer. This talk was essential for me to think about my views on
teaching and Ieaming and how I might begin to change. I have a feeling that just
the incident, without someone to talk to about it, might not have resulted in my
beginning to change. After this talk with Mike, our relationship shifted somewhat.

Before this, our conversations were about life in China, our pasts, and places to
visit. Now, our conversations often included discussions about teaching and

Ieaming. I would like to be able to say that I left China a changed teacher in

 

 

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beliefs and in practice. Unfortunately, that did not happen. At this time, I was

reflecting on my practice, but I was not sure how to change.

After teaching for one year in China, I went to Japan to teach. In Japan, I
continued to confront these issues, both in my classroom and in interactions with
other teachers. In my classroom, I started using a process writing strategy in
which the topics appeared more connected to the students’ lives and in which the
students went through drafts. In one class, the topic was "Something Unusual
That Happened to Me.“ Though the topic included the word “Me“, that did not
guarantee that the assignment was meaningful to the students. In fact, most of
the students said, “Nothing has ever happened to me". I realized that I was
imposing my view of a Ieaming environment on the students. This environment
was meant to create opportunities for students to express their ideas. However,
this type of Classroom was unfamiliar to them. Changing the classroom
environment was not enough. I found that I needed to get to know the students
and they needed to get to know me. Then we could ask questions that were

important and begin together to learn in our new environment.

This incident helped me realize that teachers’ knowledge is more than
knowing strategies and content. Teachers’ knowledge includes, among other
things, Ieaming about the learners. If my goal was to help them learn to write, I
needed to bring the students into the process and let them communicate ideas to

each other. I needed to create an environment where students were not afraid of
expressing their ideas and where I could build on what each student already

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This new concept of teachers’ knowledge that I was beginning to embrace
was also connected to how teachers worked together. In Japan, I worked with
teachers who attended prefectural education seminars. These teachers were
committed to improving both their own understanding of English and that of their
students. At the seminars, I helped organize four-day sessions in which teachers
role-played and Ieamed about new teaching strategies. I facilitated their Ieaming
by organizing groups in which they worked together to do projects and other

activities. These teachers were enthusiastic about improving their own English

 

and their teaching of English and worked together towards these two purposes.
However, I never followed up on these teachers’ Ieaming. I did not see them
teaching in their classrooms, and l have always wondered if they interacted in the
classroom as they did in these groups, or if they lectured. What impact did these

sessions have? I did not know.

When I arrived at MSU in 1993 to start my doctoral studies, these issues
concerning beliefs about teaching and Ieaming, prior experiences, teachers’
knowledge, and perspectives on working together were part of my baggage.
They were baggage that needed to be unpacked in order to become areas of
inquiry. I needed to examine the literature in order to find out what was already

known about my areas of interest and what was not yet fully investigated.

At MSU, I delved into what teaching and Ieaming meant. A class on
Leaming to Teach introduced me to theories of Ieaming. Before this class, I had
never heard of social constructivism or Vygotsky. In this class, I began reflecting

on my past teaching, and I could identify aspects of social constructivism in my

 

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teaching. Prior to this, I did not have the names to attach to the Ieaming that I at

times promoted.

I began to stick names to some of the issues I was concerned with.
Collegiality was connected to how teachers worked together. However, I
discovered that working together was not always positive for the participants.
Sometimes it was coerced and sometimes it meant sharing stories about 'bad”
students. I Ieamed that beliefs about teaching were powerful forces that formed a

cognitive framework from which decisions about teaching were made.

At MSU, I began to think more deeply about these issues. At the same
time, I became interested in investigating the ways teachers teach and learn
elsewhere in the world. I particularly thought about doing research in another
continent, Africa. I knew that having studied teaching in two continents had
helped me understand some differences and similarities in the ways teaching
was approached. Examining teaching in another culture could provide me one
more perspective for thinking about teaching and its influence on student
Ieaming. I wanted to add Africa to my North American and Asian experiences.
From a trip to Zimbabwe in 1990, I had Ieamed that Zimbabwe had different
types of educational problems, in part, related to the large number of students

entering the system since independence in 1980 and to the lack of resources.

I visited Zimbabwe in the summer of 1995 with the express purpose of
locating a project in which I could carry out research on teachers trying to change
both their beIiefs and their ways of teaching. I met the external coordinator of a

professional development project and talked with him about my research

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interests. He then invited me to study how the participants in this project were

responding to the new ideas of the project.

Back at MSU, I continued to peruse the literature on professional
development opportunities, teachers’ beliefs and knowledge, and prior
experiences. I wanted to link my own overseas experiences about Ieaming with
questions that were pertinent to developing countries. I needed to know more
about research in these areas before jumping from a Western situation, where
most of the literature was produced, to a different context, an African developing
country. Hence, I hoped the literature would provide me with a lens on teaching
and Ieaming that would not limit my perspectives but that would provide a
foundation from which I could begin my inquiry. From my examination of
literature on teachers participating in professional development projects, I found
that an area that needed more study was how experienced teachers’ prior
experience and beliefs interacted with a professional development project in a
developing country with limited resources and a large student population. Do
these teachers’ responses to a professional development opportunity play out as

they have been found to do in the West?

Conceptual Framework: Learners and Opportunities
Thinking back to my own critical incident in China and from examining the

literature, I knew that Ieaming to teach is a complex process. Understanding this
process involves looking closely at many aspects of teaching and Ieaming.

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through an active process of interaction between the learner and an
experience. Learners impose meaning on the basis of their prior knowledge

(p.2).

The leamer and the opportunity are closely connected. Often new ideas
about teaching and Ieaming are first experienced through a professional
development opportunity. I will focus on three aspects of what may influence
what and how teachers Ieam: teachers’ beliefs and experiences, teacher

knowledge, and opportunities of professional development.

Teachers’ Beliefs on Teaching & Learning and Their Prior Experiences
Initially, I had intended to separate beliefs from experiences. However, I

soon found that beliefs and experience are too closely connected. Beliefs shape
experiences and experiences shape beliefs. in China, my teaching in the writing
class drew little on my professional experiences in the Masters program. Rather,

I seized more from my personal experiences as a student.

i found that I was not alone in drawing on both my past experiences as a
student and my prior experiences teaching. Lortie’s seminal work on
apprenticeship of observations emphasizes the influence of the enormous
number of years spent as students in the classroom (Lortie, 1975). My
apprenticeship of observation had a powerful and lasting influence on the way I
taught. Like me, all teachers spend years as students. How they were taught,

how they viewed knowledge, and how they envisioned their role as students play

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a powerful role in shaping the beliefs and teaching of teachers (Feiman-Nemser

& Remillard, 1995).

One reason for this resiliency is that prior beliefs of teachers are often tacit
and not easily brought out for examination. These beliefs shape each teacher's
actions in the classroom around such ideas as teaching, Ieaming, students’ work,
testing, and teacher cooperation. These beliefs are very powerful, yet difficult to
change (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1995; Kennedy, 1991). Indeed, in my own
case in China, I did not think about changing my beliefs. I did not think about my
tacit beliefs and how they may have shaped my teaching. Rather I just wanted to
change my teaching. Changing my beliefs about teaching and Ieaming was not
an immediate consideration. I did not see the connections between beliefs,

experience and practice.

Like many teachers, I was giving assignments and expecting my Chinese
students to pick out facts from the readings and integrate them into their papers. I
would then decide, by grading the paper, if they had succeeded. In this view of
teaching and Ieaming, I have the knowledge that 1 pass on. The learners merely
have to listen passively, read the article and then magically write a short essay.
In this banking system of education, the teacher passes knowledge on to
students who put the knowledge in their heads to use later (Cohen, 1988;

Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1995; Freire, 1970).

Another view of teaching and Ieaming suggests that the learner holds a
more active role in the Ieaming process and the teacher needs to help students

connect ideas to the Ieamer’s life experiences and beliefs. The learner is not

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assumed to be a bank to be filled with knowledge, but is assumed to be a person
with previous experiences and knowledge (Cohen, 1988; Cuban, 1984; Feiman-
Nemser & Remillard, 1995). Any new ideas will have to take into account these
past experiences and build on them or find ways to challenge misconceptions

(Dewey, 1938; Driver, 1983).

This view of Ieaming is often referred to as a constructivism.
Unfortunately, the term “constructivism“ has taken on many meanings,
depending on the person using the term. However, Tatto (1999) indicates that

there are some agreed on aspects of constructivism:

Constructivist views of teaching and Ieaming generally argue that teachers
need to know that knowledge is constructed by individuals and their society;
they need to be able to construct knowledge themselves in order to
demonstrate such an assertion, and they need to make sense of their
Ieaming within a sociohistorical context in order to help their pupils find
meaning in what they Ieam (p. 17).

Teachers need to know knowledge is constructed and be able to construct
it themselves. Dewey’s (1938) concept of educative Ieaming ties into this
conception of Ieaming. Dewey links educative Ieaming with experience, "When
education is based upon experience and educative experience is seen to be a
social process, the situation changes radically. The teacher loses the position of
external boss or dictator but takes on that of leader of group activities" (p. 66).

Dewey adds:

But what has been said is organically connected with the requirement that
experiences in order to be educative must lead out into an expanding world of
subject-matter, a subject matter of facts or information and ideas. This
condition is satisfied only as the educator views teaching and Ieaming as a
continuous process of reconstruction of experience (p. 111).

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Dewey thus includes both subject-matter and experiences in his definition
of educative experience. These experiences are more than just isolated
activities. Educative experiences are a reconstruction of experiences by the
learner through social processes. Through this expanding development of
experience, experience can become educative. I think Dewey is suggesting that
an experience can be educative if, first, it is linked to the learner's life. Then the
learner can reflect on the experience, analyze and organize the experience into
one’s current ways of thinking. This will influence the beliefs of the Ieamer.
Finally, the learner can use this reconstructed experience when making future

decisions or facing new experiences.

However, this reconstruction of experiences and path to educative
Ieaming is not so simple. Ball (1996) talks about teachers and how previous

experiences are often negative. Ball says:

There is a growing recognition that teachers, like their students, bring with
them experiences and prior understandings that profoundly shape their
Ieaming. These previous experiences sometimes do not help them as they
struggle to enact these new reforms. indeed, past experiences can often act
as obstacles (p. 504).

Research into life histories or biographies helps to illuminate the power of
past experiences and their connection to beliefs. Knowles (1992) describes
biography as, “Those formative experiences of pre-service and beginning
teachers which have influenced the ways in which they think about teaching and,
subsequently, their actions in the classroom" (p. 99). Knowles demonstrates that

there are both positive and negative influences. Positive influences often drive a

11

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teacher to teach because of a desire to provide students with Ieaming situations
that they experienced as a student. Negative experiences often energize

prospective teachers not to teach the same way as they were taught.

There is a potential problem in doing research on remembered
experiences, though. This research has been questioned because of how the
remembered experience may be different from the actual experience (Little,
1990a). On the other hand, how teachers remember their own experiences may

be the source of action rather than the experience itself. Britzman (1994) says:

The primary category of analysis is the discourse of the experience rather
than the experience itself. Here, experience does not “tell” us who we are,
what we see, and even how to act; we are the tellers of the experience (p.
56).

Hence, teachers' remembered experiences might help us understand how
teachers currently make sense of their pasts. For example, Ali (1996), in a study
of experienced teachers studying to be mentors in Pakistan, found that these
teachers continued to draw on their own early experiences as learners. Dembele
(1995), studying two mentors in the same school and how they approach
mentoring differently, also found that the mentors drew on their own recollections
of their experiences as students as well as their experiences with professional
development while teaching. For example, oneof the teachers talked about a
high school genetics project that started her questioning the authority of books
and realizing that science was uncertain. This teacher also suggested that the

greatest influence on her changing view of teaching and Ieaming was the

interaction with two university faculty members at a nearby university. These

12

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faculty members mentored her and helped her change from a delivery method to
a facilitative way of teaching. This teacher, in her remembered experiences, had

powerful incidents as a student and as a teacher.

In China, I began to think about my beliefs about teaching and Ieaming
and how my own experiences seemed to influence the way I was teaching. I
realized that l was not teaching in an educative way. However, I did not know
what alternatives were possible. Thus, though I was rethinking the purpose of
teaching, I did not know how to effect this change. I did not think about how
beliefs and teacher knowledge are connected as Borko and Putnam1 (1996)

suggest:

To be successful, efforts to support teachers’ Ieaming must recognize that
teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about teaching, Ieaming, learners, and
subject matter will play a critical role in determining whether and how they
implement new instructional ideas (p. 702).

Teachers’ Knowledge
In reflecting on my incident in China, I now realize that my knowledge of

teaching writing was limited. In my Masters program in Education, we had talked
about using strategies to get students talking and to provide them with facts that
they could use. During my critical incident in the writing class, I became aware
that l was not using strategies to help my students improve their writing. Rather, I
was putting them through the task of writing. As a teacher, I was only going

through the students’ text and assigning them writing from a list at the end of

‘ l have separated beliefs from teacher knowledge in this dissertation to highlight
both of them. Like Borko and Putnam, I believe that beliefs are actually part of
teachers’ knowledge.

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each story. Although my own view of teachers’ knowledge was limited, I

wondered what research had to say about teachers’ knowledge.

I found several models of teachers’ knowledge (Elbaz, 1983; Grossman,
1990; Shulman, 1986). For example, Elbaz (1983) talks about practical
knowledge, the knowledge teachers have gained from making decisions in the
classroom. Borko and Putnam (1995) propose three domains of knowledge:
general pedagogical knowledge, subject-matter knowledge, and pedagogical

content knowledge. These domains are drawn from Shulman’s work.

Borko and Putnam’s three domains of knowledge help us think about what
a teacher needs to know to teach and help students Ieam. These domains
include both the content and the process of Ieaming. General pedagogical
knowledge refers to a teacher's knowledge and beliefs about teaching, Ieaming
and Ieamers that is not limited to one subject. Experienced teachers have spent
years teaching and have developed routines for running classes and for
teaching. These routines make teaching easier, yet they also can serve as
barriers to change (Borko & Putnam, 1996). Once a teacher learns a routine,
he/she might not think about why or how to use it. To change at this point
involves considering the costs of trying something new. These costs may include

time to learn, the risk of not succeeding, and feelings of inadequacy if failing.

In my case, since I felt so disappointed with my teaching, I could only
benefit from trying something new. I was dissatisfied with myself as a teacher
and wanted to change the way I taught. l was not thinking of writing or

conversation classes specifically, but of a broader view on Ieaming. I wanted to

14

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change the form of my class and add activities-~any activities. Here I was thinking

of changing my general pedagogical knowledge.

Subject-matter knowledge includes knowledge of content, substantive and
syntactic knowledge (Borko & Putnam, 1995; Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1995;
Shulman, 1986). Knowledge of content includes the knowledge of facts and
concepts in the area. Substantive structures are the explanatory frameworks that
influence the organization of knowledge within a discipline. For example, in China
I was teaching writing as a part of English as a Second Language. My
understanding of the paradigms in this area was, unfortunately, limited. During
my Masters program, most of the focus had been on facilitating conversation. I
had Ieamed many strategies to facilitate Ieaming; however, I knew very little

about process writing and connecting writing to students’ lives.

Similarly, my knowledge of the syntactic structures of writing was limited.
Syntactic structures are the "canons of evidence and proof that guide inquiry in a
discipline“ (Borko & Putnam, 1995, p. 45). Since my study at the Masters level
was on facilitating conversation, I knew very little about how writing in English as
a Second Language had evolved. I was not familiar with research into writing and
was not aware of alternative perspectives on how writing is Ieamed or on how to

teach writing.

My Masters program had not prepared me to teach writing in ways that
drew on my knowledge of how students Ieam writing. This is pedagogical content
knowledge, the knowledge about how a topic within the subject area can be

organized and presented to the students. Shulman (1986, p. 9) suggests

15

 

 

 

numerous ways that a teacher can connect the topic to the students’ own
knowledge: " ...the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples,
explanations, and demonstrations--in a word, the way of representing and

formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others.“

In China, my use of pedagogical content knowledge was limited. I did not
make the writing come alive and important to the students. Indeed, I did not know
how to connect the writing to the students' lives. Though I had studied teaching
English as a Second Language in graduate school, I had Ieamed strategies for
getting students to talk. I did not have powerful illustrations and did not know how
to use strategies to promote the Ieaming of writing. I did not know or think about
the questions to ask the students. I had reverted to teaching the way I had been

taught as a youth.

This suggests that there is a very complex relationship between
pedagogy, teachers' knowledge and the teachers' beliefs about teaching and
Ieaming. The teacher's beliefs, experiences and knowledge about teaching are
core aspects of the teacher as a Ieamer. This is what the teacher brings to

his/her teaching and to Ieaming. As Ball (1996) says:

What teachers bring to the process of Ieaming to teach affects what they
Ieam. Increasingly, teachers’ own personal and professional histories are
thought to play an important role in determining what they Ieam from
professional development experiences (p. 501).

The professional development experiences are opportunities for teachers

to continue their Ieaming. What teachers Ieam or decide to Ieam is shaped by

16

what they bring to the opportunity and the form and content of the opportunity.

What is Ieamed involves an interaction between the learner and the opportunity.

Professional Development Opportunities
Professional development opportunities usually are occasions to be

introduced to something new or to think about the old in new ways. It may result
in the teacher changing his/her teaching or beliefs if the innovation fits with the
teachers’ beliefs and practice. When thinking about professional development
projects, we need to consider the leamer’s concerns at that time as well as how

the innovation is presented.

Teachers’ concerns
Hord (1987, p. 31) present one model of stages of concern about

innovations (Table 1.1). In this model, teachers at level 0-2 are more concerned
with how the innovation will affect them. The expressions of concern are
statements that a teacher might talk about. As the table indicates, one teacher
might consider, "How will using it [the innovation] affect me?" at stage 2. At stage
3, a teacher would be more focused on the task and carrying it out. At stages 4-
6, a teacher would be thinking about the impact of the innovation on the students’

Ieaming.

17

Table 1.1 Stages of Concern

 

 

 

STAGES OF CONCERN EXPRESSIONS OF CONCERN

6. REFOCUSING I have some ideas about
something that would work even
beuen

5. COLLABORATION I am concerned about relating

what I am doing with what other
instructors are doing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. CONSEQUENCE How is my use affectirflds?

3. MANAGEMENT I seem to be spending all my time
fitting materials ready.

2. PERSONAL How will using it affect me?

1. INFORMATIONAL I would like to know more about it.

0. AWARENESS I am not concerned about it.

 

Though stage models tend to suggest “either-or" situations in one
dimension, they do provide a format to think about teachers and their responses
to some factor, in this case, innovations. Thus, a stage model of concerns for
innovation, in conjunction with other information on the teachers participating in
professional development projects, can help us understand the teachers’
responses to an innovation and the project though which the innovation is

introduced.

Professional development opportunities: Form and content
Two common aspects of programs discussed in the literature on

professional development opportunities are the form and substance (Ball, 1989;

Borko & Putnam, 1995; Kennedy, 1998).

Borko and Putnam (1995, p. 58) suggest that successful professional
development projects consider both substance and process. Substance involves

growth in two areas: growth around the subject matter and pedagogy as well as

18

growth in Ieaming about the educational reform efforts. Borko and Putnam say
about the process, “...a project’s assumptions about how teachers Ieam should
be compatible with its assumptions about how students Ieam" (p. 58). The
authors provide an example of a project based on constructivist ideas:
“Professional development should provide opportunities for teachers to construct
knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy in an environment that supports and

encourages risk taking and reflection“ (p. 58).

Kennedy (1998), however, researched several science and mathematics
professional development opportunities and suggests that the forms of inservice
projects have been given more emphasis than the content. Kennedy argues that
the content of the opportunity may be more important than the form. "Based on
the studies I was able to review, it looks as if a case can be made for attending
more to the content of inservice teacher education and for attending less to its

structural and organizational features" (p. 21).

While the form and content of programs is a division that does allow
researchers to examine programs, sometimes it creates an artificial separation.
For example, Loucks-Horsley (1998) suggests that effective professional
development experiences for science and mathematics teachers includes
opportunities to model strategies that teachers will use in their classrooms and
opportunities to build a Ieaming community. Modeling strategies in the class and
building Ieaming communities can be both the form and the content of a
professional development opportunity. Thus, when examining how the leamer

interacts with a Ieaming opportunity, it is important to keep in mind not only what

19

knowledge and skills the Ieamer brings but also how the opportunity is organized

and presented.

However, most of this literature on teachers and their continued Ieaming
opportunities comes from the West. I was interested in the interaction of Ieamers
and opportunities to Ieam in a non-Westem country. How does the historical
context of the country influence the learning? What role does the examination
system play in influencing the leaner? What other factors may play a role in
influencing the professional development opportunities and the use of

innovafions?

This research was carried out in Zimbabwe, a developing country.
However, all developing countries do not have the same historical, social and
educational factors influencing teachers and their development. In the case of
Zimbabwe, some important factors are its colonial past, the examination-oriented
education system, the lack of resources to improve the educational infrastructure,
and the role that non-govemmental organizations (NGOs) play in helping the
country. In my study, a donor agency funded and supported a project that aimed
to help experienced science and mathematics teachers to become resource

teachers, teachers who. would help other teachers improve their teaching.

Before considering the specific questions asked in this study, more
discussion about the context of teaching and Ieaming in Zimbabwe is necessary.
We need to Ieam more about the country’s history and educational system
because these factors influence what teachers bring to their work in terms of

beliefs, knowledge and experiences. What follows is a basic description of some

20

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factors in the educational system that are particularly important to this study. In a
way, this is a balancing act in an attempt to provide sufficient information in a

limited space.2

Zimbabwe: Context of Teacher Learning
In this section, I provide a background of some essential elements of the

educational system in Zimbabwe as it relates to my questions. This includes
historical background on the educational system, information on the ways
schools are organized, an explanation of the paths to becoming a teacher, and

information on the A-Ievel examination.

Educational History
All of the teachers I worked with were Zimbabweans who had attended

some school before independence in 1980. If prior experiences and early beliefs
about Ieaming help shape the way teachers teach, then it is necessary to

examine the forms of education before independence as well as after.

One aspect of education common throughout pre-independence was that

the education for blacks was quite different than for whites.a Education was free

 

2 Although I limit my discussion on the countryof Zimbabwe as the context for
this study, I did examine literature on education In Zimbabwe as well as
Zimbabwe’s history. Dorsey (1991 provides information on the format of .
education In Zimbabwe. Mutumbu a (1986) discusses past scrence education
initiatives in Zimbabwe. For more information on educational reform In southern
Africa, see Mungazi & Walker (1997). Zvobgo has written two books on Issues
Influencing educational change in Zimbabwe (Zvob o, 1994a; Zvobgo, 1994b).
In addition, the Shona culture is im ortant In consi enn how teachers respond
to chan es in the way teaching an Ieaming are carrie out because the school
rsfpart o the secrety. For example, Shona society rs patnarchal and this _can
In uence relationships between Ieamers. Several books that relate to this are
ggggdlllon, 1987; Bourdillon, 1993; Gelfand, 1979 (repnnt 1992); and Shumba,

3 I use the word. 'blacks" to talk about the native Africans. In my readings on
Zimbabwe, this term along with Africans are the more common words used.

21

and compulsory for whites, whereas education was neither free nor compulsory

for non-white children. Welle-Strand (1996) says:

One system was for the white children and aimed to prepare them for their
predetermined status in life, i.e., to be masters and employers. The other
system was for the African children, aimed at preparing them for a life as
servants (p. 62).

In the early years of education in Zimbabwe (starting from the late 19003),
the main aim was to provide blacks with minimal skills. Until around 1910,
primary schools emphasized basic literacy and numeracy as well as some
"industrial training” in things like woodworking and agricultural skills. It was not
until the late 1930s that there were secondary schools in Zimbabwe for blacks.
Prior to this, black students went to South Africa for secondary education

(Zvobgo, 1994b).

In 1962, just before the Unilateral Declaration of Independence on
November 11, 1965, implementation of major changes began. The responsibility
of African education shifted from the central government to new local councils.
By shifting responsibility to councils, the government could put less money into
education, while maintaining control through new laws. Furthermore, there was a

move from academic to vocational training at the secondary level.

Secondary education for blacks was reorganized in 1966. The F1
academic system for a limited number of students and the F2 vocational system
were introduced and remained in place until 1980. In this system, 12.5 percent of
primary students were allowed to start academic secondary education (F1) while

37.5 percent could attend F2 vocational secondary schools (Zvobgo, 1994b, p.

22

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72). Zvobgo (1994b) suggests that a stigma was attached to this F2 Vocational
system. The council that created this system implied that, “The F2 system was
intended for children of less academic ability infuriated pupils, parents, and
teachers“ (p. 72). Parents were also aware that employment for these F2
graduates was limited. As a result, parents did not want to send their children to

the F2 schools, and this system never really was accepted by the population.

Reducing this inequality in education for blacks was one of the aims of the
fight for liberation. After independence, the new government took measures to
open up education to all people. Enormous quantitative changes occurred in the
educational system (Zimbabwe, 1993). Free education was provided at the

primary level. Chung (1988) says:

Primary school enrollments increased from 819,000 in 1979 to 2,229,000 in
1985; secondary school enrollments increased even more dramatically from a
mere 79,000 in 1979 to almost half a million in 1985, a six fold increase

(p.121).

This increase meant that a large number of teachers were needed. Many

of these teachers were unqualified (Zesaguli, 1994).

At the same time that these efforts to increase access to schooling for the
young were moving forward, there were drastic attempts by some people to
change the educational system away from pure academics to an education-to-
work system. This was opposed by many groups, including parents, schools, and
teachers (Jansen, 1991; Maravanyika, 1991). Maravanyika suggests that parents
did not want a transformation in education from academic to preparation for work.

They still had memories of the F2 system. Rather, parents wanted their children

23

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to have the education that whites had originally been afforded. Thus, they hoped
for what was called a "radicalization" in education, in which their children would

receive the same academic education as the whites had received.

Though a transformation in the educational curriculum did not occur, a
drastic increase in the number of students did transpire. Before independence,
only a limited number of black Zimbabweans followed the academic path, but
after independence the number of students hoping to follow the academic path
skyrocketed. This increase in the number of students occurred in a school
structure very similar to the one that white students had experienced before

independence.

Schooling Structure
The pre-independence educational structure, punctuated with

examinations at key points, is still intact today (Chung, 1988). Schooling in
Zimbabwe consists of primary schooling from first to seventh grades (Table 1.1).
Secondary education is divided into two parts: lower secondary from Form 1-4,
which is referred to as Ordinary Level (O-Ievel); and upper secondary which is

two years of Form 6 and is known as Advanced Level (A-Ievel) (Dorsey, 1991 ).

After primary school, students enter lower secondary. At the end of Form
2, students take a test for the Zimbabwe Junior Certificate (ZJC). This test does
not significantly influence which students continue to Form 3 and 4. At the end of
Form 4, students take the O-level examinations. The results of these tests are

used in determining whether the students can go on to A-level (See Table 1.2).

24

At the end of A-Ievel, the students take another test that is central in selecting

who can enter the university as well as other colleges.

Table 1.2 School Structure and Grade Levels In Zimbabwe

 

Primary grades 1 -7

Secondary
Form 1, Form 2 Zimbabwe Junior Certificate (ZJC)
Form 3, Form 4 Ordinary level O-level
Form 6 (lower) Advanced level A-level
Form 6 (upper) Advanced level A-Ievel

Teachers College Four years

University Three years

 

 

 

This table depicts the structure of schooling, but it does not tell us about
how the O-Ievel examination serves as a gatekeeper in to A-level. The Education
Report for 1993 (Zimbabwe, 1993) provide data on students in 1990, and this
highlights the drop in student numbers from the last year of O-Ievel to A-Ievel

(Table 1.3)4.

Table 1.3 Enrollment and Promotion Rate

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grade Enrollment Promotion rate 1988-89
Primary School 2,085,000
Male Female
Form 1 200,700 89 85
Form 2 184,200 90 86
Form 3 153,600 93 88
Form 4 117,100 8 5
Form L6 7700 89 83
Form U6 7000

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘ The table draws on pages 18 and 27 of the Report.

25

This table clearly illustrates how the O-level examination serves as a
gatekeeper to the A-level. The number of students fell from 117,100 at Form 4 to
7700 at Form L6, the first year of A-level. Students who do well on the A-levels
have a good chance of entering the University of Zimbabwe or other higher
education institutes. Students who are not accepted at these higher education
institutes may apply to teachers training colleges, vocational institutes, or to

college and universities overseas.

In addition to this structure of education, there are a few other aspects of
education in Zimbabwe that may influence what teachers bring to their teaching
in terms of prior experiences and beliefs. These include the type of schools they

attended, the teacher’s qualifications and the syllabus of the A-level examination.

School Types and Operation
Schools in Zimbabwe vary in their type of governance. School types

include mission schools (church), independent schools, government schools,
and district schools. Church organizations opened many schools during the
colonial period and continue to operate those schools (Natsa, 1994, p.33).

Parents pay high tuition rates and fees for their children to attend these schools.

Independent schools are run by private foundations (Natsa, 1994). Many
of the independent schools charge high fees and, in this way, restrict the

entrance to families with high incomes. They have good facilities and resources.

I could not find articles that compared the types of schools; however,

through conversations with teachers, I discovered that church-run schools and

26

independent-run schools are perceived as having more resources than the other
types of schools. Because of these perceptions, these types of schools are

viewed as better places to work.

Government and district schools often have fewer resources. Government
schools can be divided into three groups (Dorsey et al., 1991 p. 24). These are
government urban schools in what are called low-density areas or Group A
schools; government urban schools in so-called high-density suburbs also called
Group B schools; and government rural schools. The low-density schools were
for white students before independence. These schools tend to have more
facilities than the high density schools, though they may not have been kept up
since the early eighties. The high density schools were built for blacks and were
usually basic structures with few resources. The government rural schools also
have very limited resources and are located in the rural areas where resources

are low and, often, the financial resources of the parents are limited.

The district schools are run by local authorities. The majority of the district
schools opened after independence in order to accommodate the increase in

students. These often have few resources.

Natsa says (1994), “School quality differs according to the type of
authority running the school. On the one extreme, there are the high-fee paying
schools... and on the other extreme, there are local authority schools called
district council schools that opened after 1980" (p. 33). The schools that charge
higher fees or have church organizations to support them have more financial

resources to purchase equipment and to keep the schools operating.

27

The financial operation of all the schools is in the hands of School
Development Associations (SDAs), School Development Committees (8003),
and donor agencies. The SDAs and SDCs are parent organizations at the
school. One is for government schools and the other for non-govemment
schools. These organizations help with the provision of equipment, building

maintenance and construction.

While schools are responsible for their own upkeep and expansion, the
central govemment is responsible for paying all teachers’ salaries, regardless of
school type. Schools can, with permission of the Ministry of Education, provide
additional incentives and benefits to the teachers. Many independent and
mission schools, which have the financial resources, do add benefits that make

these schools more attractive for teachers.

Teacher Qualifications
When examining teachers in Zimbabwe, it is also important to consider

where they Ieamed to become teachers. Different types of institutions may
provide very different experiences for the professional education students.
Teachers who want to teach at primary or O-level normally attended teachers
training colleges. When the focus is on A-level science or mathematics teachers,
the paths are varied. In order to teach A-level science or mathematics in
Zimbabwe, teachers need either a Bachelor of Science degree with a Post-
Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), a Bachelor of Education degree

(B.Ed.), or a licentiate from Cuba (Engels, 1994).

28

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Data on the percentages of teachers with the different academic
qualifications was hard to come by. I searched but was unable to find official
numbers of the qualifications of teachers at A-level. I located some unofficial
numbers in a project document for the Science ln-service Teacher Training
project (SEITT); however, as the reader will notice, they do not add up to one
hundred percent. Nonetheless, they do provide a general idea of the percentages
of teachers with different qualifications teaching A-Ievel. The document indicated
that there were about 640 A-Ievel teachers in mathematics, chemistry, biology

and physics, then added:

With respect to academic qualifications, 40% are B.Sc. and BscHons
graduates, 21% are B.Ed.(Sc.) degree holders, 7% have a Masters degree,
10% hold degrees from Cuba (B.Ed., Licentiate), and 13% did not indicate
their degree (Engels, 1994 p. 7).

This quote indicates that teachers with B.Sc. and BscHons qualifications
make up a large percentage of teachers at A-level in the sciences and
mathematics. These teachers obtain a Bachelor of Science degree from a
university in Zimbabwe or another country. These graduates of universities can
teach at A-Ievel, but if they plan to remain in teaching for many years, they also
need to obtain a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the
Department of Science and Mathematics Education (DSME), University of
Zimbabwe. Without a PGCE, teachers are not qualified to remain in the teaching
professions. These teachers, who have earned a B.Sc. degree, have studied

subject content in their area in a university, but they do not have course work in

teaching methodology. The PGCE, which aims to fill this gap, can be either a

29

one-year full-time course or a two-year part-time course. The forty percent with
B.Sc. and BscHons indicated in the above quote would also include the teachers
with the PGCE. However, from this quote, we do not know how many had

actually earned the PGCE.

The teachers who decide to earn a B.Ed. degree have already earned a
teaching certificate from a teachers training college in Zimbabwe. After teaching
for at least two years, they can apply to the B.Ed. program at the University of
Zimbabwe. The B.Ed. prepares these certified O-level teachers to teach through
A-Ievel. These are teachers in biology, chemistry or physics. The B.Ed. degree
program was part of the Zimbabwe Science Teacher Training (ZIMSTT)
Program. ZIMS‘I'I' was implemented in 1985 to up-grade experienced O-level
science teachers to teach through A-level and to introduce these teachers to
advanced content in a science subject (Zesaguli, 1994). Originally, the course
was one year intensive, but then it was changed to two years after an evaluation.
ZIMSTT was funded from an outsider donor until 1992, when it was embedded

into the DSME at the University of Zimbabwe.

Another path is through studying in Cuba. This program was initiated in
the late eighties to help alleviate the shortage of science and mathematics
teachers in Zimbabwe. The licentiates received scholarships from the Zimbabwe
government to study science or mathematics teaching in Cuba. These licentiates
studied Spanish in Zimbabwe for six months and studied in Cuba for five years
with the last year teaching in a class. There appears to have been little research

carried out on these teachers and their Ieaming experiences. Indeed, most

30

people I talked to who had not been in the program knew very little about it. This
Cuban program recently ended and a new Science and Mathematics Education
university, which is part of the University of Zimbabwe, is currently operating in

Bindura, a town north of Harare (conversation with Dr. Zesaguli).

From the above explanation, it is clear that the professional education of
teachers at A-Ievel science is diverse in Zimbabwe. There are teachers trained in
Cuba, teachers who went through teachers training colleges, teachers who
attend the University of Zimbabwe and then eamed a PGCE, as well as teachers
who earned bachelor of science degrees overseas and then returned to earn the

PGCE.

Just as there are few data on academic qualifications, there is also little
information on the Ieaming opportunities in most of these programs. Knowing
how these different programs view Ieaming and teaching and how they teach the
teachers would be helpful to understand the experiences, beliefs and knowledge
of teachers in Zimbabwe. We do know a little about teacher training colleges.
Nagel (1992), who did research on them, argues that the teaching in teachers
training colleges is very teacher-centered. This means that the teachers who

participated in the B.Ed. program had teacher-centered experiences.

I was unable to locate research on the views of teachers who earned the
PGCE at the University of Zimbabwe or who studied in Cuba. In my interviews
with teachers holding the licentiate, PGCE, and B.Ed., the teachers indicated that
the teaching in these programs was lecture-based, with the focus on the course

examinations. Thus, despite the diverse experiences, the professional education

31

of most A-level science teachers appears to be quite teacher-centered. While the
qualifications were diverse, the syllabus that elaborated what the A-level students

needed to Ieam was quite explicit.

Syllabus and Examinations
Although the O-level examination was localized in 1993 and was written

and marked in Zimbabwe, the A-level syllabus and examination remained
products of the Cambridge Schools Examination Board in the United Kingdom
(Chigwedere, 1996). A-Ievel textbooks were still, to a high degree, published in

the UK.

The results of the A-level examination are key in determining which
students proceed to the University of Zimbabwe and other higher education
institutions. The A-Ievel syllabus outlines what students need to Ieam and also
provides information on the content and form of the A-level examination. Since
this study focuses on A-Ievel biology teachers, information is provided on the
biology syllabus and examination. The following information comes from the
University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate’s Examination syllabi for
1998 (lntemational Examinations) for the Biological Sciences (1998). The

introduction to the A-level biology syllabus states:

The syllabus places emphasis on the application of Biology and impact of
recent developments on the needs of contemporary society.

All candidates following this syllabus should be encouraged to:
Use secondary sources of information;

Use information technology (IT) to analyze, store and retrieve data and to
model biological phenomena:

Communicate biological information orally, as well as in writing (p. 59).

32

The syllabus also identified the core and optional categories of biology.
The core syllabus included ten sections and suggested that it will take “up to 135
hours of teaching time“ (p. 62). The core sections were cell structure, biological
molecules, enzymes, cell and nuclear division, genetic control and inheritance,
inherited change and evolution, energetics, ecology, transport, and regulation
and control. There were five options. Each option could take up to 45 hours of
teaching time. The options were biodiversity; applied plant and animal science;
applications of genetics; growth, development and reproduction; and human

health and disease. A candidate was assessed on two of them.

This document also elaborated on the A-level examination and types of
knowledge addressed on it. The examination was composed of four separate
compulsory exams and one optional. Table 1.4 depicts the papers, time, and

weight (p. 61).5

 

5 The papers for the examination are 1.2.3.6. and 0. There do not seem to be
papers numbered 4 and 5.

33

Table 1.4 Scheme of Assessment

 

Paper Description Duration Marks WeightinL

 

1 Structured questions (may include 2.5 h 100 35%
data response and comprehension)
and free response questions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 Multiple Choice 1 h 40 15%

3 Short answer questions and a free- 1.5 h 75 30%
response question

6 Practical examination 2.5 60 20%

0 Special Paper 2.5 75

 

The whole test encompassed ten hours. Paper 1 covered the two option
topics while the remaining examination papers covered the core topics. The
syllabus also indicated that three categories of knowledge were covered on the
examination. Papers 1,2, and 3 included knowledge and understanding as well
as application of knowledge and understanding. Paper 6 demonstrated the

students’ experimental skills.

I could not find the examination for this year’s scheme. but I did locate the
examination and marking scheme for 1996. The practical examination
emphasized following directions. using equipment. and observations. For
example. in Question 1. the examination provided the procedure to prepare
solutions. It used such phrases as set up. label. add, and stir. Then the students
were to observe the reaction and write what they saw (University of Cambridge.

1996.p.2)

This organization of a practical examination seems typical of the UK
(Tamir. 1996). Tamir (1996) examined and compared examinations in several

countries. Tamir found that most of the countries did not even use a practical

34

examination. Tamir states that the practical examinations in England/Wales
emphasized the manipulation of equipment. routine procedures and simple
information. This was in contrast to Israeli practicals. which were inquiry-oriented
and required higher-level skills (p. 68). Tamir says of the A-level biology
examinations as a whole for EnglandNVales: “Questions tended to address
simple rather than complex information but employed many. varied graphical
devices to do so" (p. 84). The organization of the A-level biology examination in
Zimbabwe appears to be similar to these examinations. The practical
examination required procedural skills. and the other parts of the examination

attended to simple rather than complex information.

Summary
This brief discussion on education in Zimbabwe highlights both differences

and similarities within the country. The educational system remains similar to
what the whites received before independence. It is still very much based on the
British system and, at A-Ievel. the examinations continue to be devised and
marked in the United Kingdom. There are many different school types with the
independent and church schools often having more resources than the other

types. The paths to becoming an A-level teacher are also diverse.

Hence. we find some possible differences and some similarities among
teachers at A-level. If they went through the education system in Zimbabwe, they
passed through the examination-oriented system that has been the educational

structure in Zimbabwe since before independence. In addition. A-level science

35

 

teachers have numerous paths to Ieam to teach. Though these experiences may

differ. the message was often transmitted through lectures.

Arriving at the Questions
When thinking about the questions to research. I knew that I needed to

link my own interests in what teachers bring to Ieaming opportunities to what is
known in the current research literature. I wanted to examine how and why
teachers may change their teaching by participating in a project and how

teachers’ past experiences and beliefs may influence such changes.

My interest in how and why teachers Ieam has remained central to my
research interests; however. the actual questions that I researched were different
from the questions I took to Zimbabwe in 1997. When I arrived in Zimbabwe. I
had planned to observe these teachers. known as resource teachers“.
participating in the Science ln-service Teacher Training project (SEITT). and
assisting other science teachers at Science and Maths Centres (SMCs). These
are centers that the SEITT project established in the regions at A-Ievel schools.
In most cases. a school provided one room in which resources, such as
textbooks. journals. a copy machine and a computer would be stored. The
resource teachers were also expected to organize regional workshops to support
the improvement of A-Ievel teaching in each region. I had hoped to examine how
the SEITT resource teachers interacted with other teachers at the SMCs and

how their prior experiences and beliefs influenced these interactions.

36

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When I arrived in Zimbabwe in 1997. these SMCs were not yet
operational. I had to rethink my research questions. I did not immediately develop
specific new questions. Rather, I decided to Ieam more about the teaching and
Ieaming of some of these resource teachers and then develop the research
question. The questions that began to take shape were: How do these teachers,
enrolled in a professional development project that prepares them to facilitate the
Ieaming of other A-level science and mathematics teachers. respond to the
project in terms of their own teaching and how they implement the new role of
resource teacher? How do they teach and why? What do they Ieam and how in
the project? What do they decide not to Ieam? How do their prior experiences,
beliefs. and teacher knowledge influence how they respond to the project and
their own teaching? How do these teachers’ Ieaming in the professional

development opportunity compare to what we know in developed countries?

- In organizing a dissertation. decisions of priority must be made. I decided
to arrange the dissertation chronologically because the participant’s path through
the project is chronological. Chapter One has several purposes. It introduced me.
the researcher. and identified issues surrounding teaching and Ieaming that I
continue to try to understand. It links these issues to other research to build my
conceptual framework, and it suggests that what teachers bring to a Ieaming

opportunity interacts with that opportunity.

 

6 The resource teachers at the time of this study were part-time students at the
Unrversrty of Zimbabwe. Throu houtthis dissertation, It should be understood
that they had not yet recered t eir delomas.

37

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This chapter also grounds the research questions in a professional
development project in Zimbabwe. a developing country. Chapter Two delineates
the research process. Chapter Three introduces the project and the participants.
Chapter Four, Five and Six present three resource teachers. These chapters
examine the teachers’ practices. beliefs around teaching. and how they respond
to the project. Finally. Chapter Seven analyzes what can be Ieamed about
opportunities to help teachers improve their teaching and take on new teacher

leader roles.

38

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CHAPTER 2 PATH OF INQUIRY

How a researcher conceptualizes questions and views the process of
inquiry has a great impact on how the research is eventually carried out. My
questions address how teachers think about teaching and Ieaming both in their
classrooms and in a professional development project. My research also
examines teachers’ teaching in classrooms and Ieaming in an in-service project.

The scope of the research necessitated collection of data from multiple sources.

In my research. I chose a design that drew on quantitative and qualitative
methods. This not only allowed me to acquire a great deal of data. it also
provided in-depth data. Like many researchers, before I left for Zimbabwe I was

very concerned with whether I would collect enough data of importance.

When organizing this research. I was also concerned about my personal
biases. As a researcher going to another country and another culture. I had
concerns about my background as a Westemer. Because I had lived in other
countries and was well aware of stereotypes and biases people have towards
others. I knew that I would be analyzing how others made sense of teaching
through my own perspective. How would my past experiences focus me on some
aspects of the research and blind me to others? How would I handle this? How
would I approach my own biases? Hammersley and Atkinson (1983) indicate
that. “Reflexivity has implications for the practice of social research too. Rather

than engaging in futile attempts to eliminate the effects of the researcher, we

39

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should set about understanding them...” (p. 17). Indeed. in qualitative research
the role of the researcher is. “...the research instrument par excellence” (p. 18).
Thus, I decided to keep in mind the influences that my education in the US. my
nine-year experience teaching in Japan. and my experiences in China might
exert on all aspects of the research. These had. to an extent. been the source of
motivation for this study and would influence what I saw. what I consciously and
unconsciously decided not to see. and how I interpreted the data. Rather than
denying these perspectives. I believe that they added insights to my

understanding of the professional development of the teachers in this study.

Keeping in mind these cultural concerns. I organized the research. This
chapter provides the details on how I gained access to the field. how I designed

the research and collected data. and how I analyzed that data.

Gaining Access: A Predissertation Trip in 1995
l have already discussed why Zimbabwe was the site of this research.

However. interest alone does not open doors. There were a great many doors to
open in order to carry out research in Zimbabwe. First. I had to apply through the
University of Zimbabwe to the Zimbabwean government for permission to do
research there. The University of Zimbabwe accepted me as a research
associate in the Department of Science and Mathematics Education (DSME). Dr.
Josephine Zesaguli, a graduate of Michigan State University. College of
Education, and a faculty member in the DSME at the time I applied. was my
sponsor. The Research Council of Zimbabwe then granted me a Research

Permit and a temporary employment permit.

40

When applying for this permit. I indicated that I would need access to the
following institutions: Ministry of Education, the University of Zimbabwe. and the
Science and Maths lnservice Teacher Training Project (SEITT). In addition. I also
asked for permission to interview individuals affiliated with these institutions and
with teachers participating in the project. Once I arrived in Zimbabwe. I asked all
nine regional directors for permission to do research in their districts, I asked the
heads of the schools where I observed and interviewed for their permission. and I
asked the teachers for their permission to do my research. These layers of

permission were needed prior to carrying out my research.

Research Design
This research examined beliefs. teaching practice. and professional

development opportunities in the context of a developing country. Because I first
wanted to become more familiar with teaching in Zimbabwe and the project. I
used a design that allowed me to start by exploring the Zimbabwean context.
then moved to Ieaming about the participants in the project. and in the end.
focused on a few participants (See Appendix B for a schedule of the year-long
research). My research format (Figure 2.1) was based on a design that Miles and

Huberrnan (1994) presented:

[It] alternates the two kinds of data collection [qualitative and quantitative].
beginning with exploratory fieldwork, leading to the development of a
quantitative instrumentation, such as a questionnaire. The questionnaire
findings can be further deepened and tested systematically with the next
round of qualitative work (p. 41-42).

41

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Figure 2.1 Research Design

 

QUAL (exploratory) ->QUANT (questionnaire) ->QUAL (in-depth study)
Document analysis Survey Interviews
Interviews Observations

 

 

This shift from qualitative to quantitative and back to qualitative allowed
me to start my research slowly and begin to focus. As I elaborate below. in the
exploratory phase. I Ieamed about the project and A-level teaching through
readings and interviews with teachers and SEITT staff. The questions that this
exploration raised were included in a survey that I gave to all the resource
teachers in their third residential period. The results of this survey helped me
discern the variation among this group of A-Ievel teachers and aided in my
selection of cases to pursue in-depth. The subsequent interviews and
observations provided data that allowed me to paint portraits of three resource
teachers, their thinking about teaching and Ieaming. their actual teaching. and

their ideas about their new roles as resource teachers.

Discovering the Context of Learning: Exploratory Fieldwork

 

When I arrived in Zimbabwe in early 1997. I began to explore what A-Ievel

Ieaming and teaching encompassed and how the SEITT project aimed to

influence this practice. The exploratory aspect of this research involved reading

and observations for two purposes: (1) to gain an understanding of SElTT’s goals

and processes, and (2) to gain an understanding of the context of A-level
teaching through observations in some classes and interviews with teachers

concerning teaching and other responsibilities.

42

Soon after arriving in Zimbabwe in January 1997. I read SEITT project
documents. participants’ assignments. and information concerning the content of
the residential periods. The SEITT documents included project reports. regional
visit reports, and residential period teaching materials. I also carried out informal
talks with SEITT staff to Ieam about the progress of the project, the staff’s views
towards the participants, and other parties involved in the project, such as the

Education Officers in the regions.

In addition to Ieaming about the project. there was a need to Ieam about
the context of teaching at A-level. Though there is published research on
education in Zimbabwe, there is very little published in the realm of A-level
teaching in the science or mathematics classroom 7. An exception is Zesaguli’s
(1994) doctoral dissertation. Thus. it was necessary to visit some A-level science
and mathematics classes to gain an insight as to the nature of A-level teaching

and the responsibilities of teachers.

I observed three A-level teachers teaching a few hours in their classrooms
and followed this with informal interviews concerning the class and the teachers'
other responsibilities in the school. For two of the teachers, I was able to visit
multiple times, while for one I was only able to visit one day. These visits and
interviews helped me to understand better the context of A-Ievel teaching and the

teachers' responsibilities.

 

7 Some research results on education in Zimbabwe can be found in the volumes
of Zimbabwe Joumal of Educational Research. Natsa (1990) also looked
closely at Shona and English teachers in secondary sc ools.

43

Teachers’ Views of Teaching and Learning: Questionnaire
My exploratory research provided some background on the SEITT project.

its goals and the teaching context at A-level. However, I wanted to Ieam more
about how the group of teachers participating in SEITT thought about teaching
and Ieaming science. about working with other teachers. and about their future
plans. I also planned to use the responses to help select teachers for the
qualitative research. | devised a questionnaire that asked the teachers about
their views of teaching/Ieaming and their expectations of their new roles as

resource teachers. (See appendix C for the full questionnaire.)

This questionnaire was developed using the materials in A Study Package
for Examining and Tracking Changes in Teachers’ Knowledge (Kennedy. Ball, &
McDiarmid, 1993) as a guide.8 All forty-eight prospective resource teachers were
given the questionnaire to complete at their residential period at the University of
Zimbabwe in May 1997. Forty-two resource teachers returned the questionnaire
for an eighty-eight percent response rate. The response data were analyzed
using frequencies and percentages. In addition. the demographic information for
the six teachers who did not complete the questionnaire was obtained from those
teachers at the next residential period. Thus. I had demographic information for

all the teachers.

I reported on the findings of the survey in a Zimbabwean journal in order

to provide the educational community with information on the SEITI’ participants

 

a This studé package was developed by the National Center for_ Research on
Teacher ducatlon and Included an interview. observation guIde. and
questionnaIre. It was developed for teacher education program planners and

44

as a group (Johnston. 1997). The findings provided demographic information on
these A-level teachers as well as some information about their beliefs on
teaching and Ieaming. In the next chapter, some of the information from the

survey is discussed.

Selection of Teachers
As indicated above. the survey played a role in the selection of teachers

for in-depth study. Selection depended, in part. on their answers to the survey’s
questions on Ieaming. As I will elaborate later in this section. originally I had
selected seven teachers to study. I collected data on all of these teachers.
However. I had more data on the three biology teachers and this study centers
on them. Table 2.2 depicts this selection process and the data on the different

teachers.

Initially, I had hoped to have the SEITT staff identify two groups of
teachers: those changing as a result of participating in the project and those
resisting change. However. as l have already indicated. the SMCs were not
operating and the SEITT staff had not observed teachers in the classroom. so
the SEITT staff did not really know which teachers were changing. Hence. I

decided to Ieam about teachers in their classrooms and in the residential periods.

 

researchers for usein examining teacher Ieaming within teacher education
programs. I used thrs as a gurde as I developed my own set of questions.

45

Table 2.1 Selection of Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NUMBER OF RESOURCE DATA

TEACHERS

48 Resource teachers Questionnaire

7 Resource teachers from two Questionnaire; classroom

regions” observations; interviews

*1 not teaching at A-level

3 Biology resource teachers Questionnaire; classroom
observations; interviews; observations
of working in two residential periods;
carrying out workshops in the regions

 

I decided to use two means for selecting teachers for the in-depth portion
of my research. First. I decided on two regions that were within driving distance
of where I lived. One of the regions was urban and the other was rural. Second. I
turned to the survey results to select teachers to focus on. At this point, one of
the problems of being far from an advisor arose. I needed to discuss selection
criteria with someone. This point in the research was critical. as l was choosing
the individual cases that I would be following for the rest of my research. I asked
myself the following questions. "How should I use the questionnaire to select
teachers? Which questions are more salient? How do I avoid questions that

might show a Western bias?"

I tackled this problem by contacting two Zimbabwean colleagues who had
earned Ph.D.s in Education at MSU and who were back in Zimbabwe teaching.
They were Dr. Albert Natsa and Dr. Josephine Zesaguli. Talks with these two
colleagues led me to two questions on the questionnaire that provided
distinctions between respondents in terms of thinking about teaching and

Ieaming.

46

The first question asked about types of teachers who would "most Iikely"
be successful in helping students learns. For this question. there were four brief
descriptions of how teachers’ conceptualize teaching: facilitator. guide. group
organizer. and transmitter of knowledge (See questionnaire in appendices.) Most
teachers chose facilitative teaching as most effective. However. one teacher
chose "transmitter”. My colleagues and I felt that including the teacher answering
transmitter would add a different perspective. We also thought that some of the
teachers might. in fact, be giving the "facilitator" as the answer because they
thought it was the answer I wanted. This is a common problem of surveys. and I
hoped that the follow up interviews and observations would shed light on this

idea.

The second question I used from the questionnaire to finalize my selection
asked the teachers to prioritize a list of factors from 1-6 that might be sources of
students’ success. These included student’s home background. student’s
intellectual ability. student’s enthusiasm or perseverance. teacher’s attention to
the unique interests and abilities of students. teacher’s use of effective methods
of teaching. and teacher’s enthusiasm or perseverance. My Zimbabwe
colleagues and I thought that this question addressed many beliefs that teachers
hold concerning Ieaming and teaching. one of the important areas in my
research. Do the teachers think that success is grounded more within the

students or outside the students?

The teachers’ responses split between those who thought “student

intellectual ability" was the source and those who thought "teacher’s use of

47

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effective methods of teaching“ was the main source of student success.

Teachers from each of these response categories were selected.

In selecting the teachers to focus on. I worked closely with Dr. Zesaguli.
who had written her dissertation on the precursor of the SEITT project, the
Zimbabwe Science Teacher Training Program (ZIMSTT). We decided to start
with seven teachers in order to get a diverse group in terms of their views on
teaching/Ieaming. We both thought that seven teachers might be too many;
however, from experience in doing research in Zimbabwe, my colleague
indicated that unforeseen circumstances might force one or two teachers to stop
participating due to school responsibilities, transfers. or other events. I gathered

observation and interview data on these seven teachers.

As I will elaborate on in the Data Analysis section. I returned to the US.
with interview and observation data from all these teachers. However. I had
limited data on some of the teachers’ Ieaming in the third and fourth residential
periods at the University of Zimbabwe. During these residential periods. most of
the studying was accomplished in subject matter groups. Since one aspect of this
study intended to examine how these teachers interacted with other resource
teachers and with other teachers, I decided to focus on one subject matter group.
I selected the biology group because of my own background in biology; I had
earned a B.Sc. in Zoology. In the residential periods and in the teachers’ own
classes I would be better able to understand the concepts being taught and the
Ieamers’ problems with the biological concepts. In the biology subject matter

group were three teachers from the two regions. These three teachers and their

48

beliefs, prior experiences, teacher knowledge. and engagement with the project

are the focus of this dissertation.

Resource Teachers as Learners: Qualitative
After surveying the teachers, the research design moved from the

quantitative to the qualitative in Miles and Huberrnan’s (1994) design. Here I
intended to look deeper into these teachers’ beliefs on teaching/Ieaming.
teaching practice. and their interaction with other teachers and teachers at

workshops.

I wanted to understand the participants from both what they said and what
I observed. Thus. the data came from focused interviews. informal interviews.
observations in classrooms, observations of the participants Ieaming to become

resource teachers and their actual facilitating in workshops. and documents.

Probing Ieaming and views on Ieaming: Interviews
' I conducted interviews with the teachers and with other involved parties.

The interviews with the teachers were open-ended. For each interview. which
lasted between one and two hours, I had an interview protocol that listed
questions. At the beginning of the interviews, I gave a copy of these questions to
the teachers so that they would have a feel for the types of questions I would be
asking. I followed the list in order, but encouraged the teachers to elaborate on
their ideas. These interviews were audio taped. transcribed, and briefly

summarized.

There were four planned interviews with the teachers with each interview

having a particular focus (see Appendix D). The first interview examined their

49

(A.
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2‘.

responses to items on the survey. After examining the questionnaire responses
of each teacher. I asked questions connected to each teacher's responses and
probed deeper. For example. with each teacher I probed his/her meaning of
student intellectual ability. Included in the questionnaire were several questions
concerning the examination and I asked the teachers to explain their answers in

more depth.

The second interview focused on my observations of their classroom
teaching and questions around teaching and Ieaming. I drew on my fieldnotes
and asked the teachers specific questions about their teaching. For example, I
questioned one teacher about why he marked papers as he walked around and
checked the students’ progress. About a lab day, I asked a teacher why it was so

quiet and why the students worked alone.

The third interview examined the teachers’ reactions to the workshops that
they had organized and carried out in their regions. I started this interview by
asking for their general comments and asking if they would do anything different

next time. I probed these responses.

In the last interview. the teachers talked about their own past experiences
as students and teachers as well as their perception of the future of SEITT. I
queried the teachers about any events or people in their educational experiences
that stood out. I first asked about grades one through A-level and then about
experiences after A.-level. l inquired about any weaknesses that they thought
they might have in teaching. Additionally. I encouraged them to talk about their

Ieaming experiences in professional education.

50

‘vL

as h. ..
aJ

N: “am .M: an: n e n: w»: AVIV. :~ A. v Ah. I" ... I.
1M. v . 3J9 ft.» . u e A v . u r V .a\~ “MW “54»: all. a. v Q ~ pa MM. fill-R
h n n I .3 In S A V red I . «1 IR.. K a A. u - a . w»

This autobiographical interview occurred last for a specific reason. I had
talked with Mr. Tom Bourdillon, the Chairperson of the Teacher Education
Department of the University of Zimbabwe. on my intention to ask the teachers’
about their past experiences in education. He indicated that a researcher had
done this in the past with very poor results. The teachers did not provide much
detail. Thus. I thought that by waiting until after I knew the teachers. I might get
richer responses to these questions. Indeed, the teachers at this interview

seemed to enjoy recollecting their pasts.

In this last interview, I had two concerns. First. I was aware that the
wording of interview questions could influence the answers. I wanted to make
sure the wording of the questions was clear. Once again. I turned to my
colleagues for help. In addition. at this point I also communicated with my
dissertation advisor on e-mail and received helpful advice in the wording and

selection of questions to ask the teachers about their experiences.

My second concern had to do with delving into the personal lives of
teachers. I was not sure how much they would want to talk about their lives with
an American who would take this away and share it with an audience overseas.
However. it turned out that the teachers talked in detail about themselves and

they seemed to enjoy this opportunity.

In addition to these main themes. each interview also provided an
opportunity to pursue further answers to questions asked in prior interviews. For
example. in the first interview I had already asked the teachers how they felt

about the source of student success. However, after the initial round of

51

‘p‘:

“in

F7:

SL-

al.

in“

interviews. I found that I needed to find out what these teachers actually meant
by "success“. Thus. a question on this was included in the second interview. In
this way. a grounded theory approach was pursued with new themes emerging

from the ongoing analysis and new interview questions (Glaser & Strauss. 1967).

Not all of the teachers had four interviews. This was due to scheduling
problems. telephone communication problems. and other unforeseen situations.
such as arriving for an interview and finding that the teacher was gone. Some
days the telephones did not work. but I went to a teacher’s school hoping he/she
would be there. In the cases where l was not able to meet a teacher, I needed to
consolidate the questions on the interview the next time we met in order to cover
the main questions. Thus, the length of the interviews also varied from between

one and two hours.

I also conducted interviews with several other groups of people: SEITT
staff. ministry officials in the two regions as well as at the national level. and the
heads of the schools where the SMCs were located. These interviews helped me
understand how these stakeholders felt about the project and the participants.

These interviews were also audio taped and transcribed.

lnforrnal interviews were conducted with two groups: A-Ievel science and
mathematics teachers who attended a workshop and students in the resource
teachers’ classrooms. I asked the teachers how they felt the workshops. run by
the SEITT participants. had helped them and how they felt about the activities. I
wanted to know if they believed that the workshops were improvements over the

region-run workshops and, if so. in what way. The interviews with the students

52

( I.)

I)

ll;

3

provided a different perspective on the teaching in the classrooms. For example.
students in the classroom of a teacher who drew on his students’ knowledge felt
that when they first started this class they were confused. They were not used to
the teacher's style. However. the students soon realized that they were Ieaming
a great deal in the classrooms. The interview with the students provided a
perspective that the teacher might not have been aware of. The interviews with
these teachers and students were informal and not tape-recorded. These
individuals were less familiar with me. and I did not want to make them even

more uncomfortable.

Teaching practice and opportunities to Ieam: Observations
There were several types of observations carried out. These included

observations of teachers teaching in their classrooms. observations of the
teachers Ieaming at the residential periods. and observations of the teachers

conducting the workshops in the regions.

For the school observations, I did not participate in the class. I only
observed. I again drew on A Study Guide Package for Examining and Tracking
Changes in Teachers’Knowledge (Kennedy. Ball. & McDiarmid, 1993) to guide
my observations. l constructed my own classroom observation guide that was
unstructured. (See Appendix E.) In all cases I tried to observe the same class for
three days in a row in order to gain an understanding of the continuity of the
classes as well as the context of class. For two of the teachers. I was able to

observe during two different weeks.

53

“A
VI

—-

I. g

m

H,

l

On the first visit to each teacher's class, I first described the classroom. I
started by drawing a map of the classroom and noting what was on the boards
and tables. I noted the gender and ethnicity of the students. Then as I observed
the class I tried to include as many quotes as possible. Also during the class. I
would write comments to myself on why I thought things were happening
(Bogdan & Biklen. 1992). This way I had a record of quotes and descriptions of
the class as well as personal suppositions on what I thought was going on.
Descriptive and interpretive notes were clearly labeled. For observer comments,
I wrote "o.c." next to my suppositions. After leaving the school. I wrote a
summary of what happened in the class and made notes of questions to ask the

teachen

Once I returned home, I transcribed my notes into my computer. In this
way. I was able to observe and go over the notes in detail soon afterwards. so
that I had two immediate opportunities to interact with the notes and think about

what was happening in the class.

My observations at the residential periods and workshops followed a
similar pattern. However, I did participate in these activities as I observed. For
example. often I was the note taker for a group. Participation helped me to focus
on one group as they worked together on activities. As I took notes. I also
considered such questions as: How are the teachers interacting? How do they

perceive their own role?

At the third residential period. when the teachers were preparing for the

workshops. I also videotaped the biology teachers conducting rehearsal

54

(I

H:

‘q
*u

‘ V

workshops with each other. I videotaped both of these and transcribed the audio
sections for analysis. I did not videotape the workshops in the regions because I
did not want to cause a distraction and possibly influence how the participants
interacted. At the workshops, the participants did not know me and I wanted to

be as unobtrusive as possible.

Data Analysis
Analysis was ongoing and iterative. As soon as I started reading SEITT

documents and observing classes informally, I began analyzing the data. After
tabulating the survey results, I analyzed the survey in order to find questions to
pursue. I put the information in the form of a matrix with the seven teachers listed

on one axis and the teachers’ responses on the other axis.

Once I started the interviews, I used a qualitative software, Non-numerical
Unstructured Data Indexing Searching and Theorizing (NUD*IST) developed by
Roberts and Roberts (1994). It is a computer package designed to aid users in
handling non-numerical and unstructured data in qualitative analysis. For me,
NUD'IST was a tool to help categorize and analyze the data for themes that

arose.

The first interviews with the seven teachers probed into their responses to
the survey. As I read their responses, I noticed that some key issues arose
among the teachers. I identified these as keywords. Thus, as I started inputting
fieldnotes into the computer I had to make sure the keywords were there as part

of the quotes or in the fieldnotes somewhere else. If the keywords were not in

55

GUS

be:

..d

‘l

Ab

quotes, I made observer comments within that paragraph. This was important

because an important function of NUD*IST is searching by keywords.

Then I carried out searches of the documents using these keywords.
NUD*IST produced all paragraphs containing the keyword and put them in one
new file. This file contained all instances with the keyword along with the name of
the original file. For example, a search of documents for "exam/examination"
gave me all the paragraphs that contained either word from all the interviews and
observations I had put into NUD*IST. Thus, I had a sheet of all participants’
utterances of exam or examination and could compare and contrast what the
teachers said about the examinations. Then I put key quotes or summaries from
each teacher and put this information in a matrix so that I could easily compare

and contrast the teachers.

I analyzed this data and made a shorter more concise matrix from which
to consider key patterns or important categories. I talked with Dr. Zesaguli about
my categories to see if I was missing important points or basing the categories
on a western perspective. The analysis of the survey produced issues that
seemed important to the teachers. These included examinations,
mistakes/errors, student-centered, student intellect, spoonfeeding, and sharing.
These were some of the keywords that then guided the analysis. This list of
keywords changed as more data were collected and analyzed and new issues

arose. This led to new interview questions to ask.

As the end of the year approached, I felt that I needed to check the validity

of my interpretation of the data. Since this research drew on constructivist ideas,

56

M
un:

 

a. .:
2n

it was important for me to hear the teachers’ perspectives on my own
understanding of their teaching and Ieaming. Thus, after the last interview, I
wrote data displays (Dembele, 1995) or interim case summaries (Miles &
Huben'nan, 1994, p.79) that I sent to the seven teachers. As I did not write these
up until after the last residential period, there was no time to visit all of the
teachers to hear oral comments. Instead, I mailed or delivered two copies of
each case sketch to the teachers. They kept one and marked responses to the
other and mailed it back. All seven teachers returned the interim case
summaries. This method allowed the teachers’ voices to be heard as they could
respond to my interpretation of the data and present their own views. Indeed, in
the case studies that follow, I used some of these comments to elaborate the

teachers‘ points.

In the U.S., data analysis continued. I had an added purpose. I needed to
help my advisor understand my research. For me, this was extremely helpful in
forcing me to think deeply and be concise in my explanations and justifications.
For example, I offered to give my advisor the 5-10 page data drafts of each
teacher, but he suggested a one-page summary for each teacher that highlighted
the distinctiveness of each and the similarities they shared. In this way, I was
encouraged to think about what was most important and to think about “so what“
questions. At this time, I began a shift from a data collecting perspective to an
analytical one, a move that was necessary to proceed in understanding the

importance of the data.

57

The analysis of the data in search for the “so what“ question did not
proceed smoothly. After analyzing the data, I initially categorized the seven
teachers as changing or not changing in their teaching and felt that their prior
experience in schools determined in which category each was placed. However,
as I reflected on this either-or grouping, I returned to the interview and
observation data for more in-depth analysis. As I closely examined each case
separately, I found that the story was more complex. The story included both
teaching in the classroom and working with colleagues. My shift from a teacher
change perspective to a teacher Ieaming perspective also made me aware that l
was now examining the teachers and their thinking rather than how they were
influenced by the project. This appears a subtle change, but it was quite a leap
for me. l was now thinking of the teacher and what he/she brought to and made
of a project rather than how he/she fit with the project's goals. This shift in
perspective also meant that I needed to look closely at the residential periods

and how the teachers participated.

For four of the teachers, who were not biologists, I did not have
substantial data on their interactions in the residential periods and the
workshops. At this time, I decided to focus on the three biology teachers. Thus, in
moving to look closely at the biology teachers and their thinking, I was also

changing my lens from that of teacher change to teacher Ieaming.

Hence, I went through several levels of analysis. Initially, I had coded
according to keywords and analyzed the data for seven teachers. I compared

and contrasted the teachers and wrote up a draft based on a teacher change

58

framework. But I came to realize that it was not teacher change but teacher
Ieaming that was a more powerful framework from which to examine these
teachers. It was at this point that I returned to the data one more time with a view

for understanding what the three biology teachers Ieamed and why.

In this way, the interviews, observations and survey remained linked with
each other. The survey highlighted potential areas to pursue. The first interview
helped clarify the teachers’ answers to the survey questions. The observations
and following interviews helped illuminate the teachers’ conceptions of teaching
and Ieaming and how this is manifested in the classroom, the residential periods,

and at the workshops.

Limitations of the Research
The results of this study can not be generalized to all teachers in the

program or even to all the biology teachers. Rather, this study suggests issues
that need to be considered to promote teacher Ieaming over the professional

Ifiespan.

In terms of research, this study also was limited by the area of Zimbabwe
that was studied. Due to travel considerations within the country, I had to choose

teachers who were within driving distance of where I lived.

Additionally, my shift in perspective from teacher change to teacher
Ieaming meant that I did not ask some important questions. I also had less
observational data in the classroom than I would have preferred. However, by

using several sources of data, such as observations in different contexts,

59

interviews, and document analysis, I was able to compare observations with what

each teacher said and what other literature says about teaching and Ieaming.

’ Conclusion
In my research, I started with exploratory activities to Ieam about the

project and teachers. Then I used a questionnaire to provide a broad
understanding of the way the whole group of teachers talked about ideas
surrounding teaching and Ieaming. This was followed by qualitative methods that
helped to probe deeper into a sub-sample of teachers to better understand their
thinking and actions. Indeed, I could have chosen to only give a questionnaire or
only do interviews or only do observations. Each would have provided some
information. By linking the types of research, I was able to delve deeper into the
questionnaire responses and use the survey as a springboard to Ieam about
teachers’ thinking and behavior in the classroom concerning the innovations they
were Ieaming about and their application in the workshops. This design led to a
better understanding of how these teachers think about their own teaching and

how innovations might or might not be implemented.

60

CHAPTER 3 THE PROJECT, THE PARTICIPANTS AND RESIDENTIAL
PERIOD THREE

This study aims to understand how three teachers, enrolled in a University
of Zimbabwe diploma project, responded to the project in their teaching and in
the way they worked with other teachers. In order to understand these
responses, we need to know about the project. Who organized it? Who taught
it? What were its aims and expected outcomes? Who were the participants?

What were the participants Ieaming?

This chapter introduces the project, the participants and the two-week
intensive study period when the resource teachers Ieamed to facilitate a
workshop for other teachers in their regions. I begin by describing the SEITT
staff, the project’s aims, and its five key elements. Then I examine the group of
teachers accepted into the project.9 Finally, I describe the content and format of
the third residential period when the resource teachers Ieamed how to organize a

teacher workshop that they were to carry out in their regions.

SEITT Project
In talking about the SEITT project, the staff of the project is the best place

to begin. In professional development projects, the content and form of a project

intersect with its participants through the project staff. What the participants

 

9 This information is drawn from SEI'l'l' documents, interviews, and surveys given
to the partrcrpants.

61

encounter in a project is the staff’s interpretation of the project. Thus, the staff,

who present the curriculum to the participants, influence the opportunities.

SEITT Staff
The SEITT project is part of the Department of Science and Mathematics

Education (DSME) at the University of Zimbabwe. In addition to the SEITT
project, the DSME is involved in pre-service as well as graduate level education.
Every two years, new intakes for the B.Ed.(Sc.) degree start their studies in
biology, physics and chemistry. Every year, the DSME normally offers an
M.Ed.(Sc.) program and a Post Graduate Certificates in Education program

(Engels, 1996c).

The SEITT staff included one outside expert from the Free University of
Amsterdam and four DSME faculty. The Dutch expert had extensive background
with science projects in southern Africa. The rest of the SEITT staff consisted of
two DSME faculty full-time, and two DSME faculty with half-time responsibilities
to SEITT. One of the full-time DSME faculty was the project coordinator. He had
taught A-Ievel physics in Zimbabwe for many years before going to the US. to
earn a Masters of Arts in Teaching. The other full-time SEITT member had taught
for many years at A-level before going to England where he had earned a
Masters in philosophy with a focus on INSET. One of the DSME faculty affiliated
part-time with SEITT earned his Ph.D. in the US. The other part-time SEITT
faculty member had recently joined SEITT after teaching A-level for many years

and earning a Masters degree in the chemistry department at the University of

62

Zimbabwe. Thus, the Zimbabwe SEITT staff had all taught at A-Ievel in

Zimbabwe and were familiar with the teaching and conditions of teachers.

These SEITT staff members also had opportunities for overseas training
to support their work with SEITT. There were two opportunities for them to travel
to Europe for in-depth study of in-service models and to prepare for the
residential periods that would be held at the University of Zimbabwe. The
residential periods were two-week intensive study periods for the resource
teachers. From January to March 1996, three DSME staff studied in the
Netherlands and the UK. From January to February 1997, SEITT faculty
prepared to teach Residential Period Three through training in the Netherlands.
During this stay, the SEITT staff completely planned the two-week residential
period that taught the resource teachers how to carry out a workshop in their own
regions. At this time, the SEI'I'I' staff located the activities to use and developed

activity sheets.

The training of Zimbabwe DSME faculty as the in-service providers was
part of the SEITT project’s attempt at building a sustainable program. After the
funding ended, SEITT would remain a part of the DSME. This was in contrast to
other projects that often bring in foreign experts for short workshops (Verspoor,
1989; Fullan, 1991). Verspoor (1989), wrote about improving the quality of
education in developing countries, pointing out the need to include local
educators: “High outcome programs also featured training for key administrative
and professional staff and a limited use of expatriate experts“ (p. 83). The SEITT

project followed this path in developing its program.

63

Historical Perspective
The SEITT project was the third phase of the Zimbabwe Science Teacher

Training program (ZIMSTT). The first two phases (1985-1992) established a
Bachelors degree in science education B.Ed.(Sc.) program in the DSME. In the
B.Ed. program, certified O-Ievel science and mathematics teachers upgrade their

qualifications so that they can also teach at A-level (Engels, 1994).

The ZIMSTT project started in 1985 with cooperation between the Ministry
of Education”, the University of Zimbabwe and the Free University of

Amsterdam (Zesaguli, 1994). Zesaguli summarizes the ZIMSTT project (1994):

the ZIMS‘I‘I’ project was implemented as a stop-gap measure to increase
the numbers of A-Level Science and Mathematics Teachers. This was done
by up-grading certified O-Level Science Teachers by giving them an intensive
content course in the subject, which they would teach at A-Level respectively.
The project was initially a one year full-time crash program. After an
evaluation, this was extended to two years (p. 11-12).

Phase one involved starting up the project, and its operation until 1989.
Phase two began in January 1989 and ended in December 1992 and at this time
the project changed to a two-year program. In 1992, the project was incorporated

into the DSME at the University of Education.

Thus, these two phases of ZIMSTT were intended to add to the number of
teachers qualified to teach through A-Ievel. In 1992, the Ministry of Education

indicated that improving the quality of A-level science and mathematics teaching

 

‘° The Ministry of Education in Zimbabwe in 1992 was actuallycalled the Ministry
of Education and Culture. In 1997, It was chan ed to the Ministry of Education,
Sports, and Culture. In this paper, Ministry of ducation will be used throughout
to represent both mrnlstnes.

was another challenge in the Zimbabwe educational system. The Project

Document of SEITT quotes the ministry (Engels, 1996b):

The quality of the delivery of the A-level science curriculum was adversely
affected with the result that scientific concepts and processes are superficially
covered (p. 4).

The Ministry of Education approached the DSME at the University of
Zimbabwe to help improve the quality of A-Ievel science and mathematics. The
department, working with The Netherlands Organization for lntemational Co-
operation in Higher Education (NUFFIC), instituted SEITT to improve the quality
of teaching at A-level. The SEITT project focused on assisting the Ministry of
Education and the DSME in establishing in-service training for A-Ievel

mathematics and science teachers (Engels, 1994, p. 15).

SEITT Objectives
The project had both long-term as well as short-term objectives. One long

term objective was the ”...production of qualified A-level mathematics and
science teachers for upper secondary (A-Ievel) schools in Zimbabwe.” The
second objective for the third phase (September 1994-August 1998) was

(Engels, 1994):

,"...to set up an in-service unit for A-level teachers in Zimbabwe in which the
Faculty of Education (Department of Science and Mathematics Education),
the Faculty of Science (cognate science departments) and the Ministry of
Education and Culture (Standards Control Unit) participate" (p. 15-16).

This addition of an in-service unit in the DSME for these teachers was a

change from the conventional Ministry-directed in-service of the past. Previously,

65

most in-service of A-level teachers was carried out by the Education Officers in

the regions.

While the long-tenn goals remained stable, the short-term objectives of
SEITT changed a great deal from its initial inception. The first Project Document
(1994) outlined the project from September 1994 until August 1998. According to
this document, SEITT aimed to establish an in-service program at the DSME in
which the faculty would carry out one-shot or short-term workshops with A-level
teachers. Within this 1994 Project Document was a request to carry out a

decentralization study.

(iv) To investigate the feasibility of a decentralized approach. Depending on
the outcome of this study, four or five regional centres of excellence, either A-
level or Teacher Training Centres could be used as Resource Centres. These
institutions would function as regular venues workshops. Experienced
teachers and staff could function as resource personnel to carry out parts of
the workshop (p. 17).

Thus, even when the original project document was being written, there
was a view that SEITT needed to decentralize and draw on experienced A-Ievel
teachers. As a result of the study, SEl'l‘l' coordinators selected a decentralized
system approach in order to better serve the needs of the A-Ievel teachers
throughout the country and to support continuation of the project after Dutch

funding finished at the end of 1998 (Engels & Ncube, 1995).

The original model of one-shot workshops run by DSME faculty had at
least two potential problems from the perspective of SEITT. First, one-shot
workshops run by the DSME faculty would not be sustainable. When the funding

by the donor ended, there would be no way to continue the workshops.

66

Sustainability was connected to the second reason to change the model. The

Decentralization Study (1995) said:

Sustainability is an important aspect of the design of any inset delivery
system. As much as possible, schools, teachers, and communities need to be
involved in the organisation of workshop programmes (p. 10).

Thus, the SEITT staff wanted more input from the regions on the structure
of in-service. This document adds, "In view of the way the economy of Zimbabwe
is developing, it might be necessary to develop local expertise and reduce

expensive dependency from the centrally located university" (p. 1 O).

In this model, which moved away from the university-based model,
practicing A-level teachers were to be trained to become resource teachers" who
facilitate the Ieaming of other A-Ievel teachers. In this cascade model, these
participating teachers, who Ieam new ways of teaching, would return to their

schools and share their skills and knowledge.

In the decentralization study in 1995, the SEITT staff suggested five
regional centers: Masvingo, Mutare, Gweru, Bulawayo and Harare (See
Appendix A for a map of Zimbabwe). At a SEITT national workshop, national and
regional ministry officials proposed one center in each of nine regions. The
ministry officials gave two reasons: 1) If there are only 5 centers, then some
resource teachers will have to travel outside of their regions to the centers. This

will involve time and transportation costs. 2) If there are only 5 centers, then

 

11 The resource teachers, at the time of this study, were art-time students at
the Umvers of Zimbabwe. Throughout this article, it s ould be understood
that they he not yet received their diplomas.

67

regional education offices without an SMC will not support developing an SMC
outside of their region. Administrative nightmares would also arise when several
regions are involved in a single center. Consequently, in the Revised Project
Document (Engels, 1996c), SEI‘I‘I’ agreed to increase the number of centers to
nine, and soon, thereafter, Harare was allotted a second center due to its large
number of A-level schools. Thus, ten centers were established in Zimbabwe. As
a result of the decentralization study and the shift to training practicing teachers
to be resource teachers, the one-shot concept of in-service changed to a
decentralized model that created the possibility of more sustained professional

development opportunities for teachers in the regions.

The SEITI' Model
SElTT’s goals for mathematics and science instruction were to improve

content coverage, to promote understanding and problem solving, and to
promote positive attitudes and equitable outcomes (Engels & Ncube, 1995).
These were very ambitious goals. In order to reach them, SEITT had to find an
"inset delivery strategy to fit the aim of improving the quality of delivering the A-
level curriculum“ (Engels & Ncube, 1995, p. 11). They chose the Joyce and

Showers model and provided the following rationale:

Changes of attitude and improvement of classroom teaching are hard to
accomplish and therefore inset delivery strategies have to be comprehensive.
The most recognized model to achieve these goals is described by Joyce and
Showers (1988). The following elements, dosed in a careful balance that has
to be reconsidered at every new workshop programme, are part of the
structure: theory, demonstration, practice and feed back (p. 11).

68

SEITT put much emphasis on this model. In fact, in Residential Period
Two in August 1996, the resource teachers were introduced to the basic
components of the model which consist of: presentation of theory on a new
strategy, demonstration of that strategy, practice using this strategy in a setting
among peers, feedback on how the practice could be improved, and finally
coaching from peers or specialists in the classroom (Joyce & Showers, 1988).

SEI'I'T’s model was abbreviated and did not include the coaching.

This model has both its critics and its proponents (Hargreaves & Dawe,
1990; Sprinthall, Reiman, & Thies-Sprinthall, 1996; Tillema & lmants, 1995).
Criticism suggests that the model is too technical and promotes a view that one
strategy works in all contexts (Hargreaves & Dawe, 1990; Sprinthall et al., 1996).
However, other researchers suggest that this model can help teachers Ieam new
strategies as a basis to build on and begin considering context and student
Ieaming (Joyce & Showers, 1988; Loucks-Horsley et al., 1998). From this
perspective, teachers can Ieam new strategies initially, and later, in subject
collaboratives or in schools, the teacher can inquire into how to use these
strategies with probing questions, problem solving and other ways of examining

students’ knowledge.

Some research in developing countries also argues that priority should be
on improving conventional teaching approaches instead of promoting more
inquiry-oriented approaches (de Feiter, Vonk, & Akker, 1995). This view assumes
that inquiry is not the main aim of many teachers and that they first need to Ieam

and use strategies before they begin to examine their own beliefs. SEITT

69

.d
A,\~.
C.

conceived of the Joyce and Showers model in the second sense, as a means of
beginning to change practice that will lead to changed beliefs about teaching and

Ieaming.

SEITT determined that the abbreviated Joyce and Showers model of
delivery required that the INSET facilitators be near the A-level schools. Drawing
on this and other research, SEITT developed an approach that included five key

elements (Engels, 1996b, p. 23-24):

Teachers’ Centers
Training of resource teachers
Networking of teachers
Integrated evaluation
Curriculum materials development
Not all elements of the SEITT project were directly connected to my

specific research questions. In my work, the elements of teachers’ centers,
training of teachers serving in the new role of resource teachers, and integrated
evaluation were most pertinent. Hence, in the following discussion, I concentrate

on these elements and only briefly introduce the other components of this model.

1. Teachers’ Centers
SEITT has helped set up ten Science and Maths Centres (SMCs). one in

each region and two in Harare, the capital. These SMCs are the sites where the
resource teachers conduct workshops, help form study groups, work with

teachers one-on-one, and store material resources.

SEITT staff, in discussions with regional ministry officials, decided to

establish SMCs at existing schools rather than at teachers training colleges. The

70

main reason for this was because the teachers training colleges were under the
governance of the Ministry of Higher Education while education and schools
through A-Ievel were under the Ministry of Education. SEITT staff did not want to

have to work with two different ministries.

SEITT staff asked the ministries in the regions to decide at which schools
SMCs would be established. At a national meeting with national and regional
education administrators, the SEI'I'I’ staff discussed the need to have the regions
select SMCs (SEITT, 1996). SEITT wanted the regions to choose their own
SMCs so that the regional directors would feel ownership for the SMC and
support the centers’ activities. SEITT, however, did establish criteria for deciding
the location of these SMCs. These included being centrally located, being well
equipped, and having a supportive head of school. In late 1996 and early 1997,
each region selected the site of its SMC. SEITT staff traveled to the regions to
meet the resource teachers at the SMCs and to talk to the head of the school in

order to clarify the purposes of the centers.

Between January and August of 1997, the teachers carried out two one-
day workshops at the SMCs. The first workshop was an organizational one in
which the resource teachers explained the purposes of SEITT and acquired
feedback from teachers concerning what materials would be needed and
possible hours of operation of the SMCs. The second workshop was a subject
matter based. hands-on, one-day workshop. These became the focus for one of

my observations and are discussed later in this chapter.

71

 

iii inc L a nuad p4Qy «6 3.3 kttfi...3.r.mc&..mht.ww\m

2. Training of resource teachers
The resource teachers attended a two year part-time training program

from March 1996 until December 1997 at the University of Zimbabwe. In March
and August of each year, the resource teachers attended two-week intensive
residential periods. They also took examinations in November of each year. The
resource teachers worked towards the Diploma in Science Education (lnservice
Educational Training), known as the DipSciEd (INSET) degree, a formal
University of Zimbabwe program. This diploma was created for the SEITT

project.

The content of the SEITT residential periods was organized around six
courses. These were (April 13, 1997 letter to SEITT staff from extemal

coordinator):

1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES: To develop skills that will enable resource
teachers to appreciate the needs and value of research and to carry out some
research in a limited setting

2. PHILOSOPHICAL AND HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF INSET: To
understand the historical context of the education system in Zimbabwe, to gain
an understanding of effective teaching, and to get a better understanding of the
process of change and the process of professional development of teachers

3. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF INSET: To
promote a collaborative working environment and to co-manage the SMCs

4. CURRICULUM DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION IN
SCIENCE INSET: To increase resource teachers’ understanding of principles
and models of inset curriculum design, of strategies for the implementation of a
science/mathematics curriculum

5. INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN IN SCIENCE INSET: To encourage resource
teachers to consider and use a variety of teaching approaches, to help resource
teachers' design and construct their own teaching materials.

6. RESEARCH PROJECT: To provide the participants an opportunity to practice
research skills. Project title, “A reflective analysis of the establishment of the
subject teacher group in the Educational Region”. [All the resource teachers
wrote on this topic.]

EXAMINATIONS: [End of year examinations are required by University policy.]
Since this PGDipSciEd is an official element of the University of Zimbabwe, end

72

 

()

(I)

of the year examinations in both years were carried out and, as per university
policy, marked by outside institutions.

These elements of the project were addressed in four different residential
periods over the two years. Ndeya-Ndereya (1996) indicates that though the
format made the classes appear fragmented, the SEITT staff taught in an

integrated manner. Ndeya-Ndereya writes:

All the six courses are team taught in a complementary fashion. The program
is practical oriented, with the continuous (course work) assessment
component of the final grade reflecting practical competencies as judged
through demonstration (p. 263).

At the first residential period, SEITT staff defined its image of effective
classroom teaching in a handout to the resource teachers. This material came
from a book that all the resource teachers received, Towards More Effective
Science Teacher Development in Southern Africa. This book was written by Leo
De Feiter, Hans Vonk, and Jan van den Akker, faculty members at the Free
University of Amsterdam, the same institution from which the SEITT external
advisor was associated. In discussing the quality of classroom teaching, the book

identified two aims (de Feiter et al., 1995, p. 41 -42):

. A first aim for improvement, which may be referred to as “output-oriented“,
concerns increasing the effectiveness of science instructions in terms of pupil
achievement within the current examination system, (higher grades, passes
by more students, transition of more students to higher educational levels).

However, it should be noted that the nature and quality of currently applied
exams are often in discussion (or even target of change efforts).

. A second improvement aim, which is more oriented at the classroom
process itself, concerns the intention to make science instruction more
meaningful for the Ieamers (often labeled as more "student-centred“). This
aspired shift can be characterized by elements like:

73

-more Ieaming for understanding (less rote Ieaming);

-more varied, interactive and activity-based Ieaming patterns (less passive
note-taking);

-more relational to natural and social context and to students’ every-day
experiences (less transmission of ”abstract theory");

-more attention to “practical“ skills, “process“ skills and “problem solving"
skills (e.g. observing, raising questions, formulating hypotheses, designing
investigations, drawing conclusions).

The outputs, quantitative measures of improvement, were factors that
SEITT could not address directly. The project concentrated on the second aim,
meaningfulness as determined by student-centered Ieaming. This was where
SEITT anticipated having an impact on the quality of teaching. They hoped the
teachers would use more interactive activities, draw on students' experiences

and promote more cognitive skills in the classroom.

Theory on student-centered Ieaming also came from the de Feiter text,
which quoted a US. Department of Education book when talking about
constructivism. Following is the quote from its original source (Anderson et al.,

1994r

Learning requires active involvement of the student in constructing meaning.
Rather than just receiving more information, the Ieamer must negotiate
meaning with his/her Ieaming community, make connections with past
understandings-modifying these prior conceptions if they are not accurate--
and build understandings that are part of that person's personal conceptual
framework. These new understandings occur in a Ieaming community or
context; attending to context is an important consideration in fostering
Ieaming in science and mathematics (p. 2).

Thus, SEI'IT documents and readings in the residential periods promoted

student-centered Ieaming that drew on students' active involvement in the

74

construction of meaning. This theoretical perspective on student Ieaming came
from Dutch and American sources. The SEITT faculty included this active

Ieaming and related theory in the residential periods.

Table 3.1 depicts the schedule for the residential periods. The first two
periods introduced the resource teachers to theories of INSET. The third and

fourth periods prepared them to carry out the work of resource teachers in the

SMCs

75

Table 3.1 Outline of Residential Periods and General Content

Residential Periods

 

Residential Period 1 April 22, 1996 - May 3, 1996
Research Methodologies

Philosophical and Historical Foundations of INSET

Term Time 1 Assignment: A Context Analysis of the Educational Support
System for Science and Maths teachers in their regions

Residential Period 2 August 19, 1996 - August 31, 1996
Philosophical and Historical Foundations of INSET

Psychological and Sociological Foundations of INSET

Term Time 2 Assignment: To develop a plan of activities for the first year of
operation of the Science and Maths Centre, which is flexible and enjoys
ownership by the teachers in the region.

End of 1st year Examination: November 1996

Residential Period 3 April 21, 1997 - May 2, 1997
Curriculum Design, Implementation and Evaluation in Science INSET
Preparation of the workshop: subject matter & facilitating

Term Time 3 Assignment: Carry out a workshop in the regions and write a
reflective analysis on the outcome

Residential Period 4 August 18, 1997 - August 30, 1997
Instructional design in Science INSET

Term time 3 Assignment: Research Project, “A Reflective Analysis of the
Process of Establishing a Teacher Support System in [subject group] in
[Region]”

 

 

finaifixamination: November 1997

 

The SEITT project’s curriculum hinged on the interplay of intensive
residential study periods and intervening work in each resource teacher‘s region.
During these intervening periods, called term times, the resource teachers
continued their regular teaching and carried out action research projects related

to determining in-service needs and experimenting with providing new kinds of

76

in-service training to their colleagues in the regions. SEITI' staff tried to visit each
region once during these intervening periods to check on assignment progress.
The residential periods provided the resource teachers with exposure to new
ideas on teaching and Ieaming, time to discuss the new ideas among
themselves, opportunities to try out new teaching strategies and time to prepare

for organizing a workshop in the regions.

After each residential period, there was at least one term time assignment.
These assignments were in the form of action research projects. Most were
group-oriented projects that resource teachers in one region worked together to
complete. For Term Time One, the resource teachers in each region interviewed
administrators and sent a survey to all A-Ievel science and mathematics teachers
in their regions to elicit views on teachers’ needs and on areas of the syllabus
that needed support. The resource teachers constructed this interview protocol
and survey during the residential period. In Term Time Two, the resource
teachers met the A-level teachers in their regions to talk about the survey and
work on goals for the SMCs. They also helped form the management committees
at the SMCs. These management committees were in charge of running the
SMCs, organizing the workshops, managing funds, etc. The management
committees often consisted of the resource teachers, Education Officers in the
regions, the head of the school where the SMC is based, and a parent
representative of the School Development Council or the School Development

Association.

rn

In Term Time Three, the resource teachers carried out an in-service
workshop in the regions. In Term Time Four, each resource teacher wrote a final
research report that was a reflective analysis of the process of establishing a
teacher support system in his/her subject area and region. This was an individual

assignment.

These assignments encouraged the resource teachers to interact with
other teachers and with administrators in their regions while organizing the SMCs
and the workshops. These assignments were oriented towards the professional
development of these resource teachers and aimed to help them Ieam about and
begin to implement some of their responsibilities as resource teachers at the

SMCs

3. Integrated evaluation
The evaluation of the project was ongoing, with changes in the project

occurring as research highlighted new needs. The adjusted version of the Project

Document (Engels, 1996b) states:

An integrated evaluation programme will be mounted as an integrated part of
the programme. Teachers and staff from the U2 will work together to gear
activities to perceived teacher needs and assess the effect of the activities (p.
24).

This integrated evaluation included research by SEITT staff as well as
within the project by the resource teachers. SEITT staff developed both intake
and out-take surveys. The resource teachers took these at the first and the last

residential periods. The surveys asked questions about the resource teachers’

needs, their current teaching practices and what they hoped to Ieam.

78

Unfortunately, as sometimes occurs in projects (Siraj-Blatchford, Odada, &
Omagor, 1997), the SEITT staff had not had time to analyze this data during the

period of my research.

SEITT staff, however, did carry out research and presented their findings
at international conferences. At the Southern African Association for Research in
Mathematics and Science Education in Johannesburg, South Africa in January
1997, several SEITT staff gave presentations on their research. The presentation
on “Using Authentic Research Experiences to Develop Effective In-Service
Training Resource Teacher Facilitators for Science and Mathematics Teachers in
the Zimbabwean Secondary School System” discussed how the project
attempted to connect theory with practice. For example, it discussed how the
resource teachers interviewed ministry officials to Ieam about their views of A-
Ievel science and mathematics and the new SMC. They explained how this

assignment was linked to the SMCs in which the teachers would be working.

The resource teachers themselves carried out research as part of their
assignments. For one assignment, they interviewed education administrators and
surveyed other A-Ievel teachers. Then they analyzed these data. They also

analyzed evaluation forms that the participants in the workshops filled out.

I was also a part of the evaluation of the project. SEITT staff viewed my
role in SEITT as a consultant, who happened to be a Ph.D. student. SEITT staff
appreciated my input as a researcher who examined the project with non-SEITT
lenses and provided ongoing feedback. One important aspect of my research

was the feedback I contributed on the resource teachers in the classroom. SEITT

79

staff were unable to visit the resource teachers in their classrooms and I provided

them with that missing link.

Since I had an office in the same building as SEITT, I talked to SEITT
faculty often about my research. After completing my data gathering and before
leaving Zimbabwe, I gave two presentations: one at a DSME faculty meeting and

another at a Faculty of Education Seminar.

As I was doing my research, I was acutely aware of my two roles:
consultant and Ph.D. student. While I wanted to help the SEITT staff understand
problems that might be arising in the project, I had to be careful not to identify
individual resource teachers. Hence, in my discussions with the SEITT staff I
always spoke in generalizations, so as not to identify individual teachers.
Nonetheless, I was engaged in a balancing act between helping SEITT,

maintaining participant confidentiality, and doing my own research.

The remaining elements of the SEITT project were part of the systemic
approach of the project; however, they were less important to my research. Thus,

I briefly introduce each.

4. Networking of teachers
The networking aspect of the project included both forming study groups

and communicating with other teachers over e-mail. SEI'I'I' was promoting a
model in which, after the resource teachers graduate from the SEITT project,
they would assist teachers to form groups to work on teaching strategies or on

the production of teaching material. Since the teachers had not finished their

80

diplomas when I was doing my research, this aspect of the resource teachers’

work was not yet implemented.

5. Curriculum materials development
SEITI' provided both curriculum materials and ideas on developing

curriculum materials. It provided the resource teachers with the materials that
were used to Ieam about innovations at the residential periods. These were also
the materials used at the workshops with other teachers. SEITT also presented
theories and a format to help teachers begin to construct their own materials and
teacher guides. SEI‘I‘I’ hoped the resource teachers would continue developing

new materials with colleagues in the regional SMCs.

Resource Teachers
In this study, I focus on three resource teachers and how their beliefs and

past experiences interact with the SEI'I'I' project to influence their Ieaming. In
the project, the resource teachers worked together to carry out assignments
during both the residential period and the term time periods. Thus, the project
involved both social and individual Ieaming opportunities. Dewey (1938)
emphasizes the importance of social interaction in educative experiences, as
does Anderson (1994). Hence, it is important to know about all the resource
teachers since they are intricately involved in creating the social context in which
my three focal cases Ieamed. This section briefly introduces the group of
teachers who were selected to participate in the SEI‘I'I' project. I discuss the

selection process and demographic information on the teachers.

81

Selection of SEITT participants
The process of selecting the teacher to participate in the project began in

1995. Several regional workshops were held throughout Zimbabwe for all A-Ievel
science and mathematics teachers. Progress Report Number Four (Engels,

1 996b) states:

28 out of 33 schools in the Harare Region participated. From the total of 92
A-level science and mathematics schools in all other regions combined, ALL
schools were represented. A total of 441 A-level science and mathematics
teachers participated, which makes the average school represented by 3.5
teachers (p. 8).

After these workshops, A-level teachers then applied to the University of
Zimbabwe to become participants. The qualifications for admission, as indicated
in the University of Zimbabwe’s announcement, Regulations for the DipSciEd,

we re:

1. hold a first degree of this University, or another University or institution
approved by this university; and

2. hold a postgraduate professional qualification, or its approved equivalent,
obtained at this University or another institution acceptable to this University;
and

3. have had at least two years’ teaching experience in an educational
institution recognized by this University.

4. for the INSET option, applicants must have had at least two year of A-level
teaching experience.

In talks with DSME staff, it also became apparent that they wanted at least
one biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics teacher from each region.
Since the number of A-level schools varied a great deal according to the region,

the staff also had a formula to decide how many teachers to accept from each

82

region (Engels, 1996a). The minimum was four for several regions while Harare,

the capital of Zimbabwe, had a quota of twelve.

Although the official requirement was two years of teaching, SEITT
preferred teachers who had 6-10 years of experience. In an interview, one SEITT
staff member indicated that teachers with 1-5 years of experience might still be at
the survival stage, while teachers with more than 10 years might be looking for
opportunities to move up the career ladder or they might be settling down into a

routine.

The Participants12
In the SEITT project at the University of Zimbabwe, forty-eight practicing

A-Ievel science and mathematics teachers from throughout the country were
trained during their vacation times in March and August over a two-year period.
On completion of the program in December 1997, these teachers received their
Post Graduate Diplomas in Science Education in In-Service Education and
Training (PGDipScEd-INSET) from the University of Zimbabwe. This was a new

diploma created at the University of Zimbabwe for this project.

Forty of the forty-eight resource teachers were male (83%) and 8 (17%)
were female. Among these forty-eight resource teachers, the subject specialties
were 12 physics, 14 biology, 12 chemistry, and 10 mathematics. The resource
teachers came from all nine regions of Zimbabwe (Table 3.2). Harare and

Manicaland each had eleven resource teachers. Though SEITT wanted at least

 

‘2 The information on the participants in the SEITT project came from the survey l
ave all the resource teachers at their third residential period in March 1997.
he survey is included in Appendix C.

83

 

four resource teachers from a region, after the applicants were selected, several
were transferred to new schools or to different positions. Thus, some regions had

fewer than four resource teachers.

Table 3.2 Resource Teachers Regional Distribution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Region Number of resource
- teachers
Harare (2 centers) 11
Mashonaland East 4
Mashonaland Central 3
Mashonaland West 2
Manicaland 11
Matebeleland North 7
Matebeleland South 2
Masvingo 4
Midlands 4
TOTAL 48

 

 

Types of schools
The distribution of the types of schools where the resource teachers were

teaching at the time of the survey is indicated in Table 3.3. Church schools13
(38%) and government schools (31%) were by far the most numerous. School
type was not included in the selection criteria. Table 3.3 also indicates that
several resource teachers were teaching in teacher training colleges or working
at the ministry office. They received these new positions after formally joining the

project.

 

‘3 Though I realize that there are different types of church schools, with some
havrng more resources than others, I decrded to keep them together In one
category. The typeof church school was not a central factor In my research.
Indeed, I am fo Iowrn what other researchers of education In Zimbabwe have
done (see Natsa, 19 4 and Zesaguli, 1994).

84

 

Table 3.3 Authority of Resource Teachers’ Schools

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHORITY NUMBER PERCENTAGE
Government 15 31

Independent 5 10

Church 18 38

District 1 2

Ministry position 1 2

Teacher Colleges 8 17

TOTAL 48 100

 

 

 

 

Resource teachers’ academic and professional qualifications
Table 3.4 presents the academic qualifications of the resource teachers.

As indicated earlier, there are three main credentials for becoming an A-level
science or mathematics teacher: B.Ed., licentiate, and B.Sc./Post Graduate
Certificates in Education (PGCE). All three variations of preparation were
represented, but as Table 3.4 indicates, the licentiates, who studied in Cuba, and
those with B.Sc./PGCE, comprised 75% of the resource teachers. The B.Ed.

teachers comprised 25% of the resource teachers.

Table 3.4 Resource Teachers’ Academic and Professional Qualifications

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Qualifications Number (%)
B.Ed. 12 (25.0%)
Licentiate 18 (37.5%)
B.Sc./PGCE 18 (37.5%)
TOTAL 48 (100%)

 

Table 3.4 does hide one important fact, though. The table does not tell us
where the B.Sc. degrees were earned. A follow-up survey specifically asked
where the B.Sc. was obtained. Table 3.5 shows that out of 18 B.Sc. holders, 10

received the B.Sc. outside of Zimbabwe.

85

0

E

Z:

C»
Iflu

mt

.ll

6
IEE

0i

Ilid

Table 3.5 Overseas B.Sc. Degrees

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OVERSEAS DEGREES NUMBER (%)
B.Sc. UK 3 430%)
B.Sc./B.Ed. in Africa besides 5 (50%)
Zimbabwe

B.Sc. US 1 (10%)
B.Sc. Australia 1 (10%
TOTAL 10 (100%)

 

 

 

Thus, 10 out of 48 resource teachers earned their B.Sc. degrees
overseas. If the licentiates are included in overseas degrees, then 28 out of 48
resource teachers studied overseas. This fact was rather startling, as the SEITT
staff had expected that most of the resource teachers were educated in
Zimbabwe. However, there were no statistical data on where teachers in
Zimbabwe earn their degrees, so this point would not have emerged in the
selection process or in my search of documents. This also makes it difficult to
determine how representative the resource teachers are compared to A-level

teachers throughout Zimbabwe.

These resource teachers have a variety of educational backgrounds and
teach at different types of schools. They entered the SEITT project in the spring
of 1996 and graduated from the project in the fall of 1997. TheSEI‘I'i' project, as
indicated, had many aims for these resource teachers. One important role is as a
workshop facilitator with other science teachers in their own regions at the new
SMCs. The third residential period was almost entirely centered on preparing the

resource teachers for this new role.

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Residential Period 3 and Preparing for Biology Workshops
During the third residential period, the resource teachers studied how to

organize workshops in their regions. Of the four residential periods, this one
concentrated the most on helping the resource teachers acquire specific
strategies to use in the classroom with students and in workshops with other A-
level teachers. Since one aspect of my research is to Ieam how the resource
teachers’ own prior experiences, beliefs and teacher knowledge influence their
actions working with other teachers, Residential Period Three provided a context

to examine what they Ieamed and how they Ieamed it.

In Residential Period Three, the resource teachers spent a large amount
of time working in their subject groups to develop a complete workshop. Rather
than try to visit all the subject groups and gain a superficial view of interactions
and Ieaming, I decided to observe and participate with one subject group. As
explained earlier, I chose to observe the biology group based on my own
background in biology. In the biology group, there were fourteen resource
teachers. Rumbi, Tendai and Batsirai--the three resource teachers that this

research examines--were among this group.

The Preparation of the Biology Groups

Overview of the residential period
The third residential period occurred over the two weeks from April 21 to

May 2, 1997. What were the resource teachers presented at this residential
period? Table 3.6 presents the schedule of Ieaming events during the residential

period. The main aim of Residential Period Three was to prepare the resource

87

teachers to facilitate a science/mathematics related workshop for A-Ievel science
and mathematics teachers in their own regions. The topics for this residential
period and the workshops were actually derived from the surveys that the
resource teachers had given to regional A-level science and mathematics

teachers during the first term time assignment.

88

Table 3.6 Biology Group’s Schedule

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DAY MORNING AFTERNOON
Monday Registration and evaluation of term Feedback and
April 21 time 3 information
Identification of problem concepts
through concept mapping (all subject
groups)
Tuesday University of Zimbabwe faculty talk Experiment outside
April 22 on Ecology identifying types of
grasses near a stream.
Case study by SEITT
staff on Quelea birds
and damage to
environment.
Biotechnology survey
Wednesday Hands-on activity using paper models Lecture at Science
April 23 of DNA/RNA Building on
University of Zimbabwe faculty talk recombination of
on biotechnology genes and a
Case study of biotechnology on Ice demonstration
Bacteria
Thursday Instructional design and Ieaming Continue preparing
April 24 materials (all subject groups) lesson plan
Divide into two groups: Ecology and
Biotechnology
Preparing a lesson plan with Ieamer
centered activity
Friday April Assessment and practicals (all Ecology group and
25 subject groups) Biotechnology groups
Continue preparing for lesson plan teach each other using
presentation the lesson plans
Monday Discuss workshops in the regional Workshop preparation
April 28 groups
Workshop preparation in the two
bioflgroups
Tuesday Plenary meeting on making a Workshop preparation
April 29 facilitator's guide for the regions
Ministry of Education spokesman
Wednesday Discuss peer observation worksheet Ecology group revise
April 30 Ecology group carry out the rehearsal workshop schedule
workshop with other group the and Genetic
participants Engineering preparing
for workshop
Thursday Genetic Engineering group present Trip to Lake Chivero
May 1 rehearsal workshop for social party

 

89

 

 

 

 

DAY MORNING AFTERNOON
Friday Review workshop materials
May 2 Subject matter groups hand-in sheets

Regional meeting

Conclusion

 

 

 

 

The content of the residential period included specific subject matter
knowledge, strategies for teaching, activities, and opportunities to organize these

together into workshops using the Joyce and Showers model.

The Joyce and Showers model
The Joyce and Showers model had been introduced in the second

residential period. The teachers had read articles by Joyce and Showers and
examined the model’s points, including theory, demonstration, practice, feedback
and coaching. Dr. Vonk, an expert from The Netherlands, also had talked about
peer coaching. In subject groups at the second residential period, the teachers
had prepared a mock workshop using the Joyce and Showers model. The
biology group's topic was Sampling Methods in Ecological Studies. The content
of this mock workshop included theoretical background, demonstration,
practice/feedback and coaching sections. This workshop, however, was just an
exercise and it was not implemented. During the third residential period the
biology teachers organized workshops that would be actually carried out in the

regions and the Joyce and Showers model remained central.

The Joyce and Showers model was used by SEITT staff to introduce
strategies on several days. On the first day, one SEITT staff member introduced

concept mapping using the Joyce and Showers model. This staff member

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introduced this strategy by saying, ”This is a hierarchical arrangement of
concepts that are related“ and on an overhead indicated that it had three main
uses: 1) curriculum tool 2) planning tool and 3) instructional tool. Without
elaborating on these uses, the SEITT member moved to a demonstration. In that
demonstration, the staff member handed out activity sheets and asked the

resource teachers--the students in this demonstration-- to:

Write down the word “curriculum" just below the text. Write down all the words
you associate with when thinking of this word. Keep the following rules in
mind: 1) The written words always should have a link to “curriculum" 2) You
have 7 minutes for this exercise.

With the above instructions, the resource teachers then worked on a
concept mapping activity. After this demonstration, there was time for discussion
on the strategy and how it might work in the classroom. The participants
suggested that the activity was too long and that the instructions needed to be
clearer. On the other hand, they commented that the strategy helped generate
new ideas. Later in the week, the resource teachers created lesson plans for
teaching biological themes. This was the practice aspect. This was immediately
followed by an evaluation of the lesson plan, the feedback. Thus, during the
residential period the resource teachers had the opportunity to follow the theory,
demonstration, practice, and feedback components of Joyce and Showers

model.

Thus, the resource teachers were aware of the Joyce and Showers model
as the form to use in presenting new subject matter or strategies to Ieamers. In

this third residential period, the resource teachers Ieamed new strategies and

91

 

 

"(J

subject matter that could be used with students in the classroom as well as with

teachers at teacher workshops.

As we look more closely at the activities during this residential period, a‘
shift of focus becomes evident. Initially, the student was the target of the
residential period; however, this moved towards an audience of A-Ievel biology
teachers at a workshop. This was a logical shift, as the goal of this residential
period was to help these teachers move from thinking solely of teaching practice
to considering work as a resource teacher. The goal was to help the resource
teachers Ieam to carry out a workshop in their regions with other A-Ievel biology
teachers as the participants. The content of the workshop also included
strategies to use in the classroom. Thus, the form and content of this residential

period and the workshop were closely intertwined.

Initial Focus on the Student

First week .
In Residential Period Three, many of the early activities focused on how to

use strategies in classrooms. For example, on Tuesday of the first week, a
University of Zimbabwe professor came to talk about ecology. He introduced
ecology by asking what ecology was. He then defined it using Greek words and
added that it was a, “young dynamic subject with various definitions. It is the
study of relationship between/amongst organisms.” The professor also talked

about the use of metaphors to help students understand concepts. He said:

Niche is the position or role that an organism plays in a habitat. You can’t
have two organisms in the same niche. Niche is like head of state, father in

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the house, or headmaster. If there are more than one, what happens?
(residential period 3 notes).

The following exchange then occurred:

Resource teacher 1: Metaphors like president are not good on the exam. How
about examples for the exam?

University of Zimbabwe professor: If students understand concept, they should
be able to give examples.

Resource teacher 2: If students give concepts on exams, it shows that they
understand the concepts.

University of Zimbabwe professor: I want them to understand concepts. Assist
them but don’t spoonfeed them. If they can come up with their own, it shows that
they know. Ecology is in section G in the syllabus. Your understanding must be
broader than the syllabus. Give students more.

Resource teacher 1: Back to the introduction. The definition of ecology is to
motivate at the beginning. The way you start, would it hold for our students?
University of Zimbabwe professor: You might ask, “How have actions of other
people on the environment affected us? How do actions by neighbors influence
us?” Don’t think like biologists.

Resource teacher 3: Let students go observe. The students can suggest causes.
Resource teacher 4: The next door class is making noise.

Resource teacher 5: Someone steals from you.

University of Zimbabwe professor: How students are directly affected. Maybe
some have a farm.

Resource teacher 6: Cut down trees.

University of Zimbabwe professor: How does it affect you? Motivation. Then
clarify the problem: pollution, deforestation. Then look at it. Show a film, bring in
something. We have resources. Newspaper headline. Mugabe in paper criticizing
governments that put environment before people.

Resource teachers at this point in the residential period were thinking
about how the content of SEITT could be used in their own classrooms.
Metaphors were discussed in terms of how they could help students understand
concepts, answer exam questions, and increase motivation. The above dialogue
particularly shows how the instructor was trying to link ecology to the everyday

lives of the students.

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On Tuesday afternoon, a SEITT staff member introduced a case study to
use for Ecology. This case was about the Quelea bird and how to handle the
problem of these birds destroying crops. While in The Netherlands preparing for
this residential period, the staff had located this case study. The SEITT staff
member handed out this case study packet, which included sections on syllabus
links, using the unit (including time suggestions), notes for guidance, study guide
on the Quelea problem, and an evaluation section that explains which answer
would be best. In the case study on Quelea,14 the participants acted as senior
pest control officers for the government. The officers’ job was to decide whom to
help and why among three requests to exterminate Quelea. The actual question
was "You may only respond to one of these requests because time and
resources are limited. Which one do you choose? When you have made your
choice prepare a report which justifies the decision and explains your proposed

course of action."

One request came from a subsistence farmer, one from a local field officer
in the Crop Protection Department who had located Quelea in the area of a
Government Development Scheme, and the third from a member of the Bird
Control Unit of the govemment. Groups worked on the question and presented

their answers.

On Wednesday, the resource teachers Ieamed how to use paper models
of DNA-RNA to demonstrate the stmcture to students. This was presented using

the Joyce and Showers model. This involved constructing paper models of DNA

 

1“ See appendix F for the actual instructions for the case study on Quelea.

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and RNA. A SEITT staff member introduced the paper model and divided the
class into groups. Each group received paper models of the amino acids and
bases that make up DNA and RNA. They then had to construct a DNA molecule
and then an RNA molecule. After this, each group discussed and wrote down the
benefits and drawbacks of this model. In this feedback session, a discussion
about practicals and students in the schools arose. One resource teacher said,
"Students can’t do practicums, they can’t interpret results, they can’t do
experiments, and they always go to the text. They don’t have trust in their own
skills." The resource teachers discussed how students may Ieam concepts but
not how to put them to use. One resource teacher provided an example, saying

that students Ieam temperature but do not know how it relates to agriculture.

These discussions revolved around the students and their shortcomings.
They focused on how students do not have the skills in biology and confidence in
themselves. It is interesting that the conversation seemed to accept these as
structural barriers to the teachers’ work. The resource teachers did not talk about
how to help students Ieam to carry out experiments or how to gain confidence.
This aspect of Ieaming was not a topic during the Ieaming of strategies. As we
will see, throughout the residential period, discussions on student Ieaming

tended to be rare or superficial.

On Thursday of the first week, the resource teachers divided themselves
into two groups: Ecology and Genetic Engineering. Most of Thursday they

worked in these groups preparing lesson plans to use to teach the other group on

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Friday. The resource teachers received an activity sheet to prepare the lesson

plan (Table 3.7).

Table 3.7 Activity Sheet: Lesson Planning

 

 

Time Student Teacher Equipment

Activity Activity Needed

 

 

 

 

This activity sheet encouraged the teachers to think about what both the
students and teacher were doing. It suggested that both should be involved. On
Friday, the Genetic Engineering group taught the DNA-RNA paper models to the
Ecology group, and the Ecology group taught the case study on Quelea birds to
the Genetic Engineering group. Hence, the resource teachers had the

opportunity to try out a strategy they had seen modeled earlier in the week.

I was able to watch only the DNA-RNA class. In this class, one member of
the group introduced DNA as the dogma molecule and indicated that it was
central to genetics. Then members of this group handed out the paper models of
the constituents of DNA and RNA and asked the other group to divide into pairs
to make a DNA molecule, an RNA molecule and then recombinant DNA. As the
"students' were making their models, the Genetic Engineering group members
walked around to watch. After all the groups had made the molecules, the class

stopped and talked about how this lesson could have been improved.

During the feedback session, one comment was that the opening of the

lesson needed to be more interesting and motivating to the students. This

96

 

comment on the “class“ focused on the students: making the opening interesting

to attract students’ attention.

One strategy fits
The resource teachers seemed to conceive of the case study and paper

model as merely strategies to add to their bag of tricks. The discussion with the
University of Zimbabwe faculty revolved around gaining students’ interest and
about finding or using attention grabbers. The discussion after the DNA-RNA
presentation also talked about the shortcomings of students. Students were
presented as a group who could not do experiments. When the resource
teachers tried out using the strategies, they also did not talk about how individual
students might react to this strategy or what the students might be thinking.

Rather the questions focused on gaining the interest of all the students.

The discussions assumed that these strategies could be easily transferred
to each resource teacher’s classroom. The resource teachers acquired a general,
technical skill that could be used in any classroom.

Shift Focus to Workshops for Teachers: Focusing on Strategies for the
Workshops

The session on the lesson plan on day four (April 24‘“) seemed like a
transition point in the program when discussion shifted from teacher to resource
teacher. The lesson plan was geared towards teaching in a classroom and how
to present the themes of ecology and genetic engineering. On the following
Monday, the preparation for a workshop rehearsal with A-Ievel teachers as the

focus, began in eamest.

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This second week, the groups started preparing the Human Activities
(formerly Ecology) and Genetic Engineering topics for presentation at a
workshop in the regions. The resource teachers were given a workshop
preparation sheet on Monday. It included the following aspects of workshop

preparation (Table 3.8).

Table 3.8 Workshop Preparation Activity Sheet
Aim

A.

B.

C.
Activities
A.

B.

C.
Outcomes
A.

B.

C.
Materials

 

Programme
Time Activity [Methodology] Tutor(s)

 

 

 

This worksheet provided the resource teachers with a structured format
from which to prepare their workshop content. The worksheet was a step-by-step
process. In the two groups, the resource teachers filled in this sheet. The groups
had to agree upon the broad aims and outcomes and then the activities and use

of time.

On Tuesday, they received a more detailed activity sheet (Table 3.9). This
one again focused on time and activity, but specified what the facilitator and

participants would be doing at different times.

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Table 3.9 Workshop to Prepare for Activities During the Workshop

 

Develop a detailed workshop plan for the workshop
programme. Use the table below.

Time Participant’s Facilitator’s Equipment
Activities Activities Needed

 

 

 

This second worksheet was nearly the same as the lesson plan worksheet
(Table 3.7) except that ”Participant" had replaced “Student" and “Facilitator" had
replaced "Teacher". By using a similar worksheet, SEl'i‘l' was suggesting that

organizing teaching was quite similar to organizing a workshop.

This second worksheet focused the resource teachers on more specific
aspects of the workshop. It focused on doing, and it claimed that doing involved
activities of both facilitator and participants. This made it clear that participants
would be active do-ers, not simply passive recipients. That activities were listed
as plural also implied that lecturing was not the only available activity of a
facilitator. SEITT urged the resource teachers to incorporate these active
Ieaming activities that had been presented at this residential period and previous

ones.

These activity sheets were very helpful to guide the resource teachers
towards how to organize the workshop and what to do when. On the other hand,
they also limited the thinking of the resource teachers about how they might think
about organizing the workshop. The resource teachers did not have to think
about what was necessary to prepare the workshops. Their worksheets offered a

framework that literally shaped their thinking. The activity sheets needed only to

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be filled out. In a sense, by providing the formats, SEITT staff were spoonfeeding
the resource teachers and focusing them on the procedural aspects of teacher

Ieaming.

The resource teachers did have one opportunity to develop their own
activity sheet. On Tuesday of the second week, the biology group created an
evaluation form that the participants would fill out to provide feedback. Table 3.10

illustrates this evaluation form.

100

Table 3.10 Rehearsal Evaluation Worksheet

 

Unsatisfactory [U]
Good [G]
Excellent [E]

Planning
Workshop program:

Workshop materials:
(quality and clarity and
interrelatedness of
components)

Execution

Timing

Organization

Evaluation

Evaluation instruments

Feedback
OVERALL GRADE:

EVALUATION OF WORKSHOP REHEARSAL

Grading categories to be used for each of the aspects listed below:

Complete
Clear
Order
Realistic

Aims
Activities
Outcome
Homework
Assessment
Materials

Overall flow

Overall organization

Quality
Quality of receiving

 

 

 

The construction of this sheet stimulated the resource teachers to discuss

what was important to think about as both participants and presenters. The

discussion centered on the meaning of terms. Specifically they grappled with

questions such as:

How to define the term 'time management“?
What to look at specifically? Different styles?
What does the term “organization” mean?

Should the participants focus on the whole workshop or focus on a few activities?

Do the participants need to observe weak/strong points?
How can we measure the quality of the conclusion?

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as

ho

By discussing these questions, the resource teachers had the opportunity
to think about the rehearsal and the workshop from the perspective of both
facilitator and participant. What really counted as quality in a workshop arose as

anissue.

This peer interaction around the evaluation form helped this group take
into account how the participants, other A-level biology teachers, might respond.
This led to one resource teacher saying, “At the workshop, teachers will realize
they are guinea pigs to help SEITT evaluate resource teachers.” Another
resource teacher, responding to this statement, replied, “In the beginning we
need to create an environment conducive for peers to Ieam. It needs to look like

'class'.”

The “guinea pig“ statement indicated that at least one resource teacher
was concerned about the workshop being part of the resource teachers’
assignment. One other resource teacher was concerned with the workshop and
how it could be productive for the participants. This resource teacher thought

about creating an atmosphere for Ieaming to occur.

This exchange makes clear that there were different views on the
workshop and its purpose. These views may well have influenced how the
resource teachers approached the workshop and whether they attempted to go
through the motions or endeavor to create a Ieaming environment. The resource
teacher who expressed concern that the participants would be guinea pigs was
not one of the three resource teachers that I followed. Thus, I am not sure how

that particular workshop was carried out.

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Creation and discussion of the evaluation form provided opportunities for
resource teachers to exchange ideas about how to make the workshop an
educative experience for the participants. They discussed the meanings of words
and what the participants needed to think about. This was an authentic
opportunity to consider how they, as teacher educators, needed to think about
what the Ieamers were being introduced to. This evaluation sheet was used in
the rehearsals that occurred in the following two days. However, for the
workshops in the regions, the SEITT faculty developed their own evaluation form.
While this did help them have the same form for all subject matter groups, by not
using the ones that the resource teachers had developed, the resource teachers

could have felt that their own ideas were being ignored.

Rehearsals
The rehearsals were the practice under simulated conditions that Joyce

and Showers advocate. They were opportunities to practice the activities and
receive feedback that could be used to improve the presentation for the real

workshop.

Human Activities (Ecology) rehearsal
On Wednesday, the Human Activities Group presented their workshop.

This took about three hours. The general format for this was an introduction;
concept map of human activities that focused the theme to the problem of using
pesticides in agriculture; Quelea case study; marking examination questions; and

summary of the workshop.

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During the introduction, the resource teacher clarified that the participants
had already examined ecologically related concepts with their students and were

now investigating the influence of man on agriculture. The resource teacher said:

Good morning, we are all aware that we have covered the basic concepts of
ecology. We have looked at such concepts as habitat, environment and many
other concepts. In the contemporary world, scientific technology influences
the environment in new ways. We use methods of agriculture that damage
our environment. Many leaders of the world met in Rio de Janeiro to look at
some ways nations can come together to lower the impact of man on the
environment. To highlight this, let us look at some of the ideas put across by
the President of Zimbabwe of the impact of man on the environment. We are
going to look at this aspect. [Overhead of front page of Herald: Linking aid to
"green" issues slammed] What comes into your mind? Let’s see what
immediately comes to your mind?

In this introduction, the resource teacher was placing the topic within the
syllabus, connecting it to the local context of Zimbabwe, trying to promote an
interest in this topic, and attempting to Ieam what the participants knew about the

issue.

This was followed by another resource teacher, Batsirai, doing a concept
mapping activity. I talk about this in more detail when I present Batsirai's case, so
here I only briefly describe his role. He wrote HUMAN ACTIVITIES on a large
paper and asked the participants what they thought of. Then he said, "Now you
have produced a list. What I would like you to do is produce a group of effects.
Can we get in pairs and put the activities together in a list of pairs.“ After about
five minutes, he asked the pairs to report. Some of the answers included erosion,
cutting down trees, flooding wars, hunger pollution, construction of buildings.

Batsirai then said:

104

We are mainly interested in agriculture, so we would like to focus are
attention on man in terms of what he does. We need to go to pesticides to
see what these pesticides are used for and after that the effects on the
environment.

Immediately, another resource teacher introduced the Quelea birds and
the case study. The transition from Batsirai to the next presenter was not smooth.
Batsirai jumped from a list to a specific problem to address that was not part of

that list.

The next resource teacher then divided the participants into groups and
asked that they read the activity sheet for the Quelea bird. She used the handout
that was used in the presentation during the previous week. After fifteen minutes
of group discussion, a member of each group reported to the whole group.

The case study was followed by an activity that addressed social issues.

The facilitator said:

I have here a question to try to show our pupils and prepare them to answer
examinations and to analyze these problems as required on the syllabus. The
question you see here is in two parts. 1a discusses the conflict of interest
between production and conservation. It is worth 10 marks. Then it asks to
describe the altematives to control Quelea birds and list the altematives. This
is 8 marks. The total marks are 18. Now what we want to do right now is list
some of the possible conflicts right now. I think we can do that in threes
(video transcription).

This aspect of the rehearsal produced the greatest discussion. The
participants were concerned that the mock examination, right after the Quelea
case, might narrow the students’ thinking to only the Quelea problem. One
participant asked, “Is sorghum the only crop to consider, as in the Quelea case

study, or are there other crops?“

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Sr

After this section on the examination, another resource teacher concluded

the rehearsal workshop: .

We would like to establish the SMC in the area of science and math
education, with the aim that we are trying to improve the quality of science
and math teaching by using these math and science centers. The second aim
was to examine some of the methodologies to teach ecology using materials
and examples. And in this respect we have been using group work as an
effective method of teaching ecology and biology using the snowball method.
We have Ieamed much that can be applied in our classroom teaching. And
also we have looked at conflict of production and conservation by looking at
the Quelea problem and the conflicts that arise when we compare the
attitudes of the farmers and also those of the conservationists in preserving
the environment for generations. And there may be other areas of conflict
which, unfortunately, we have not been able to touch on in this workshop.
However, we have got handouts to accompany and a short list of textbooks to
teach this subject.

This provided a thorough summary of the whole workshop. It linked the
workshop to the SMCs and to Ieaming new strategies. Finally, a feedback
section on the whole workshop occurred, which represented the fourth aspect of
the Joyce and Showers model. The participants talked about their reactions to
the workshop. One critique by the participants was that the introduction did not
provide the aims of the whole workshop. The participants wanted to have a better
understanding of the purpose of the workshop at the beginning. Another
comment from a participant referred to the time allocation. He suggested that the

participants did not have enough time to discuss the questions in groups.

Though there were limited comments by the participants, the ones that
arose suggest that improvements were needed in clarifying the aims and
providing more time for participants to talk. The suggestions were procedural in

that they addressed the broad issues of canying out the workshop.

106

Genetic Engineering rehearsal
The next day, the Genetic Engineering group rehearsed its workshop. The

opening was much more focused than the previous rehearsal. The resource

teacher started with the broad aims:

to get us all together so that we can share our experiences, 2) to gain some
experience in using motivating activities, 3) to gain insight into the control of
genetic engineering (video transcripts, May 1, 1997).

This resource teacher then reminded the participants that they had
completed a questionnaire last year and that Genetic Engineering was one of

their concerns. She then introduced three activities:

in order to appreciate what we can do in the classrooms, we have a number
of activities lined up for you which are all intended to help us gain an
understanding of a variety of activities we can do with our students. So,
following is our program. We are going to have three main activities: one
being on DNA as central dogma of biology, the second on principles of
genetic engineering and the techniques, and then you will have the
application of genetic engineering.

This introduction provided the participants with a map of activities. Rumbi,
another of the focal teachers in my study, then took charge and introduced DNA
as the engine of engineering and quickly went into the activity with the paper
models of DNA and RNA. After forming two groups, she gave the groups ten
minutes to complete the activity. This involved constructing models of DNA and
RNA; constructing paper models of recombinant DNA; and each group

discussing and writing down the benefits and drawbacks of this model. Though

Rumbi had designated ten minutes for this activity, it took thirty minutes.

107

After the discussion, Rumbi shifted to a whole group feedback session by

saying:

We are all free to contribute. As you know, this center is for us all. All of us. It
is our thing. So be free. Never in Zimbabwe have we teachers had our own
thing! lfeel great!

Rumbi then did a little dance to express her view that the workshop that
they were preparing to carry out was very different from the workshops these
teachers had attended in the past. Most workshops had been organized by the
regional offices and involved an “expert” coming and telling the teachers about a
topic the teachers often are not interested in. Rumbi knew that the workshop they
were preparing to carry out was quite different. It would be run by teachers for
teachers based on their own needs. She wanted her colleagues to know her

feelings on this.

After this dance, Rumbi had each group present their model. A discussion
followed on its limitations and its uses. This discussion on the limitations and the
benefits of the model was also part of the initial presentation by the SEITT staff. It
was meant to encourage the participants--students or teachers-40 think about
how this model could help the participants understand the structure of DNA and
RNA. In the discussion, one limitation was that the model was not six-sided.
Another participant added that the paper model clearly demonstrated the process

of replication and transcription. Then one participant stated:

Since we are dealing with a model, it can not have exactly the objective reality
portrayed on it. But now it is an educative aspect when the student can
identify its limitations. Then we can say, “Ah, ha. He has Ieamed something.“

108

This participant suggested that students could Ieam by using the model
and asking questions about its use. He realized how a discussion on the
limitations of the model could help students think more about the real structure of
DNA and RNA. This participant’s comments were concerned with how students
can Ieam about the real structure of DNA and RNA using this model. It was a

student-focused comment.

However, most of the comments were related to technical aspects of the
presentation. In evaluating this use of the DNA model, one participant suggested
that time was wasted at the beginning of the activity because the participants had
to separate the DNA and RNA papers. This participant suggested that the
facilitator provide the students the DNA and RNA paper models in different
containers. Another added that if the RNA and DNA were different colors, this

might help. After these comments, the workshop moved on.

Another resource teacher gave a brief lecture on genetic engineering to
provide the participants with new knowledge that many would not have. This
lecture material was based on the lecture that the biology teachers had attended

during the first week of the residential period.

Following this lecture, one more activity was carried out. Another resource
teacher introduced an activity in which the participants had to genetically
engineer some insulin using paper models. This was an activity that the group
had found in a book, and this was their first time to try it. In this activity, the

participants followed directions on the activity sheet to cut out a part of a gene

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and attach to another DNA model to simulate the construction of insulin. More

detail of this activity is included on the chapter with Tendai.

These rehearsals provided resource teachers opportunities to try a dry run
of the workshop and to Ieam about aspects of the workshop that needed to be
improved. Some of these aspects were clarifying goals, managing time,
motivating participants, and exploring new ways of representing subject matter.
Doing the rehearsal at the residential period also provided the resource teachers
with a safe context to practice what they had Ieamed, a part of the Joyce and
Showers model. The feedback sessions, as we saw, provided quite a few ideas
on how to improve the workshop. Before these resource teachers left for their
homes, they handed in final drafts of their activity sheets and facilitators' guides

so that SEITT could make final copies for the workshops.

The Project’s Enacted Conceptual Framework
By looking at the projects’ aims, model and the form and content of the

third residential period, the conceptual framework of the project emerges. The
Joyce and Showers model, as used by SEITT, of theory, demonstration, practice
and feedback, was central for presenting activities and having the resource
teachers work with them. SEITT did not include coaching from peers or
specialists in the classroom, although Joyce and Showers (1988) suggest that
this is extremely important for new teaching practices to become part of the
repertoire of teachers. This was, in part, because of limited SEITT staffing. With
the resource teachers teaching all over the country, it would have been very

difficult to visit each teacher and to observe him/her in the classroom.

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SEITT did focus on presenting the resource teachers with new strategies
that would encourage active Ieaming in both the classroom and workshops.
Thus, as was indicated in the class that presented the aims, SEITT did promote
“more varied, interactive and activity-based Ieaming patterns.“ However,
involving students in the Ieaming seemed limited to participating in activities. It
did not completely embrace the idea of constructivism that was presented in the

second residential period:

Learning requires active involvement of the student in constructing meaning.
Rather than just receiving more information, the Ieamer must negotiate
meaning with his/her Ieaming community, make connections with past
understandings-modifying these prior conceptions if they are not accurate--
and build understandings that are part of that person’s personal conceptual
framework (Anderson et al., 1994, p. 2).

The activities that were introduced included the Ieamer as a participant of
doing, but not necessarily as making cognitive connections. In the preparation of
both the lesson plan and the workshop, the focus was on creating the opportunity
to interact but not on negotiating meaning. In this way, the teacher/resource
teacher seemed to be viewed as a technician organizing Ieaming opportunities,
with an eye on the clock and an eye on encouraging the generation of ideas, but

not necessarily on negotiating the meaning of these ideas.

Summary
The SEITT project was established to help improve the teaching and

Ieaming at A-level science and mathematics. SEITT chose a decentralized
project in order to reach the teachers in their regions. The five elements of the

project were the establishment of the SMCs, the training of resource teachers,

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the networking of teachers, an integrated evaluation, and the development of
curriculum materials. Within this structure, the project drew on a version of the
Joyce and Showers model to deliver the content. It omitted the key coaching
element of the Joyce and Showers model. Furthermore, the SEITT staff also
seemed to think that it needed to first change the teaching practice of teachers

before addressing their beliefs.

There were forty-eight participants in the SEITT project. Though SEITT
tried to have at least four teachers per region, three of the nine regions had fewer
than four. All of the three types of professional qualifications, B.Ed., licentiate,
and B.Sc./PGCE, were represented. However, a surprising fact was that ten of
the eighteen B.Sc./PGCE holders had earned their degrees outside of
Zimbabwe. If the licentiates were included, that means that twenty-eight out of

forty-eight resource teachers had studied abroad.

This chapter has introduced us to the SEITT project, the resource
teachers, and one extended Ieaming opportunity for the biology group. It has
provided a big picture of the project and participants. In this study, I examined
what and how three teachers Ieam in SEITT and what they make of this
opportunity. Hence, I needed to know what they brought to the SEITT opportunity
in terms of beliefs and prior experiences. I needed to know how they currently

taught and some of their justifications for that teaching.

In the next three chapters, I draw a narrative picture of three of these

resource teachers. I use a thick description (Geertz, 1973) of their teaching, their

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views of Ieaming and their views about what they think they have gained through

participating in the project.

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CHAPTER 4 RUMBI: A RESOURCEFUL LEARNER CAUGHT BETWEEN THE
OLD AND THE NEW

I think SEITT helped me a lot because before this program I was more
concerned with completing my syllabus... After I started this program, I
realized that the completion of the syllabus is not the most important thing.
You may complete the syllabus yet the students may gain very little. I may
cover three-fourths of the syllabus yet my students may gain quite a lot (int-1,
July 1997).

Sometimes there are certain factors that will force you to do something that
you know is not the right way to do. For example, active Ieaming which will
involve students a lot. When you look at some of these syllabi that we have in
Zimbabwe, they are too long. If you use those methods quite often, you will
not be able to complete the syllabus. If you do not complete the syllabus,
students will fall. If they fail, you are blamed. So sometimes, I know it is the
right way, but because of these issues and factors you tend to brush aside
some of the right ways of teaching (int-2, October 1997).

In these two quotes, Rumbi made conflicting remarks on how she viewed
Ieaming. In part through her experiences in SEITT, Rumbi was beginning to see
that active Ieaming could help students. On the other hand, this type of Ieaming
took time that needed to be used to finish the syllabus. If the syllabus was not
completed, students would not do well on the A-level examination. Rumbi was, in
a sense, in-between in how she thought about and used new strategies. She was
looking for a balance between getting the information to the students quickly and
letting the students share in constructing knowledge. One is based on her old
way of teaching and the other on the new ideas she was introduced to while

participating in SEITT. How did this shift occur and how did she come to want

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this balance? To understand this, we need to know about Rumbi the Ieamer, her
Ieaming opportunities and how she made sense of this Ieaming. The place to
start, when thinking about Rumbi as a Ieamer, is why she decided to participate

in this professional development opportunity.

Rumbi the Learner

Motivation: To Improve Teaching and Understanding of Biology
One of the reasons that Rumbi decided to participate in the project was to

improve her teaching. The other reason was to improve her understanding of the

biology subject matter. Rumbi said:

I always had the interest to improve myself but when you look at the
programs offered at UZ, some of them don’t apply. For example, they offer
administration, and other disciplines, but there was nothing to specifically
improve the teachers, especially graduate teachers. I discovered SEITT and
thought this must be the course that will help me improve my teaching style
and understanding of subject (int-1, July 29, 1997).

' In addition, on the survey that I gave to all the resource teachers during
the third residential period, Rumbi suggested that in the future she would like to
work at a university as a lecturer. The project could provide her the necessary

diploma for that career step.

When Rumbi talked about what she had expected in SEITT, the ideas
were about improving her teaching in her classroom and adding to her subject
matter knowledge. These were her expectations of the project, but what did she
bring to her teaching? What experiences in her past shaped her current views of

teaching and Ieaming?

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Strictness, Subject Matter, and Pedagogy: Learning from Experiences
After primary school, Rumbi attended a mission-run nursing school for

three years. She was a nurse for several years before going to the US, where her
husband was sent to study. In the US, Rumbi entered a university and earned
her B.Sc. degree in biology and chemistry. She had wanted to study in the
medical area, but she said that at that time, priority in the medical field was given
to US citizens. After returning to Zimbabwe, she had hoped to work in the
medical field again, but she would have had to train for two more years to teach
nurses. Rather than train more, she went to the Ministry of Education and
received a teaching position. She started teaching in 1982 and from 1984-1985
she studied part-time for her PGCE. Since 1982, she has been teaching at

former group A schools, which had been for whites only before 1980.

In her past experiences, what stood out for her? As I will explain, Rumbi
seemed to view her education as occurring in stages. At different points in her
life, different types of Ieaming occurred. Some. of the key remembrances for
Rumbi were strictness of teachers, overwhelming expectations in Ieaming, and a

division between acquiring subject matter and pedagogy.

Rumbi indicated that there were several people she remembered as a
student. They were all strict. In second grade, one teacher was very strict and a
disciplinarian. Rumbi says of this teacher, “He was a very strict person, very strict
and he would beat well, not a little bit but wow... and he would demand high

quality" (int-2, October 15, 1997). At standard six in primary school, there was

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another teacher who was strict but a dedicated teacher. This teacher created

time in the afternoons to help students. Rumbi said of this teacher:

That one was also very strict and he was dedicated in his teaching
profession. But not beating like the other one. He was very strict and
dedicated. He would even create some afternoon lessons that were outside
the timetable on certain areas, which he thought we needed more help (int-2,
October 15, 1997).

In nursing school, her academic tutor was also strict. This teacher was an
American and Rumbi said of her, “She was very strict and very hardworking. As a
result, out of that whole class, there were ten girls, only one failed. The rest came

out with distinction.”

In Rumbi’s early stages of education, the strictness of the teachers stood
out. Both in the lower grades and in the nursing school, she talked about the
strictness. Except for the one teacher who beat students, this strictness was not
presented in a negative tone, but as connected to “dedication“ and “hard work“.

This strictness did not continue to be a key aspect in her college years, however.

In the U.S., Rumbi majored in Biology and Chemistry and she
remembered this time as being ovenlvhelming. Only one teacher created time
after classes to help those who had problems. She said that this made him

different from the other teachers who “would just rush”.

However, Rumbi indicated that she was used to the American style
because her teachers at nursing school were Americans. She said, “So when I
went for my degree in the US, l was already sort of used to the American people,

how they teach (int-2, October 15, 1997).” She added that the big problem for

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international students in the US was the amount of work expected. It was
overwhelming. Rumbi elaborated, “It was demanding. We were getting all these
subjects and the foreign students were required to take a minimum of twelve
units, not less than that. So it was very demanding. Unlike at nurses training

where you only concentrated on two main subjects.”

When talking about her life as a student in Zimbabwe and in the U.S.,
Rumbi did not think that these experiences played a major role in influencing how
she taught. She said that her primary and nursing education were quite different
from secondary, and that her education in the US earning her B.Sc. was too
different from the situation in Zimbabwe to draw on when teaching at A-level.
Rumbi said of her primary years, “That was primary and you can not take the
way you were taught at primary and fit it into secondary” (int-2, October 15,

1997)

Rumbi said of her study in the US and its influence on her way of

teaching:

And when I was doing my degree, for me to try to fit in the way I was taught in
America into here, it doesn’t. For one, it is materials. If I tried to do it, I don’t
have the materials to teach the way I was taught. And also, Americans, they
assume too much that you should know. And here if you take a class you take
it from the roots up. You don’t assume.

Rumbi suggested that as a university student in the U.S., most of her
teachers did not take into account what students had already Ieamed. Though
Rumbi suggested that these experiences did not influence how she taught, they

did help to shape her views of what Ieaming and teaching encompass from a

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student’s perspective. Her experiences in Zimbabwe in the Post Graduate
Certificate in Education (PGCE) program at the University tell us more about her

becoming a teacher.

After returning to Zimbabwe, Rumbi became a teacher. She was hesitant
to teach at A-Ievel because she was not sure if she could teach that level. Rumbi

said:

Before I got my GradCE, I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing. Also, at
first when the headmaster requested that I teach A-level I was against it
because of my lack of training. I thought it was a non-start. At first, I refused
(int-2, October 15, 1997).

At that time, there were few science teachers and the ministry asked
people like Rumbi--people with B.Sc. but no education background--to teach at
A-level. Rumbi said of her teaching at that time, “The ministry requested me and
others to teach A-Ievel even without training, but as time went on I got used to it.

I gained confidence. I progressed.“

After teaching for two years in Zimbabwe, Rumbi attended a two-year
part-time PGCE program‘s. Her first comment on this program was that there
was not enough time to learn the material. She said of this, “I felt it was too much
work for a limited time... when you are doing part-time you are fully employed at
the school. The head master has nothing to do with your program. You have to

still fulfill all the duties at the school“ (int-2, October 1997).

She added though:

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After I graduated from my first degree, I taught for two years before I was
trained. I knew the content of my subject, my problem was how to tell these
kids so that they can understand... When you have all this data and content in
your head, you don't even know where to start... I think the PGCE did quite a
lot. How to dish out what I had in my head (int-2, October 1997).

She talked about the PGCE program as training her and helping her to
"dish out what I had in my head“. This program seemed to have taught her to
become a technician, one that could effectively tell the students what they need

to know. She Ieamed that the teacher transmitted knowledge.

Conceptions of Learning and Teaching: Covering the Syllabus
Rumbi's conceptions of teaching and Ieaming revolve around her views of

students at different stages in the education system and her view of the A-Ievel
examination. These two ideas are the focus of this section. Rumbi suggested that
Ieaming at A-level and Ieaming at lower levels were different. In the survey I

gave at the beginning of residential period three, I asked the teachers what type
of teacher would most likely be successful in helping students Ieam and I
presented four teachers and their styles of teaching. In the interview, Rumbi said
that Tawanda, the group-oriented teacher, would be better for A-level students
and Albert, the structured teacher who gives facts, would be better for lower

levels:

Tawanda would give the students opportunity to exercise their reasoning
ability. Also the students would be able to discover for themselves instead of
just dictating to them...the beginners, when we take in form 1, there is no idea

 

‘5 University graduates with a B.Sc. but no professional education background
need to take the PGCE in order to stay in teaching.

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what science is all about. You have got to start it right from the ground and tell
them what science is all about (int-1, July 29, 1997).

In her view, the lower level students needed more structure for Ieaming.
The teacher might even need to be strict in making sure the students Ieam. A-
level students needed opportunities to think and discover for themselves.
Through participating in SEITT she was able to provide these opportunities in her

A-Ievel classes.

This format of putting students into groups to discuss biology questions
was used in two classes that I observed. This arrangement did provide students
opportunities to think and discover ideas for themselves. On February 4‘“, her A-
level biology class studied the transport system in plants. Rumbi told the students
to get into groups and to consider why the transport system was important. The
students quickly moved into groups of about three students and discussed why
the transport system is important in plants. While the students were discussing
this question, Rumbi talked to me about A-Ievel and showed me the A-level
syllabus and explained what questions she was addressing in class this day.
After about twenty-five minutes, Rumbi asked one person from each group to
report back the group’s results. Rumbi wrote the answers on the board. After all
groups had reported, Rumbi summarized the important aspects of the transport

system.

In this A-Ievel biology class, Rumbi provided her students with the
opportunity to talk over ideas with classmates. Moreover, this vignette illustrates

that the A-level biology syllabus is central to her teaching. Much of what Rumbi

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taught in her classes was directly associated with the examination and the
syllabus. Rumbi’s assignments and experiments were often from old A-Ievel
examinations. Rumbi believed that teaching for examinations also prepared
students to Ieam concepts. Rumbi said, “The A-level examination does not rely
on memorization but on synthesis of information (int-1, July 29)”. She added,
“Learning for understanding does not mean students should not be prepared for
their exams. Students should be able to synthesize scientific facts and also be

able to apply what they learned.“ Rumbi provided an example:

Sometimes in an exam, they [students] are given questions and they are not
directly what the students should memorize. But they should be able to apply
what they have Ieamed. From that you will see the student is able to
comprehend and extract what they have Ieamed (int-1, July 29, 1997).

Her view of synthesizing and applying was linked to the examination and
not to real life instances. Though she appeared to have a broad view of what
students need to Ieam, it was closely tied to the examination. Rumbi believed
that students could Ieam this synthesis and application as well as the necessary
facts while covering the syllabus. According to Rumbi, the syllabus had to be

covered for the students to do well on the examination. In Rumbi's words:

Sometimes there are certain factors that will force you to do something that
you know is not the right way to do. For example, active Ieaming which will
involve students a lot. When you look at some of these syllabi that we have in
Zimbabwe, they are too long. If you use those methods quite often you will
not be able to complete the syllabus. If you do not complete the syllabus,
students will fall. If they fail, you are blamed. So sometimes, I know it is the
right way, but because of these issues and factors you tend to brush aside
some of the right ways of teaching (int-2, October 1997).

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If the syllabus was not covered, students would fail and the teacher would
be at fault. This statement points out a barrier in developing a new way of
thinking about teaching and Ieaming. While she wanted to use more active
Ieaming strategies, she believed that they took too long and they could get in the

way of finishing the syllabus.

Rumbi thus created a dilemma for herself: to cover the material or use
more activities. The two ideas could not be addressed easily, as the October
quote above suggests. These two points were connected to different aspects of
her teacher knowledge. For her, covering the material had a direct influence on
the subject matter content and the activities seemed connected to the pedagogy.
For Rumbi, one was the source of facts while the other was how to approach this

body of knowledge.

While Rumbi was using group work, she also spent a great deal of time

using past examinations. She said:

By using past exam papers, you want your students to get used to the format
of the exam. Also you want them to get used to the timing system. If it is two
hours, you take that paper and you make sure they finish in two hours. And
also, as you know, English is our second language and you want them to get
used to the language, especially in science (int-1, July 1997).

Rumbi put an emphasis on preparing for the format of the A-level
examination. The language aspect also arose in talking about why she did not
construct questions that the students could answer. Since the A-Ievel
examinations were still written in the United Kingdom, Rumbi was worried about

the language of the examinations:

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If I construct my own questions, I can use very simple language. English is
also my second language. I can use very simple language, which they can
understand, but when it comes to the real paper, then your students are
struggling.
This focus on past examinations suggests that their formats were
important for students to Ieam. Rumbi was concerned that the students
answered the questions correctly. Her idea of synthesizing facts and applying

them were linked to the examination questions and not to questions outside of

the examination.

This focus on the examinations and its format could be justified if, indeed,
the A-Ievel examinations do require synthesis and application. However, chapter
one indicated that these types of examinations focus on acquiring knowledge and
not necessarily synthesis of facts. In addition, a biology professor at the
University of Zimbabwe indicated in a talk with the biology resource teachers that
many of the students who arrive at the University can not apply what they have
studied at A-Ievel. He complained that many new students could not measure
chemicals or carry out experiments. Their A-Ievels clearly had not emphasized
synthesis and application. Thus, Rumbi’s view of A-level as requiring synthesis of

facts and application may, in fact, be a faulty assumption.

Conceptions about Subject Matter
Rumbi continued to think of the knowledge needed as located within the

examinations, texts, and biology syllabus. She was the transmitter of this
knowledge. In her classroom, after discussions, Rumbi wanted the students to

find the “right“ answers. As I indicated earlier, Rumbi did not construct her own

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questions because such questions would not follow the language of the exam. If
she used simple language for understanding, Rumbi was concerned that the
students might not do well on the examination. This language of the examination,
for Rumbi, seemed closely tied to the knowledge to be Ieamed. Rumbi was not
ready to move away from this authority of what the syllabus and A-Ievel
examination encompassed both in terms of facts and question format. She did
not grab onto SEITT’s idea that students might construct their understandings of
biology rather than just acquire knowledge from the teacher (Dewey, 1938;

Driver, 1983; Tatto, 1999).

Indeed, when Rumbi talked about why she went to earn the PGCE at the
University of Zimbabwe, she said, “I knew the content of my subject, my problem
now is to tell these kids so that they can understand” (int-2, October 15 1997).
Rumbi wanted her students to know the material and she wanted to Ieam how to

tell them the facts.

Though her idea of understanding may take broad views, such as
synthesizing and applying information, we see in her classes that she, in the end,
told the students the answers. For example, in her class on April 1, though
Rumbi provided the students with time to discuss biology topics, the answers
were with Rumbi and not with the ideas generated from the discussions. On this
day, I talked to Rumbi before class and she told me that the goal of this class
was to cover the function of the kidney. She showed me the syllabus and the
specific question she was addressing. Rumbi started the class by telling the

students that they would be having a test soon and she added, “This is practice

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for the A-level examination.“ She asked about the gross structure of the kidney,
the assigned reading for the day. Many students provided ideas. Rumbi then put
the students in three groups and assigned each group a different question. For
example, one group had to answer what is being achieved through filtration.
While the students were talking, Rumbi walked around listening to the
conversations. After thirty minutes, one student from each group provided the
group’s answer. Rumbi listed the answers on the board and commented that the
answers were not specific enough. She started listing her answers. There was no
discussion of why the students provided the answers they did. Rumbi finished by

orally summarizing the class.

While the students did discuss and exchange ideas, Rumbi had the
answers that she felt the students needed. The discussions were opportunities
for students to generate possible answers to the questions. The students
presented their ideas and Rumbi listed them on the board. However, the
students' answers were juxtaposed with Rumbi's own expected answers. She
had the answers that the students needed to know, and she transmitted them to
the students. Her conception of student-centered Ieaming, as espoused in
SEITT, was limited to having the students work together. I-Ier view of Ieaming did
not extend to allowing the students to construct their own understandings. In a
way, this fit with the way that Rumbi Ieamed. She needed concrete products or

guides.

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Learning from Constructing and Applying
Rumbi’s own Ieaming, at least in SEITT, seemed to depend on

constructing a teacher’s guide and using it. She wanted a facilitating guide or
plan to direct her in conducting a workshop. Rumbi provided an example when
she talked about what she was not prepared to do in the SMCs. In the fourth and
residential period, curriculum design was a main component. Rumbi said of this

residential period: IF'

I think we didn’t have enough time and there was too much theorizing in
designing of materials, too much theory. We never produced anything
tangible. It was sort of rushing...l have got to source this to someone else
because I wasn't equipped by SEITT at all in this area (int-2, October 1997).

 

Because she did not produce an actual guide to teach an aspect of
biology, Rumbi sensed that she needed something concrete to feel prepared to
talk about curriculum design. In contrast, during the third residential period, the
resource teachers had produced the workshop materials including facilitating
guides and handouts on the topics. They used these to facilitate the workshops.
In this last residential period, they had created a format for curriculum design, but
they had not actually created any topics using the design. The guides had
unused and untested formats. Rumbi did not seem to feel that creating the guide
provided her the sufficient preparation for understanding how to use the guide.
Rumbi wanted a specific example to take away from the residential period.
Without this concrete product developed around a topic, Rumbi seemed less

confident of what she had Ieamed.

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It may be that Rumbi wanted her students to have accepted products
when they left the class. In the classroom, this took the shape of the answers on

the old examinations or of answers that Rumbi felt were correct.

Rumbi’s Opportunities to Learn in the Project
In the project, Rumbi had opportunities to Ieam more about teaching and

teacher education. These opportunities occurred during both the residential
periods and the periods between, when the resource teachers had assignments.
In many cases, these were group assignments. In the first assignment, between
residential period one and two, all the resource teachers in a region worked
together to interview Educational Officers and Heads of Schools. They also sent
a survey to all A-level biology teachers to Ieam what these teachers felt they
needed to Ieam. In this way, a great deal of the work outside of the residential

period involved collecting and passing on information.

Communicating to and with Others
Communication was a quality that Rumbi mentioned as important in the

project. She had to communicate with many groups during her participation. Her

communication, though, as we will see, was more one-way than two-way.

Rumbi was selected as one of the SMC liaison persons in her region. In
this role, she kept in contact with the head of the science department at the new
SMC to coordinate activities, which included organizing the workshop dates,
times, equipment, etc. Rumbi also attended organizing meetings for these

events. Through organizing the SMC and the workshop, she discovered that

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communication skills are very important. This communication extended to

keeping teachers informed of workshop opportunities. Rumbi said:

I think one very important thing at the center is good communication because
in the past sometimes, communication failed us a lot. Workshops would be
called before and some of us would get letters two days after the workshop...l
need to communicate with other teachers, say biologists, I need to
communicate with them about the workshop, when we are going to have the
workshop. Also I will tell them what the workshop is about, tell them the topic
ahead of time (int-1, July 29, 1997).

While communication was important for Rumbi, it was a one way form of
communication. She would tell other teachers about activities at the SMC. It is
similar to the way she talked about working with students. In that case, she also
talked about giving students the opportunity to exchange ideas and talk, but in

the end, the answers were with Rumbi.

Communication in the residential periods between members of the biology
group involved more opportunities to exchange ideas. This was particularly true
with Residential Period Three, where the teachers actually organized a workshop

for other teachers.

Working with Others In Preparing a Workshop
In Residential Period Three, Rumbi participated in organizing how to carry

out a workshop. Much of the structure of these Ieaming opportunities followed
the model of presentation of theory, demonstration, practice and feedback. The
residential period included lectures, presentation of new information, activities,

discussions, group work, and rehearsals. The Ieaming opportunities were varied.

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.-

SEITT planned to introduce and model strategies for the teachers to use
in their classes and in the workshops. In a talk with the external coordinator, he
indicated that he hoped the teachers would Ieam to help students with
construction of concepts. He suggested that a variety of activities would help with

this:

I believe that the more methods teachers are using to come to an
understanding the better it is. I am not saying lecturing should not be done.
Maybe in our case, with the sort of students we have, parents of students we
have, headmasters, and teachers we have, we should not get away from
lecturing. Conservative types of teaching could be excellent as long as it is
done in a good way. Walberg has written a lot about this type of conservative
teaching and how we should strengthen it (int-ext, August 6, 1997).

He wanted the teachers to Ieam new activities and, possibly, to Ieam to
lecture in a different way. His discussion on active Ieaming focused on the forms

of teaching and not really on what the students were Ieaming.

During the third residential period, many activities were introduced. For
example, the lectures on subject matter were by University of Zimbabwe faculty
in the Department of Science. These lectures were on genetic engineering and
ecology. Another activity that was modeled was concept mapping. In this case,
the SEITT staff member briefly presented new information and theory. In this
activity, the word “curriculum“ was used to help the participants generate ideas
connected to this word. The SEITT staff member arranged these new ideas into
different categories. Rumbi and the other resource teachers had the opportunity
to participate in these activities as Ieamers and later, they used some of the

activities when preparing the workshop.

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I introduced the content of Residential Period Three in Chapter Three. As I
said, during the first week, the biology resource teachers Ieamed about genetic
engineering and ecology. Each resource teacher chose one of these topics and
then two groups were formed with five members in the ecology group and eight
in the genetic engineering group. Each group prepared and taught a lesson plan
in the first week and, in the second week, the groups prepared the workshop for
the regions. This involved putting together the material, organizing the schedule

for the workshop, and doing a workshop rehearsal.

Rumbi was one of the eight members in the Genetic Engineering group.
The rehearsal that Rumbi’s group carried out, with the other biology group acting
as workshop participants, was an important point of Ieaming for her. This was
more than role-playing because, unlike the lesson play role-playing, the
participants were biology teachers just like the participants at a workshop. Thus,
this rehearsal was a real preparation for the workshops in the regions. In this
rehearsal, all members of the group had roles to play; however, in the regions,

this strong support was not present.

The rehearsal during the last week was specifically a situation in which the
resource teachers could try out their workshop on other biology resource
teachers and make improvements. In her rehearsal, Rumbi was in charge of
introducing DNA as the “engine of engineering“. The following quotes are from a

transcription of the video of the rehearsal.

Rumbi: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. ...well today, ladies and gentlemen,
(writing on large paper ENGINEERING) if we say engineering without saying
anything else, ladies and gentlemen. What comes to mind? Nothing?

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Student 1: Making or structuring building

Student 2: Design

Rumbi: But ladies and gentlemen. When we think of engineering, we think there
must be an engine. (writes GENETIC). We say engineering. There must be an
engine. What do you think is our engine?

Student 3: Genes

Rumbi: But the molecular aspect that holds all the parts is DNA. So in order for
us to be good engineers, we must understand the structure of this thing, the
engine, which is the DNA. So ladies and gentlemen, let’s get into it. What do
biologists know about engineering? To make it more important our engine is
alive. Right now, we must look into our engine in order for us to do the
engineering. You'll get activity instructions and I want you to get into groups of
two. (handout sheets). Please can you get into groups.

Rumbi started by asking the other teachers what they knew about
"engineering“. She tried to include the teachers from the beginning. Rumbi had
already seen this method demonstrated several times in the residential periods.
SEITT staff modeled this when the genetic engineering was first presented and
during many other introductions to topics in the residential periods. Rather than
talk about something new right away, she tried to find out what the participants
knew and connect it to their own knowledge. Though she may have been leading
the group to the answer of DNA, this rehearsal was the time to think about what

the facilitators did and improve on it.

After the biology “students“ did the activity and stuck their answers on
large paper on the wall, Rumbi's excitement with this opportunity for teachers to

take a lead in helping teachers shined through:

We can discuss. We are all free to contribute. As you know, this center is for
us all. All of us. It is our thing. So be free. Never in Zimbabwe have we
teachers had our own thing! I feel great!

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Rumbi then performed a little dance. This was an expression of her
enthusiasm to be part of a project that was preparing them-~teachers-- to
organize workshops that addressed teachers’ needs. This was very different from
the workshops these teachers had attended in the past. Most workshops were
organized by the regional offices and involved an “expert" coming and telling the
teachers about a topic the teachers often were not interested in. Rumbi realized
that the workshop they were preparing to carry out was quite different. It would
be run by teachers for teachers based on their own needs. She wanted her

colleagues to know her feelings on this.

The rehearsal also included a critique. After the groups presented the
limitations and benefits of this paper model, the leader of this DNA group, not
Rumbi, said, “Is there anything you think can be done to improve this particular

activity?"

Teacher 3: When we started, we did waste one or two minutes trying to separate
the DNA and RNA. I think if you put them in papers for RNA together and DNA
together. It saves time.

Leader: OK separate them. Actually, that was part of the activity.

Teacher 4: l was also thinking we could have one of DNA in white and other in
different color.

Leader: That is another idea.

This rehearsal provided an opportunity for teachers to accept each others
critiques and to think about how these ideas might be used. Interestingly, the
points they talked about were connected to the DNA-RNA paper models and how
to simplify the activity. Ways of communicating with teachers was not part of the

discussion and the SEITT staff member present also did not talk about the

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language of working with colleagues. For both SEITT and the participants, the

activity and its organization were central.

After this rehearsal, the group once more got together and revised their
materials, taking into account the comments by the teachers as well as their own
reflections on the rehearsal. Most of the changes in the materials reflected
arranging for more time or rewording a direction to make it clear. For example,
for the introduction of the workshop, the group wrote out an introduction to use at

the workshops. It included:

In 1996, a context analysis of the teacher’s needs was carried out. One of the
major needs indicated was the content of Genetic Engineering, which was not
covered in our syllabus during the course. We have not come to teach you
but to help each other better understand the concept of genetic engineering
and its principles. What do you think of when we say engine? (wrkshp-1,
June,1997)

The resource teachers added a bit more on the context analysis that the
teachers had been surveyed on. On the program that they developed, this group
also adjusted time. They increased the time for the DNA-RNA model construction
from 45 minutes to 60 minutes while increasing the time for the lecture on genetic
engineering from 20 to 30 minutes. These changes that they made did not
address the content of the Ieaming activities as much as the form. They were

particularly concerned with arranging time.

Carrying Out Workshops: Sharing
The workshops were opportunities to continue Ieaming as well as to

demonstrate what they had Ieamed in the project about carrying out a workshop.

Rumbi carried out the workshop very similarly to the rehearsal.

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In the workshops, Rumbi wanted to take the role of a facilitator who did

not tell but who shared. She talked about this in an interview:

The person should be very open to the teachers who are coming to the center
for help and also don’t be a dictator, not at all. Because if you become a
dictator, you are going back to the old way (int-1, July 29, 1997).

Rumbi demonstrated sharing through her introduction to the workshop and
her participation with groups and providing one possible answer to questions that
had many possible answers. In the first workshop she indicated that the
workshop content is based on the needs-analysis survey that the teachers had
filled out and then added that the resource teachers were here, "...not to teach

but share." In the second workshop, she stated:

We are not looking for one person to talk. We are here to share ideas. At
schools, we don’t get chances to share. Ladies and gentlemen, we are here
to share ideas, so feel free to contribute. It is our workshop. It is the first of
several in biology. Maybe someday, you will lead this. Each member is free to
participate. Last year we did a needs analysis and one topic was genetic
engineering. So this workshop is to address that topic.

Rumbi wanted to be on equal footing with the teachers. She suggested
that she did not want to tell the teachers content or ideas. Rather she was

concerned with making the SMC and the workshops user-friendly.

In her work as a resource teacher, sharing involved generating ideas.
During the second workshop, Rumbi introduced the DNA-RNA models and the
activity of putting them together and working on limitations and benefits of the
paper models. Groups worked on the activity following the activity sheet. In one -

group, a participant suggested that she might introduce the theory first and then

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this activity using paper models. Another teacher put in, “How would you do the
theory?“ However, before this question could be addressed, another teacher
changed the subject to limitations of the model. Rumbi, who was sitting with this
group, added that this was only a paper model and another teacher suggested
that the model did not show the spiral shape. Then Rumbi finished this
conversation by stating that the paper model was five-sided and not six-sided

and that this model could be used to familiarize students with DNA.

In this discussion, Rumbi shared one possible limitation and this was
followed by another teacher‘s idea. This also occurred when teachers were
responding to a question by Tendai, another focal teacher and Rumbi's partner in
the workshop. He asked if the DNA-RNA paper model activity was appropriate

for A-level students.

Teacher 1: Yes and no. Yes, it gives a reasonable picture and is easier to
remember this way than in the book. It provides a visual representation.
Teacher 2: Maybe, but childish for them.

Teacher 4: For an introduction, it is good. There is more detailed structure.
Rumbi: It also helps to see how DNA-RNA are composed. Start with this model
and on the exam students won't miss the question on composition; ribose sugar
versus deoxyribose sugar.

Teacher 1: It takes time to prepare. If you give it to me, I will use it.

Teacher 4: If you ask students to make their own models, the results could be
interesting.

Rumbi: One copy for you, then the students can improve.

Here Rumbi shared ideas with other teachers. They were sharing ideas
concerning the practical aspect of using the model in the classroom and how the
model itself could be improved. The participants were exchanging ideas. One
teacher thought that using paper models was childish; another found them useful

as visual representations; another suggested that students would Ieam a great

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deal by making their own. In this discussion, the teachers were exchanging ideas
around teaching in the classroom. Teacher 4 particularly was making use of this
opportunity at the workshop to think about how students might make sense of
this model and how it could help in teaching them. As the workshop was an
opportunity for the resource teachers to share ideas, for Teacher 4 this
discussion was probably a rare opportunity to talk about A-Ievel biology students’

Ieaming with colleagues.

However, this exchange of ideas did not go into depth. Though the
teachers exchanged ideas, they did not build on what each said. For example, in
the one exchange when a teacher asked, “How would you build on the theory?“,
another teacher did not address this question but brought up other limitations.
Also, when a teacher suggested that the models were childish, there was not
discussion on why this was. Answers as to why these opportunities were not
pursued can only be conjecture. One reason, however, might be that the
teachers came to the workshop to gain activities to use in class and not
necessarily to think more deeply about Ieaming and how these activities could
promote student Ieaming. These teachers want an activity to take away to apply

in their classes.

Indeed, recalling The Stages of Concern Model discussed in Chapter 1,
the teachers who attended this workshop were being introduced to the activities.
They were at the 0 INFORMATIONAL or 1 PERSONAL stages (Hord et al.,
1987, p. 31 ). In most cases, they had not tried these activities and did not know

how to talk about management and impact. These teachers were concemed that

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their students Ieam biology, but at this time they were more interested in Ieaming
new activities than with how to use the activities to promote particular kinds of

student Ieaming in the classroom.

Rumbi, as the facilitator, also took this stance, providing the teachers
opportunities to present their ideas but not probing them. By taking this
approach, Rumbi felt that she could avoid being a dictator. Rumbi seemed to be
in-between in her growth in thinking about teacher-teacher interaction. While she
felt generating ideas was important, she did not want to be a dictator and tell

others what to do.

The opportunities at SEITT may have limited how much she was able to
grow as a teacher educator. Her talking to others was a new situation among A-
level teachers in Zimbabwe, and she had not really Ieamed about communicating
with colleagues. Her awareness of not wanting to being a dictator was also new.
However, she did not have the support and opportunities to more closely

examine what these opportunities offered and their limitations.

What Does Rumbi Make of the Project?
Rumbi encountered many Ieaming opportunities in this project. Yet, being

resourceful in the way that she was, she did not always transfer to her A-Ievel
classroom what she encountered. She took aspects that she could directly put to
use and that did not require a great deal of reflecting on their purposes. Thus, it
is difficult to talk about what she made of the project without talking about what
she decided not to grab onto. Separating them for discussion would be too

artificial. There were at least two areas in which Rumbi was clearly thinking about

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how the project was influencing her. They were in teaching and teacher

educafion.

Teaching: In-between in Teaching New Ways
Rumbi seemed to be in-between in how she made use of ideas and

activities that she had Ieamed in the project. She was in transition between her
old ways of teaching and new ways that made use of active Ieaming. This
transition was tempered by the fact that the A-Ievel examination was at the
forefront and her feeling that she must cover the syllabus and the questions that

might be on the examination.

In teaching, she was in transition in how she organized students for
Ieaming and how she thought about Ieaming. She put students into groups more
than she used to. On the SEITT OUTTAKE Survey16 given by the SEI'I‘I’ staff at
the last residential period, Rumbi wrote that before the project she had frequently
used lecturing, practicum, and demonstrations. After the project, she preferred,
“discussions in groups, plenary, and student—centered practicals.“ She added that
the aspect of this project that improved the most was, “teaching skills e.g.,

student-centered Ieaming because I discovered it is quite motivating to pupils.“

As a resourceful teacher, Rumbi was putting students into groups to talk
and to exchange ideas. From SEI'I'I', Rumbi believed that she was Ieaming to

use more activities and to think about student Ieaming. Rumbi was particularly

 

‘6 SEITT ave a survey at the first residential period and at the last residential
penod. e two surveys were almost the same. For the first surve .- l was not
able to see the_ responses for each resource teacher. However, I rd see the
responses for Indrvrdual resource teachers for the last survey.

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confident that she had changed in the way she thought about student Ieaming.
Rumbi suggested that one of the things she Ieamed most from SEITT was to

think about student Ieaming rather than syllabus coverage. She said:

I think SEITT helped me a lot because before this program I was more
concerned with completing my syllabus... After I started this program, I
realized that the completion of the syllabus is not the most important thing.
You may complete the syllabus yet the students may gain very little. I may
cover three-fourths of the syllabus yet my students may gain quite a lot (int-1,
July 1997).

She talked more about the thinking aspect:

I used to deprive my students of the opportunity to exercise their own
reasoning, because I wouldn’t give them enough time to discuss and come up
with some conclusions. I would make conclusions for them. But after this
program, I realized that those were very negative ways of teaching. I changed
a lot from being a dictator and now I can give them a lot of opportunities to
exercise their own reasoning ability and from that, I also Ieam a lot. Because
when you give them time to speak up, and say what they think, you are also
Ieaming and you can identify problems from that (int-1, July 1997).

Rumbi felt that she must provide students the opportunities to discuss
ideas and that during these discussions the students should use their reasoning
ability. Through the students' discussions, Rumbi could identify problems. Rumbi

viewed her role as providing the time to talk and then identifying problems.

Rumbi had created a Ieaming environment in which Students discussed
questions posed by the teacher. Students talked in groups and one student
reported to the whole class. The construction of this Ieaming environment
suggests that Rumbi understood that Ieaming could be beneficial in a group.

Rumbi's beliefs about how to organize teaching were changing. Her general

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pedagogical content knowledge was expanding to include putting students in
groups. However, in this particular environment, the teacher still had the
answers. The students’ answers were written, but the answers of importance

were from her and the syllabus for the purpose of passing the examination.

This focus on answers also arose when she went over a quiz. Rumbi let
the students choose which quiz questions to ask the teacher to clarify. Rumbi
thought that by letting the students choose the questions, she was stepping back
from the dictator role to provide some student input. However, in the discussions
of the answers, the teacher still had the right answers. In the interim case study

that I gave Rumbi, I wrote about this. Rumbi's response was:

I would not think the type of discussion would be called an opportunity to
come up with the right answers because after that very important discussion,
a similar test was set and most pupils improved greatly. Also, remember that
according to Joyce and Showers, it is important to use combinations of
lecturing, demonstration, and student-centered methods of teaching. Student-
centered alone without other methods can be very fruitless (interim case
study, October 1997).

Rumbi continued to think of the knowledge as fixed and her role as
providing it to the students. She pointed to Joyce and Showers as the authorities
in how to mix strategies. Thus, she had two sources of knowledge: one for
content and one for pedagogy. The content knowledge was contained within the
biology syllabus and while Rumbi did think that involving students was important,
covering the syllabus still remained a constraint as we saw in the earlier
quotation, “Sometimes there are certain factors that will force you to do

something that you know is not the right way to do“ (int-2, October, 1997).

141

Through SEITT, Rumbi became aware that completing the syllabus might
not necessarily promote student Ieaming. Yet, this awareness was tempered by
outside factors that might take time away from students covering the syllabus.
She was trying to create a balance between the new activities espoused by

SEITT and in the academic literature with her need to complete the syllabus.

Rumbi was in-between in the sense that she was in transition from a more
directed approach to teaching to a more student-focused approach. She was
caught between the exam/syllabus and new expectations of active Ieaming that
required more time for students to talk and less for covering the syllabus. The
SEITT staff and the literature that she had read on active Ieaming supported an
approach that incorporated more activities. On the other hand, she felt
constrained by the authority of the examination and the syllabus that laid out its
key concepts. She had two authority groups coming from different sides, and she
was in the middle trying to do a balancing act. In this position, she had decided to
put students in groups to help them share ideas on different biology topics.
However, the source of the answers remained with Rumbi and the other
authoritative biology sources: the text, the syllabus and past A-Ievel

examinations.

One reason for this might be that she separated subject matter from
pedagogy, as illustrated earlier in this chapter. Rumbi suggested this when asked
about what she gained from SEITT: “As far as the subject matter is concerned, I
don’t think I have gained much from it. The teaching style, I gained a lot“ (int-1,

July 1997). She felt that she had improved her teaching style but not her subject

142

matter content. She clearly separated the two--content and pedagogy. She did
not appear to understand that, for example, using the DNA-RNA models involved
both an activity and subject matter. The activity was a tool that could be used to
help students think about and understand particular concept in depth. Instead,
Rumbi felt free to vary her pedagogy but acted like she had less freedom in the

content area.

Rumbi was seizing onto part of the student-centered Ieaming concept
espoused by SEITT. As indicated in Chapter One, SEITT staff provided four
elements of student-centered Ieaming. They were (de Feiter et al., 1995, p. 41-
42):

-more Ieaming for understanding (less rote Ieaming)

-more varied, interactive and activity-based Ieaming patterns (less passive
note-taking)

-more relational to natural and social context and to students’ every-day
experiences (less transmission of abstract theory)

-more attention to practical skills, process skills and problem solving skills
(e.g. observing, raising questions, formulating hypotheses, designing
investigations, drawing conclusions).

Rumbi was using interactive Ieaming patterns by asking the students to
discuss together. Within these discussions, students may have been drawing on
everyday life experiences, yet in the feedback sections, Rumbi did not
incorporate these in discussing students’ answers. Her feedback suggested that
she had the answers. She felt that the method of student-centered Ieaming was

accomplished because the students had discussed among themselves. Rumbi

had seized onto varied and interactive Ieaming, but not the other aspects that

143

involve teachers listening to what students had to say, connecting to students’
experiences and problem solving. Indeed, from her comment in the last survey,
she may view student-centered Ieaming as a particular method rather than a
perspective on Ieaming. Rumbi stated how her teaching had improved, “teaching
skills e.g., student-centered Ieaming because I discovered it is quite motivating to

pupils.“

Her method of student-centered Ieaming was based on student talk.
However, it did not include ways of leading discussions to talk about students'
ideas and to connect these ideas to the subject matter. Rumbi did not have
opportunities in SEITT to develop this pedagogy. Her opportunities in SEITT
involved using activities, but not reflecting on what students said or what they
seemed to understand. SEITT staff seemed to want to help these teachers

acquire these new activities and they did not pursue the elements as thoroughly.

The SEI'I'I’ project, however, did talk about the other elements. For
example, in the last residential period, a SEITT staff member talked about active
Ieaming and constructivism. He presented an incident in Zimbabwe that
highlighted different value/belief systems that teachers need to think about when

teaching (from the handout “What is Active Leaming?“):

In one incident, in Zimbabwe, there was an international convention for
electrical engineers (Oct. 1995). They were discussing about controlling
lightning related deaths, and how the community could be educated. They
invited some local members of Zinatha” to explain the traditional lightning
beliefs, with the intention of exposing these as fallacies. One Zinatha member

 

‘7 Zinatha is an organization in Zimbabwe that promotes indigenous medicines
Iandlrndrgenous vrews of healing from n'anga, whom we might call traditional
ea ers.

144

explained how lightening could be “sent“ to attack a villager even when there
are just a few clouds. Some local engineers then objected saying that this
was unscientific--so the n’anga challenged them to a demonstration-40 which
they all declined!

The incidence illustrates very well how two parallel frames of reference can
coexist if the Ieamer fails to resolve the conflicts--in this case-~between a
value/belief based knowledge system (lightning can be sent) and a scientific
based system (lightning is a natural phenomenon). The electrical engineers
demonstrated that despite their highly specialised knowledge in electrical
phenomena, they were still not convinced that they could safely disregard
their traditional beliefs about lightning. Thus when the conflict was thrust upon
them in the form of a challenge, they were not prepared to call the n’anga’s
bluff.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ACTIVE LEARNING

It is important to identify the leamer’s value system in connection with the
concepts to be Ieamed. This again underlines the importance of ascertaining
the pre-existing knowledge of the Ieamer.

Learning tasks should be geared to challenging the value system so that the
Ieamer has to make a judgement.

This presentation included a story about how important prior beliefs are

and how difficult they might be to change. This story was followed by a

discussion among all the resource teachers. Batsirai, one of the focal teachers,

suggested that one person might have ten parallel views that might include

science, medicine, and a Christian perspective, among others. Thus, there was a

discussion around prior experiences and how important they are to Ieamers.

Rumbi heard this, but for Rumbi, there were no opportunities to work with the

other biology teachers on constructing a product associated with this.

Additionally, Rumbi did not decide to participate in SEITT in order to change her

beliefs about how her prior experience might influence her teaching. She is

similar to many teachers participating in professional development projects in this

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respect. As Wilson and Beme (1999) suggest, few teachers participate in
professional development projects in order to change beliefs. Teachers typically
want to Ieam strategies or content. Rumbi was no different. However, Rumbi is
interesting for just that reason. She did Ieam to carry out a workshop even

though this was not one of her original aims in joining the project.

Teacher Education: In-between a Teacher and Teacher Educator
SEITT provided Rumbi the opportunity to work with teachers as a

facilitator and in this role, she also was made aware of a distinction between
teaching and teacher education. In the project, Rumbi began to think about how
teachers and students were both similar and different in how they Ieam and how
they should be treated as Ieamers. For Rumbi, there seemed to be three groups
of Ieamers: pre A-level students who need structure, A-level students and
teachers. Students who have not reached A-Ievel needed more structure and
strictness from the teacher. Rumbi thought that A-level students and teachers
both needed opportunities to generate and exchange ideas. However, she

sensed a gap between working with teachers and working with A-level students:

Oh, it is different because at a workshop you are dealing with adults and you
should treat them with respect. In a classroom, you are dealing with students
and you know that age-wise and education-wise you are higher than them. So
although you give them a chance to express themselves, you should not lose
your key. Otherwise, you will end up with disorganization. At the workshop
you are dealing with adults, you should also consider their feelings, you
should also consider their advice or ideas. For example, if a teacher at a
workshop says something wrong, no one says, “Ah, that is wrong.“ You will
find a way of getting around it. Unlike in a class your can say to a student,
"No, that is wrong.“ (int-1, July 1997).

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This paragraph reveals a great deal about Rumbi and her views towards
working with A-Ievel students and teachers. Teaching in the classroom was not
very problematic. Students needed chances to talk, but if a student was wrong,
she would correct the apparent mistake. Thus, she approached teacher and
student Ieaming quite differently. Teachers are older and more educated. Their
ideas needed respect. Even if a teacher did make a mistake, she suggested that
she would find a way around it. Rumbi suggested that she must be careful when
helping colleagues Ieam. She did not want to be the dictator when working with
teachers. She wanted to respect their ideas and avoid conflicts. Rumbi was
focusing on the particular demands of working with colleagues and sharing, but
she was not thinking about how this would help them Ieam more about student
Ieaming and teaching. In her work at the workshops, she shared, but she also
took a telling stance at times. Rumbi was changing in some respects, but she
was also unaware that she was not changing in other respects. This left her in-

between in her path to becoming a teacher educator as well as a teacher.

Summary
Rumbi is a good example of a teacher in the process of changing in a

country that was still very conservative in its teaching. She was in-between as a
teacher and as a teacher educator. What was most interesting about Rumbi was
that she was rethinking her teaching. Like many teachers, she could have
continued lecturing and teaching in the old ways that she had experienced both
as a student in Zimbabwe and in the US. However, she decided to change her

teaching and to try new ways of working with teachers and students. In part, due

147

to SEITT, she was thinking about student-centered Ieaming and about having
students participate in discussing biological concepts in groups. She indicated
that this was quite different. However, she was only using part of student-
centered Ieaming while not using other elements. There is no easy explanation
for this. Partly, it is because of Rumbi’s conception of the A-Ievel examination.
She felt that the examination required students to gain abilities to synthesize
ideas and apply them. She believed that through the group work, she was
successful in helping the students in this respect. In her view, though, the
examination remained central to Ieaming and not the students. The materials on
the examination were the authorized facts. Rumbi herself had not begun to think

about how this knowledge was created and by whom.

It must be pointed out that the project did not provide the opportunities for
her to delve into these aspects of her teacher’s knowledge. The project, rather,
had provided opportunities to Ieam new activities for the classroom and for work

with other teachers.

This may be the key reason why Rumbi also was in-between in becoming
a teacher educator. Unlike the role of teacher, this role of teacher educator or
resource teacher, was new to her. She had Ieamed about ways to organize
workshops and had participated in residential periods in which she worked
closely with teachers Ieaming about the work of resource teachers and doing
some of this new work. However, she did not have many opportunities to think
about how to work with her peers. She reflected on working with peers in my

interviews and knew that she did not want to be a dictator. She wanted to share

148

with her colleagues as equals, but she had not thought about what that might
encompass and how her sharing might be limited. She had not made these
opportunities educative so that they might help shape her identity as a teacher

educator.

In summary, Rumbi was connecting to the SEITT project In some ways
and not in others. It was not just a matter of Rumbi deciding to pick up on active
Ieaming activities because that was what she wanted. Rather, Rumbi did adopt
these activities because they were presented in such a way that Rumbi could find
a way to use them. Though Rumbi did not decide to participate in SEITT to help
teachers, she did Ieam to carry out the workshops using new activities and new
ways of interacting with peers. Her Ieaming in the project was due to an
interaction between what she brought to the project and the opportunities she

had in the project.

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CHAPTER 5 TENDAI: A TECHNICIAN WITH PEERS

I felt that I was lagging behind. The last time I did some schooling was
1987...So I just decided that I needed to do something. I didn’t know what
was in store. I just thought maybe it could take me somewhere out of the
classroom. That is what I thought initially (int-1, July 11, 1997).

Tendai the Learner
In this quote, Tendai's desire to get out of teaching seems to

influence what he decided to Ieam while a participant in the project. Thus, before
examining Tendai’s past experiences and participation in SEITT, we need to look

more closely at his motivation to participate in SEITT.

Motivation to Participate in SEITT
Tendai's belief that that he was lagging behind his colleagues influenced

not only his desire to join SEITT but what he decided to Ieam in the project.
Tendai decided to participate in SEITT because he was lagging behind. This
lagging behind takes two forms. First, he felt that he needed more education and
he was hoping to get more education as he did when he entered the B.Ed
program in 1987. The B.Ed. gave him the qualifications to teach A-level biology.
Second, he felt like he was lagging behind his classmates who had attended the
B.Ed. program. He suggested that most of them had moved out of the A-Ievel
classroom into other jobs. In this case, lagging behind referred to the fact that he

was still teaching A-level and receiving less money than his classmates:

I will remain in teaching if I get a promotion to a lecturer in a teachers college.
The one thing, maybe which irks me, is there are these guys which I went to
college with, we obtained the same degree, they are in teachers colleges. In
terms of remuneration, they are far ahead of me, so that puts me off. So if I

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stay in the Ministry, 1 will stay if I am promoted. But right now I have started
doing a different course [academic course], which is out of teaching with the
intention of maybe this position. There are problems, remuneration wise and
so-forth. So within the next five years I can’t really say. I have those two
options--to go or to stay, if there is a promotion (int-1, July 11, 1997).

The “different course" that Tendai referred to was not in teaching or
education. He was trying to gain computer skills in order to work in the private
sector. If he does not find a job in a teachers training college, he will leave
teaching altogether. The quote above suggests that one of the main reasons he
had for leaving A-level teaching was because he was not making the money that

his former classmates were now earning. He wanted more money and a

promotion.

The financial costs and benefits of teaching were no longer balanced for
Tendai. As he pointed out, his friends had moved up in position and were
receiving more money while he saw himself as stagnating. To Tendai, the time
spent implementing new strategies did not warrant the costs. Recalling The
Stages of Concern Model presented in Chapter 1, Tendai was gaining
information at the 0 INFORMATIONAL level, but at the next level of 1
PERSONAL, he seemed to be viewing the strategies as not worth the trouble to

implement (Hord et al., 1987, p. 31).

This is viewed as the practicality ethic of teachers (Doyle & Ponder, 1977-
78; Fullan, 1991). Fullan (1991, p. 129) suggests that when teachers balance
costs and benefits, money is a small part. Tendai, however, indicated that money

was very important:

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I think when I joined I was very keen to help students, and I would make sure,
I would prepare thoroughly for my students. And I was very keen to help my
students pass exams. But over the years, things have changed. I need to
admit, I am not very keen about that. And it could be the conditions in which
we are working. In terms of remuneration, I think it has tended to make me
not work as hard as I used to. It has something to do with the remuneration
(int-2, Sept 1997).

At the time of entering SEITT, Tendai had reached a stage in his teaching
career where he was losing interest. He is not unlike many other teachers who
reach this point where they want out of teaching and want something new
(Huberman, 1989a). Huberrnan indicates that after 12-20 years of teaching,
some teachers have a “midlife crisis" in teaching (1995, p. 199). In Zimbabwe,

this crisis could be accentuated by the poor economic conditions of the country.

Since teachers were civil servants, their salaries remained fairly low.

The above quote also implied that the quality of students had changed.
Teaching was not as easy as it used to be. Tendai talked about why he was not

very "keen“ about teaching at A-Ievel:

It is maybe because of the type of student we are having nowadays. They are
no longer keen. If I compare myself and how I used to work with them, the
type of student we are having you have to push him, to do school work.
Because of that, the remuneration point and the attitude of students, I think
my teaching has worsened, l have to admit (int-2, September 26, 1997).

As Tendai talked about his beginnings in teaching, he also mentioned
helping students pass examinations. Since more students are now getting into A-
levels than when he started, their marks on the O-level examinations are not as

high as they used to be. Teaching now may, indeed, require the teacher to think

more about the diversity of Ieamers and their backgrounds. Tendai may be more

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confident teaching to the examination than to the students. This is not to
underplay the conditions of teaching, especially the salary of teachers. It is low.
But in Tendai’s case, the conditions take on great importance. As we examine

Tendai the Ieamer, his comparison of himself with others remains a key concern.

Educational Background
Tendai attended primary and secondary mission schools through A-Ievel

and then studied at a teachers training college. After teaching several years, he
attended a one-year B.Ed. course at the University of Zimbabwe. This B.Ed.
course aimed to provide science and mathematics teachers with the knowledge

to teach at A-Ievel.
When asked why he became a teacher, Tendai laughed and responded:

I did my A-Ievel and I didn’t qualify for the University of Zimbabwe. Then, at
that time, I just thought of the option of going to teachers college. My family
also wanted me to become a teacher. Because at that time, 1980, we hadn’t
been exposed to many careers. So I had to opt for teaching (int-1, July 11).

In 1980, the year of independence for Zimbabwe, educational
opportunities were limited for Zimbabweans and the student openings at the
University were few. Instead of the university, Tendai went to a teachers training

college.

Tendai had been teaching biology for around fourteen years before
entering the SEITT project. He had taught at a variety of school types: one year
at a rural school, two years at a rural church school, and since 1989 at a former

A-school in an urban area. Here he was head of the science department.

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Prior Experiences and Beliefs
Tendai remembered little about his early experiences as a young student

in Zimbabwe. What stood out was the separation of his Ieaming of pedagogy and

subject matter. They were Ieamed at different times in different places.

Limited talk on experiences
Tendai became interested in biology in secondary school with a teacher

who “made the subject interesting.” This teacher influenced Tendai to pursue
biology. In Tendai’s words, “It is because of her that I decided, maybe, to pursue
a biology subject, at teacher college, at university. It was maybe from her. I liked
the way she taught" (int-2, September 1997). However, when asked to elaborate
on what this teacher did in the class, he only remembered that the activities were
excellent, but he was not specific. In the interviews with Tendai, he consistently
did not take these opportunities to talk about his teaching. This was particularly
true when talking about teaching and Ieaming. When the topic concerned what
he perceived as problems, such as remuneration or different jobs, he did talk in

much more detail. He did not seem to think deeply about teaching and Ieaming.

Learning pedagogy in college
Tendai suggested that he gained his pedagogy in teachers training

college. The course was three years long, with the first and second years at the
college. The third year he went out for practice teaching in a school at the

beginning of the year and in the final term he returned to the college. During his
one year of student teaching, he was the teacher in charge of the class. He was
supposed to have a teacher at the school to whom he could talk for support, but

at this time in Zimbabwe, there was a shortage of teachers and all the teachers

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had heavy loads. In addition, at the secondary level, many teachers were former
primary teachers who were unqualified to teach at the secondary level. Thus,
Tendai probably had very little support from within the school. From his college, a
lecturer did come out to observe him teaching one time. But Tendai said, “He just
came once because we were very many and they and you can imagine visiting
all the students scattered throughout the country“ (int-2, September 26, 1997).

Thus, he was on his own for the one year.

Tendai said, though, that the teachers training college provided him with
the methodology to teach. He indicated that lecturers did talk specifically about

active Ieaming; however, they conveyed their ideas through lectures:

We discussed active Ieaming during our theory and the instructors expected
us to carry it out in the field. It was mostly theory. We discussed it. Very little
modeling (int-2, September 1997).

The lecturers talked about theories of education, but they did not model
the teaching. Even when Tendai was out doing his practice teaching, he had little
support in his teaching. This problem with role models and support at teachers
training colleges is a trend which continues in teachers colleges in Zimbabwe in

the 90’s (Nagel, 1992).

Yet, Tendai suggested that it was at the teachers training college that he
Ieamed to teach. He said, “In terms of methodology and so forth, I think most of
the things we discussed at college (int-2, September 1997). Since methodology
was discussed in the college, Tendai assumed that he had Ieamed the

methodology to teach.

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Tendai did not talk in depth about the teachers training program and
activities that he participated in. At times I did probe in order to gain a better
understanding of Tendai’s views of teaching and Ieaming. For example, when he
was talking about the teachers training college, I asked him, “What about
interactive Ieaming?“ This is when he mentioned the discussion of theory in the

college.

The teaching methods that he picked up seemed to have been transmitted
by the teachers training college faculty to the students. He also said about
college, “The main stress was more on the methodology of teaching than the
subject itself. Although I had done the subject through A-level, here the new
situation I was in was Ieaming to become a teacher or something like that“ (int-2,
September 26, 1997). This is the only time he mentioned subject matter
knowledge with the teachers training college. Instead, subject matter knowledge

he associated with the B.Ed. program at the University of Zimbabwe.

Biology content from the B. Ed. program
After graduating from the teachers training college, Tendai started

teaching. Two years later, he entered the B.Ed. program at the University of
Zimbabwe full-time for one year. When I asked him about the B.Ed. program, his
first remark was, “The first thing I have to comment on is the time spent. It was
sort of a crash course“ (int-2 September 26, 1997). He elaborated by saying that
the classes were from 8:00 until 4:30 everyday. Thus, he started by talking about
the problems associated with the course more than about the content and form of

the program. He added that the course provided the participants the content to

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teach at A-level. He said of this, “It is more adding to the content, to prepare for
teaching A-level” (int-2, September 1997). I asked for more detail about this
course. Specifically, I asked, “What about the methodology?" and Tendai's
response was, "They mixed. I remember we used to do a lot of practicals.” Once
again, he provided a short answer to a question concerning teaching. Yet, Tendai
suggested that the B.Ed. provided the subject matter knowledge to teach at A-

level.

Conceptions of Teaching Biology: Taking Old Examinations
While Tendai talked about methodology and subject matter knowledge as

gained in professional education opportunities, his starting point when thinking
about Ieaming and teaching was the educational system and the examination.

Tendai said of education in Zimbabwe:

The system of education we use we classify our students according to
intellectual ability, the idea that they came to do form six because they
passed some exams somewhere due to their intellectual ability. So I think
that, in itself, makes it one of the reasons that they either pass or fail. You
can’t have someone who has failed. I don’t think you will do much with him to
make him pass. There is this saying that you can take the horse to the river
but you can’t make it drink. He is poor, you know he is poor. I don’t think you
will be able to do miracles on that person who has obtained Fs throughout. A
student has to have high intellectual ability. Then the teacher comes in with
his effective methods (int-1, July 1997).

This particular quote includes many aspects of Tendai's views about
teaching and Ieaming. It starts with the educational system in Zimbabwe but also
includes the examination and the ability of the students. The quote suggests that
the examination system sorts students and that the students who get to A-Ievel

have “high intellectual ability“. Tendai implied that students' abilities do not

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change over time and that teachers cannot alter them. Teachers can only help a

student to some predetermined level.

Tendai’s role was to help students reach this level as determined by the A-
level examination. Doing well on the examination was in the forefront. Tendai
viewed student success as, “passing the exam because that is why they
[students] are here“ (int-1, July 1997). He indicated that using past examinations
in the classroom helped the students prepare for the A-level examinations that

came at the end of two years in A-level:

We are preparing them for an exam, so you need to expose them to the style
of exam, the style of marking and so forth. That is why I believe you use past
exam papers, to expose them, to make them familiar with what will come (int-
1, July 1997).
Passing the examination is the goal and a central path is practicing on old
examinations. In this view, the students arrived at A-level ready to Ieam to take
the A-Ievel examination. As I will demonstrate, Tendai’s role was to expose the

students to the examination in order to make them familiar with it and to provide

the correct answers that the students should know.

What Tendai said about the examination and preparing for it is
corroborated in his classroom. I observed two lecture days and one practical or
laboratory and all were focused on examinations. These observations were in

July and the students had only been in A-Ievel since April.

Tendai focused on correct answers on past examinations. He went over

the exams to find out the correct answers and to Ieam how the examinations had

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been graded by examiners. For example, on July 8‘", students were answering
questions on homework. Tendai read one question concerning the temperatures
at which some enzymes worked best. Tendai asked students the answers to the
questions. A student answered, but Tendai was not satisfied and asked the
whole class for another answer. Tendai then told them the answer he wanted
and spent four minutes giving details. Tendai asked another student the next
question and this student read the answer from the textbook. Tendai responded
with, “His point is good” and then provided his own answer, which was the
examination's answer. Tendai went through the test and asked the students the

answers, but he was looking for the answers that fit the old examination.

Tendai also pointed out how many points a question was worth. After one
question, Tendai replied, “You need to increase the concentration of enzymes to
provide active centers. If you answered along these lines, it is two marks” (obs-1,
July 8, 1997). On another day when they went over a different examination from
June 1996, Tendai pointed out, “Make point allocation as a guide” (July 11,
1997). The A-Ievel examination papers include the number of points each
question is worth. So when he said, “Make point allocation as a guide“, he was
suggesting the students look at the allocation and provide that number of
answers. For example, the 1996 biological science examination asked students
to, “Explain how a fish ventilates its gills.“ Following the question was “[5]“ to
indicate that the answer was worth five points. This means that five answers

were needed. Marking scales for these examinations were also available and

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these actually indicated what answers would be accepted. The old examination

papers can guide a teacher by providing the answers and points allocated.

However, this particular class was in July, and the students had only been
studying A-Ievel for three months. Already, they were writing mock examinations.
While using past examinations can help students understand the format of an
examination as well as the concepts, it also depends on how the teacher
approaches the questions. In Tendai’s case, he was looking for the correct

answers from old examinations and did not elaborate on the concepts involved.

This focus on examinations was also evident during the lab day on July
9"“. The lab experiment was from an old examination. From my fieldnotes, I noted
the problems that students had using the laboratory equipment. In this class,
Tendai read the procedure and instructions aloud to the students while they sat
at their desks. Then he sent them to the tables where each one was working
alone. Right away most of the students did not know what to do. The students
were expected to cut up a potato, put it into a tube and then add some
chemicals. Many students were not cutting but looking around. Tendai got angry
with students falling behind and said, “What are you doing? There is a syringe to
measure. You can’t tell without measuring“. One boy at a comer table pressed
the cork into the tube and broke the tube. He hid the broken glass and tried to
figure out a way to go ahead. He did not ask for help. Tendai eventually came
over and discovered the broken tube and gave the student a different cork and
piece of glass tubing. In my notes, I noted that the students seemed to be having

a great deal of difficulty with this practicum.

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Tendai wanted the students to use the equipment but only told them what
to do. He read the instructions from the original examination from beginning to
end. He did not demonstrate and work with the students in groups or individually.
He seemed to expect that, after the students heard the instructions one time,
they would be able to use the equipment effectively. He thought that telling would
suffice. When asked why he did not have the students work in groups in the

practical, Tendai responded:

During an exam, it is best to expose them to that from the beginning. Later
during the practical, I thought like there was a problem. I put two together and
I found it very effective. I had not anticipated the problems we had. One idea
behind that is that when students do the practical examination, they will do it
on their own (int-1, July 11, 1997).

Although the examination was still one and a half years away, Tendai
wanted his students to prepare for the examination by working alone to simulate
the examination conditions. Despite the fact that these students were new to A-
level, Tendai had not anticipated students having problems doing the experiment.
Tendai was not drawing on his pedagogical content knowledge of how students
understand biology. If he did, he might have anticipated from past years that
students might have troubles working with glass tubing, burners and chemicals.

Again, Tendai did not consider the Ieaming styles of students when carrying out

a class.

The examination also played a significant role in how Tendai evaluated
student Ieaming. Tendai implied that tests, in general, were the only real way to

measure student Ieaming:

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The only alternative is that you could just look at the students and tell if they
understood or not, but that could not be the true thing. But by you giving them
a test they are providing feedback and you can use that. Oral types don’t
include everybody... but if it is a test, everybody is going to have a test, you
get results (int-1, July 11, 1997).

Tendai relied on a limited set of ways to understand student Ieaming. He
felt that he could use testing or watching students. From a test, he could get
results. Testing was fair, whereas looking at students in the class might not
provide a true account of the students' Ieaming. Tests, to Tendai, were fair
because everyone was doing the same thing and “results“ were the outcome.
Tendai seemed to want the results of tests to evaluate students. He did not talk

about processes of Ieaming, but of results.

Tendai was aware that his professional education experiences had not
prepared him to find other ways of helping students. Tendai thought that he had
not had the opportunity in his own Ieaming to experiment with different types of
teaching. Tendai said, “It is difficult for us teachers to come up with our own
questions. That could be the other thing. The majority of us are not trained with

coming up with the question items” (int-1, July 1997).

In this statement, he focused on writing examination questions as a skill
that he did not Ieam. Tendai did not see himself as prepared to deviate from past
examinations and the questions on them. He did not talk about how his
professional education had or had not prepared him to ask students questions
about biology. It was the examination that he was most concerned with, and he

did not think that his own professional education had prepared him to create his

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own material. Tendai thought of himself as a transmitter of knowledge as

expressed in past examinations and their correct answers.

It is important to make a distinction between his focus on correct answers
on past examinations and the A-Ievel syllabus in general. The A-Ievel syllabus
does elaborate on important concepts to Ieam. A teacher could use it as guide in
deciding what to teach. Tendai, however, used past examinations and their
answers in his teaching. He did not seem to encourage students to think deeply
about the biological concepts and how they were connected to the students’ lives
and futures, as SEITT espoused. It was not that he was not aware of biology in
the students’ lives, because he said about student success, " Firstly, passing the
exam because that is why they are here and then it could be, maybe, in life what
they do" (int-1 July 11, 1997). Tendai was aware that students needed the
concepts and ideas in biology for living in Zimbabwe. He just did not make this

link in the classroom. One reason might be his own way of Ieaming.

Tendai’s Views of His Own Learning
As we have already seen, Tendai did not talk a great deal about Ieaming.

However, we know that he separated methodology from subject matter content.
In his classes, he also saw his role as transmitting knowledge. When Tendai
talked about his Ieaming in SEITT, he did suggest that he acquired facts through
lectures and shared ideas through discussions, “The mode of delivery was
mostly lecture, lecture talk. But during our discussions during residential period, it
provided me with alternatives“ (int-1, July 1997). The mode of delivery by SEITT

staff in the residential periods was multifaceted, but Tendai focused on the

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lecture aspect for new facts or information. He associated the lecture with new
ideas and facts. The discussions helped him think about and exchange ideas

around the facts.

His past experiences as a student and in professional development were
very lecture-oriented. He went through A-Ievel in Zimbabwe, a system that
includes tests along the way. In most classes, the teacher lectured to the
students. Even in the teachers training college, Tendai indicated that the
lecturers talked about active Ieaming, but it was not modeled. He had few past
experiences with active Ieaming. However, the SEITT project did provide
opportunities for him to become involved in Ieaming and to organize Ieaming for

other teachers.

Learning Opportunities for Tendai in the Project
In the project, Tendai, like Rumbi, had opportunities to Ieam more about

teaching and teacher education. He was involved in activities both during the
residential periods as well as the periods between the residential periods when
the resource teachers had assignments. However, he did not attend many
meetings outside of the residential periods and was not a liaison person, as
Rumbi was. This made sense since he did not plan on being involved in the
SMCs. Tendai made it clear that he was not going to work at the SMC. “From the
look of things I will not be involved...right now I can foresee a problem. The
whole thing hinges on money. If you don’t get anything, I doubt whether you will

be interested“ (int-1, July 11, 1997).

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Tendai did not connect his current studies in SEITT with work at the SMC.
Rather, as already explained, he wanted to work as a lecturer in a teachers
training college or in private industry. Thus, in the project, Tendai's Ieaming

touched on the classroom but was much more centered on teacher education.

Sharing and Thinking about Alternatives in the Classroom
While Tendai was not teaching differently, he was thinking about how

teaching could be different in the classroom. In SEI'IT, he was able to interact

with other A-Ievel teachers and share ideas:

When you interact with their colleagues, especially those in your subject area,
you could be having problems alone so when you meet others you share
ideas and you ask from them how to go about getting your students to Ieam
(int-1, July 1997)

Through talking with teachers and participating in SEITT, Tendai was
aware of alternative views of teaching. SEITT provided opportunities for teachers
to talk about Ieaming. Tendai stated that he wanted to improve students’
Ieaming, but his specific concern was with problems that he might have as a
teacher. When teachers think of collegiality as assistance, such as in Tendai’s
case, Little (1990b) suggests that this does not necessarily help teachers to
rethink their teaching and purposes. Little says, “...teachers carefully preserve
the boundary between offering advice when asked and interfering in unwarranted
ways in another teacher‘s work“ (p. 515). Talking about problems and how to
overcome them may not lead to changing ways of thinking about student

Ieaming. When the focus is on problems and solutions, then the teachers will

want to acquire skills or knowledge to address those problems. Long-term

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relationships based on inquiry into one’s views of teaching and Ieaming may not

be of immediate interest to such teachers.

Tendai also seemed to maintain a view of teaching as telling. For Tendai,
"getting your students to Ieam“ could mean how to tell the students in different
ways or how to organize Ieaming differently. From what we have seen of Tendai,
he was more interested in the former--telling the students in different ways. The
activities that he Ieamed at SEITT might not fit with his teaching in the classroom.
If he wanted the students to remember the facts and scoring from past
examinations, new Ieamer-centered activities might not be that helpful. On the
other hand, SEITT provided opportunities to work with other teachers and to
Ieam to use new activities with them. This role was not as teacher but as

resource teacher.

Learning to Facilitate Workshops: From Participant to Facilitator
During the third residential period, the resource teachers studied how to

facilitate workshops in their regions where the participants were other A-level
science teachers. In this residential period, Tendai Ieamed to facilitate the
ecology workshop. However, at the two workshops at the SMCs, he facilitated
the genetic engineering theme. He switched because he and Rumbi were in the
same region and they decided to do the genetic engineering for the workshops.
This meant that Tendai had organized and practiced the ecology workshop in the
residential period, but he actually facilitated the genetic engineering workshop in
his region. The ecology group’s main activity was a case study discussed in

groups while the genetic engineering group worked on paper models and

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discussed the limitations and advantages of this. Thus, Tendai essentially had to

Ieam to carry out two different workshops.

Facilitating feedback in the ecology group
During the rehearsal of the ecology workshop at the third residential

period, Tendai’s role was to lead the discussion after the groups had discussed

the Quelea bird problem.

In the case study on Quelea,18 the participants acted as senior pest
control officers. The officers’ job was to decide whom to help and why among
three requests to exterminate Quelea. One request came from a subsistence
farmer, one came from a local field officer from the Crop Protection Department
who located Quelea in the area of a Government Development Scheme, and one

came from a member of the Bird Control Unit of the government.

The actual question was, “You may only respond to one of these requests
[for help to exterminate Quelea] because time and resources are limited. Which
one do you choose?" The instructions also asked them to consider the reliability
of information and the most needy request. Then the activity sheet said, “When
you have made your choice prepare a report which justifies the decision and

explains your proposed course of action.“

Before Tendai facilitated the feedback session, another resource teacher
introduced the case and started the group discussions. She asked the

participants to read the instructions individually for five minutes, discuss in pairs

 

‘8 See Appendix F for more information on the case study on Quelea.

167

for five minutes, and then, in two groups, to reach a decision. This discussion

took twenty-five minutes.

Tendai led the feedback session that covered twenty minutes and

included the reports of two groups. Tendai started the session with:

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. What I want to do now is have a report
back from each group. Each comes up and tells us what course of action they
would take. So if we could start with group one for their report (transcripts of
video from May 1, 1997).

After a representative of this group reported, Tendai said, “This group
came up with attending to request two. If we could have a representative of
group 2 come up.“ Then a representative of group two presented that group’s

findings. Tendai summarized this group’s response:

Request two is first, then in terms of pest control, you could have 1 or 3... I
think we are in agreement that the course of action we would take would be to
assist the request for 2.

Here, Tendai put forth request 2 as the correct answer. This was also the
answer that the case study suggested should be first attended to. In this way,
Tendai summarized ideas and reached the conclusion quickly. He did not probe
into the answers. He controlled the flow of the ideas. However, following Tendai's
last remark, a participant initiated the following exchange that did examine the

requests more closely:

Resource teacher 3: The first request is where conflicts will arise. The chief
inspector decides. What conflicts with this one?

Tendai: He wonders what conflicts if request attended to first?

Resource teacher 2: They might think it is political factors.

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Tendai: Political factors. Request two belongs to some government
organizations. That could be a problem.

Resource teacher 4: But we are not told who the farmer is. He might be a
councilor of the ruling party.

Resource teacher 2: Yes, but we can not assume what we are not told. If we
are not told we can come up with other.

Tendai: We could say because these people... so I think assistance should be
given to them first. I think it is better to give help to those who are trying to
help themselves. But what about his family. The family he has to feed?

Resource teacher 4: Another assumption [all laugh]

Once this discussion of problems associated with the choice began,
Tendai rephrased participants’ ideas and promoted discussion. This occurred

when he said, "He wonders what ..." and “That could be a problem.“

After this brief discussion, Tendai concluded this part of the rehearsal by
saying, "The first two [groups] are the ones to address after looking at the

parameters we examined. So I think request 2 is most likely to be the one.“

In this rehearsal, Tendai took on several roles. He rephrased ideas and
encouraged discussions. On the other hand, he seemed to try to end the
discussion before conflicting ideas were presented. It was only after someone
suggested that there were possible conflicts that Tendai continued the
discussion. As in his teaching, he seemed to want to reach the answer and finish

the discussion.

With the ecology group, Tendai helped organize and led a part of the

group's rehearsal. He was actively involved in putting this together. On the other

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hand, he was only a participant in the genetic engineering topic at the residential

period. He did not take a leading role in this group’s preparation.

Learning from participating in the genetic engineering workshop
Tendai had four opportunities to be a participant in Ieaming Genetic

Engineering-- during the first week when the activity was introduced, at a lecture,
when the lesson plan was presented and at the rehearsal. During the first week,
a University of Zimbabwe faculty member lectured to all the biology resource
teachers on genetic engineering. Tendai was present at this lecture. He was also
a participant when the SEITT staff introduced the DNA model, he was a "student“
in the lesson plan presentation, and he took the role of an A-level teacher in the

workshop rehearsal.

When Tendai carried out the genetic engineering workshops in his region,
one of his main roles was to lecture on genetic engineering and to facilitate the
following activity. Thus, it is important to see what the rehearsal of the genetic

engineering looked like.

In the genetic engineering rehearsal, the resource teacher who lectured
on genetic engineering also spent a fair amount of time going over concepts with
the participants. This resource teacher said, “Now together we want to list down
as many terms related to genetic engineering. What are some terms?“ He then
wrote the terms that the “students“ came up with (video transcription of
rehearsal, May 1, 1997). The participants came up with many different words that
they had Ieamed in the lecture by the faculty member. Some of these included

vector, plasmids, sticky ends, and carrier. After listing these terms, the resource

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teacher lectured on Genetic Engineering. This lecture took thirteen minutes and
was on the construction of recombinant DNA. The resource teacher suggested

that genetic engineering was difficult because it was abstract:

Genetic engineering is one of the most difficult fields of engineering because
of the nature itself. When you are looking at engineering, you are taking the
abstract into the practical. But genetic engineering is so difficult to imagine
because something will be cut in a cell and connected to another in a cell. So
how then is this done? We are going to discuss this together. The techniques
of cutting and joining of genes. The other problem is how do we teach this
abstract concept to our students? How do we expect them to do it? (rp3, May
1997)

The resource teacher then used overheads and explained an instance of
genetic engineering in making insulin, much as the University lecturer had done
the week before. After the lecture, another resource teacher in the genetic
engineering group led the activity of recombining DNA. This activity also used
paper models and involved cutting a piece from one paper gene and attaching it
to another. The participants discussed the advantages and disadvantages of

using this model with students.

This whole activity turned out to be confusing to the participants. The
instructions on how to cut the pieces of paper and attach them to other pieces
was unclear. Twenty minutes after given the activity, the resource teacher asked,
“Did you manage to answer the questions? How would this model help the
Ieamer understand Genetic Engineering?“ The participants said “No“. One
added, “After finishing the model, we forgot about the question“ (transcript, May

1, 1997).

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After the group finished the workshop rehearsal, there was a feedback
session on what needed to be changed. One comment was, “There was a
problem with the instructions. We need to make the instructions easier to
understand. The way they are there is a need to improve the instructions.“ After
the rehearsal was completed, this group got together and rewrote the
instructions. For example, in the rehearsal the participants had to cut out pieces
of paper according to the following instructions to make plasmids or pieces of
DNA: "Take a piece of lined A4 paper and divide it lengthwise into 10 strips each
2cm wide. Mark each strip as in the diagram below...“ For the workshop, these
strips of paper were already cut and marked. The participants could focus on
cutting and reconnecting strips rather than making the strips. In this way, most of

the adjustments made the model easier to work with.

Carrying Out Workshops
Tendai carried out two workshops in his region with Rumbi. Both

workshops were supposed to have three activities, but each time they finished
only two. The three parts were: construction of DNA-RNA models, lecture and
activity on genetic engineering, and a case study on applications of genetic

engineering.

In the two workshops, Tendai tried to promote sharing with the teachers
who participated, and he focused on how these activities could be used in the
classroom. Yet, as this section will show, while doing this, at times he intervened

in order to reach the answers.

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Sharing around the classroom
In both workshops, one of Tendai’s responsibilities was to give a lecture to

introduce aspects of genetic engineering. For most of the participants, this
seemed to be a new topic because genetic engineering was not a core topic for

A-level.

Like Rumbi, Tendai emphasized the sharing and the classroom function of

the activity saying:

I am going to share ideas with you on the principles of recombinant DNA.
Later there will be an exercise on an activity to use in your school. First,
briefly over genetic engineering.

At the second workshop, he started with:

This is genetic engineering, ladies and gentlemen. We will look at principles
of genetic engineering. I am not an expert, but just want to help each other. I
will give a short lecture, then another activity, then look at report back
session.

In both of these introductory remarks, he avoided being the expert. In the
first, he talked about sharing ideas, and in the second he stated that he was not
an expert. Both introductions included a reference to activities as central to the

workshops.

The first introduction mentioned the use of the activity in the classroom.
Tendai also referred to the classroom several times in the workshops. For

example, after his lecture at the first workshop, he said:

The next thing is activity step 1 and step 2 on Activity Sheet 2. We are going
to genetically engineer some insulin using paper models. You can do with
your students. Go back to groups and we will issue out materials.

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Tendai suggested that this activity could be used with students. In this
activity, the participants cutout pieces of a gene and recombined the pieces as a
simulation of what really happens in the world of genetics. The questions on the
activity sheet were: How would this recombinant DNA model structure help your
Ieamers to understand a) The DNA recombinant technology; b) Genetic

engineering?

After this activity, a plenary of all the biology participants discussed what
each group found. The following discussion also indicates that Tendai was

connecting the activity to the classroom:

Group 1 representative: Models simplify reality. For me, this model reinforces the
idea that DNA is the most important element in genetic engineering

Tendai: Do you think that this is appropriate for a six form class [second year A-
levefl?

Rumbi: Yes I do. It is cheap, challenging, practical and reinforces.

Tendai: Would you use it after covering genetic engineering to reinforce?

(All heads shaking up and down.)

Tendai asked questions that connected the activity to the classroom. He
asked about the appropriateness of the activity and when they would use this
activity. In this way, he was connecting the workshop content with the
participants’ own classrooms. At the second workshop, Tendai again asked how
the DNA-RNA models could be used in class. He initiated this discussion with,
“Do you think this type of model is appropriate for A-Ievel? I am interested to hear

the views of colleagues.“ The following exchange occurred:

Teacher 1: Yes and no. Yes it gives a reasonable picture and is easier to
remember this way than in the book. It provides a visual representation.
Teacher 2: Maybe, but childish for them.

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Teacher 4: For an introduction, it is good. There is more detailed structure.
Rumbi: It also helps to see how DNA-RNA are composed. Start with this model
and on the exam students won't miss the question on composition; ribose sugar
versus deoxyribose sugar.

Teacher 1: It takes time to prepare. If you give it to me, I will use it.

Teacher 4: If you ask students to make their own models, the results could be
interesting.

Rumbi: One copy for you, then the students can improve.

The discussion focused on the classroom and how this model could and
could not be used. Tendai actually took a hands-off role in this discussion, with
the teachers doing the talking. Tendai let the ideas emerge in the discussion.
However, he did not probe the teachers’ responses to try to find out in more
detail what the teachers meant. For example, what did the teacher mean when
he/she said that “the results could be interesting.“ Or why did one teacher say
the model was childish? Specific ideas were left unexamined. There were also

times when Tendai seemed to end discussion, as the next section argues.

Answers and time
While Tendai did promote questions and participants’ ideas, he also

intervened a few times and ended the participants’ active roles. Tendai’s general
view of facilitating a workshop was to organize the activities and then stand back.
Since the participants were doing an activity, Tendai did not want to interfere. But
when he saw things moving slowly, he took action. Tendai said of these
activities:

I remember at one time I was working on the papers to hand out and Rumbi

came to me to say why don’t I go help that group. Initially, I thought it was an
activity and I shouldn’t be organizing things. (int-1, July 1997).

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Tendai did not think that he should be involved in the activities. He let the
participants come up with their own answers. Activities were what the
participants were doing and he, as facilitator, should not be involved in their
discussions. He may have viewed the times when he stood up front as his times
and the times when the participants were working on an activity as the time for

the participants to work without the facilitator.

However, there were several times when Tendai did step in, and these
were often when Tendai viewed time as a factor. Once in the second workshop,

he started providing the answers that he expected to hear:

By the time they came up with their group presentations, most of the things
were said in the groups because we had become part of the groups rather
than for us to have waited and then we could have come in with additions.
During the discussions we sometimes provided some of the answers rather
than providing the answers themselves. It is just like a teacher going to
discussion where students are discussing and you provide the answers (int-1,
July 1997).

He provided the answers before the participants had the opportunity to

come up with their own ideas. He also remembered an incident when he saw a

lagging group and talked to them like students:

I remember one thing at the second workshop. We were very far behind time,
and there was one point when Rumbi was leading the first session and I kept
on saying to her she is not looking at her time. And then I found one group
behind. They hadn’t recorded anything for discussion. I said, “How come you
are still waiting? You should have gone over the questions.“ That incident in
itself is how I would do with my students (int-1, July 1997).

From my fieldnotes, I found that initially the participants were talking about

the paper models but not applying them to the boards. Tendai came over and

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started sticking the paper models onto the board. The participants were handing
him the paper models to apply. Thus, this activity, which was supposed to be a
group activity in which the participants Ieamed about making models, turned into

a demonstration in which Tendai was just trying to get the activity finished.

In these cases, Tendai seemed more interested in getting the activities
completed than in having the participants exchange ideas. The activities needed
to be completed and, to that end, he provided assistance. It might also be argued
that if the participants were far behind, the facilitator needed to make sure that
the participants covered the content of the workshop. While this is true, the
facilitator also needed to assist the participants in their Ieaming so that they did
not get stuck. However, we have already seen that when the teachers were
doing activities, Tendai did not want to get involved. His vision of what and how
teachers should Ieam seemed undeveloped. Activities were activities and he did
not see how the discussions helped the teachers think about teaching and
Ieaming. These activities were for providing answers at the feedback sessions.
When Tendai talked about the resource teacher and his/her role, this view also

arose.

View of a Resource Teacher
Tendai seemed to view a resource teacher as an organizer. When Tendai

talked about the role of the resource teacher, he mentioned ways in which the
resource teacher could organize workshops and not specifically ways of
promoting teacher Ieaming. Tendai said of a resource teacher, “A resource

teacher needs commitment, preparedness and organization“ (int-2, September

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1997). These qualities describe in broad terms what a resource teacher might do.
Tendai did organize meetings and prepare and lead a workshop. However, the
qualities are not ones that describe how a resource teacher would work closely
with other teachers. For example, how would a resource teacher encourage
teachers to think about their own educational experiences? How would a
resource teacher promote constructivist Ieaming? These skills and knowledge

were not part of his conception of a resource teacher.

What Does Tendai Make of the Project?
Tendai wanted out of teaching at A-level and was looking for a position

teaching in a teachers training college or in private industry. He hoped that his
participation in the project might prove to be a step towards that aim. Since he
did not plan on teaching much more, he did not focus a great deal on how this
Ieaming opportunity could help in the classroom. Additionally, since he did not
plan on working in the SMCs as a resource teacher, he did not talk a great deal
about being a resource teacher and that work. Instead, in this Ieaming
opportunity, he seemed to take away what he could use as a teacher educator.
While resource teachers and teacher educators might both teach other teachers,
he did make a distinction between them. The latter works in SMCs. and the

former works in teachers training colleges or in the ministry.

Teacher Education: A Narrow Facilitator Role
Since Tendai wanted to become a teacher educator, He seemed to pay

more attention to how the project could help him in this role. Tendai essentially

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Ieamed how to carry out both the genetic engineering and the ecology

workshops.

In the role of feedback facilitator, Tendai encouraged ideas and listened to
the participants’ ideas. This was a new role that Tendai might easily transfer to
teacher education. In the SEITT residential periods, SEITT faculty members
often used it. In this role, the facilitator took a distinctive role in promoting the
discussion. He/she stood in the front leading the group. This facilitating role might
not differ a great deal between topics. For Tendai, it involved summarizing
respondents’ ideas, repeating ideas and reaching a conclusion. Thus, though
Tendai had practiced doing an ecology workshop, he was still able to use similar
facilitating skills to do the genetic engineering workshop. These teaching
behaviors are not specific to biology but are general and could be used by
teachers in most subjects. These were part of his general pedagogical

knowledge (Borko & Putnam, 1995).

This role of facilitator was also connected to Tendai’s views of teaching
and Ieaming. The subject matter or new information came from the facilitator in
the form of telling. The activities, such as making paper models and discussing,
were opportunities for the participants to accomplish a task. Tendai’s role was to
let them accomplish the task and to intervene when necessary to make sure the
task was completed. In this way, subject matter was transmitted through telling
and the activity was a time to share and come up with a response for the
feedback session. Tendai did not grasp that the participants’ ideas, developed

while doing the task, could also be part of understanding subject matter. Hence,

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the way in which he carried out the workshop was similar to his lab experiment in
his class. He wanted the students to finish the lab and he did not seem that

interested in the process of doing the experiment.

Concern with Facts
Participating in SEITT did not change Tendai and his view of knowledge.

While he seemed confident of his knowledge for teaching students, he became
concerned about how other teachers would view his knowledge and how it
qualified him to be a resource teacher. To Tendai, authority rested in the
examination answers in the classroom. He believed that he had more knowledge
than the students in his own classroom and was not worried about being
questioned there. In the classroom, he controlled the flow of information. As he

said in the interview in July about the workshop and discussions:

During the discussions, we sometimes provided some of the answers rather
than providing the answers themselves. It is just like a teacher going to
discussion where students are discussing and you provide the answers.

Teachers provide the answers. However, he was concerned about how

colleagues would view his subject matter knowledge:

Doing a workshop is with colleagues and there is the danger of treating them
like you treat your students. That is the major thing I find different between the
two. You may be lacking content that your colleagues, who are participants in
the workshop, have. That could create, they might question how this one
became a facilitator if he lacks content (int-1 July 1997).

In the workshops with teachers, A-Ievel examinations were not the focus.
Yet, he suggested that he was concerned about his knowledge of content

compared to other teachers. He did not want his colleagues to feel that he was

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not qualified to be a resource teacher because he did not have the subject matter

content.

Though he had opportunities to be a facilitator with other teachers and to
take on roles of telling, organizing groups and facilitating feedback sessions, his
concern remained around content knowledge. This is despite the fact that in a
workshop he made it clear that he was not an expert, but a facilitator. It may be
that his past experiences as a student, in which teachers were always telling,
continued to frame his thinking of what a teacher or teacher educator does. In
addition, he wanted out of teaching and did not want to put in time Ieaming new

activities to use in the classroom.

Lagging Behind
What Tendai decided to Ieam from participating in the project seemed

linked to his desire to get out of teaching. Connected to this lagging behind was
his lack of interest in teaching and trying new approaches. It is difficult to say
which caused which. Did his lack of interest in teaching result in a feeling of
lagging behind his friends or did his lagging behind produce a lack of interest in
teaching? It is clear, however, that together they were barriers to his using

SEITr’s ideas in his classes.

On the other hand, he focused on Ieaming about becoming a teacher
educator. He wanted to become a teacher educator. Many of the responsibilities
of a resource teacher were similar to those of a teacher educator. The work
around organizing a workshop, particularly, was similar to working with teachers.

Tendai, however, did not view the resource teacher role at the SMC as a step

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towards that goal. He seemed to believe that when he received his diploma his
work with SEITT would be completed. He hoped that his participation in the
project would be enough to get him out of teaching and into a new job. This may
be similar to the way that attending the teachers training college got him into
teaching and the B.Ed. program was the step towards A-level teaching. Finishing
SEITT may be the next step to a new position in the educational system. As he
said, "I thought, maybe, this diploma, I didn’t know much about it, I just thought

maybe it could take me somewhere out of the classroom“ (int-1, July 11, 1997).

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CHAPTER 6 BATSIRAI: REFINING TEACHING AND DEVELOPING AN
AWARENESS OF COLLEGIAL TENSIONS

Batsirai was a teacher who was already incorporating the ideas of SEITT
and constructivist Ieaming into his teaching before participating in the project. As
this chapter will illustrate, he was probing students for their ideas, he was using
group work in which the results were further probed, and he connected their
biology Ieaming to life in Zimbabwe. Many of these strategies and views of
Ieaming could be connected to his own experiences as a Ieamer. For Batsirai,
the project was an opportunity to refine his practice as well as to Ieam more
about working with teachers. Like Tendai and Rumbi, Batsirai studied how to
organize a workshop and carried one out in his region. However, Batsirai’s
concern with his work as a resource teacher was less connected to the form and
content of the workshop and more focused on relationships with the teachers and
how to nurture them while avoiding conflict. Examining Batsirai as a Ieamer and
his Ieaming opportunities in the project helps us to understand why he refined his
teaching and worried about constructing and sustaining relationships with

teachers.

Batsirai the Learner
With Tendai and Rumbi, quotations worked well in highlighting how they

viewed their educational experiences and beliefs around Ieaming in SEITT.
Because Batsirai already had such a student-focused teaching practice, his

conceptions of his practice and examples will paint a clearer picture of who

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Batsirai was as a teacher as well as a Ieamer. Thus, below I link his practice with
his conceptions of teaching and Ieaming. This is followed by Batsirai’s
educational background and how it seemed to influence his views and practice of

teaching.

Conceptions of Learning and Teaching: Motivating Students to Learn
At the heart of Batsirai's ideas about teaching and Ieaming was his belief

in the importance of motivating students to Ieam. This view emerged when he
talked about the source of student success. In the survey I gave at the third
residential period, Batsirai indicated that the source of student success was
student intellectual ability. Whereas most respondents connected this student
intellectual ability to an internal factor in students, Batsirai was different. He
explained that student intellectual ability had to do with the students’ exposure to
Ieaming. The teacher needed to consider what areas of the country students
came from, because the quality of teaching in schools was different. A student
from a poor district school would have less exposure to concepts in biology than
a student at a mission school. Batsirai felt that it was his responsibility to find out
what students knew and did not know and to build on that. He said about the

source of student intellectual ability:

I think it is more exposure, which may be part of the environment. It is what
they have experienced, maybe before we started teaching them at A-level. It
is very important because some of them come from different backgrounds,
they come from different schools, they come from different homes, and what
they have seen so far actually influences the way they respond to practicals
and even the theory of education (int-1, June 27, 1997).

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As a motivator, Batsirai thought he must find out about the students and
what they already knew about the topics. How did he begin to do this? This
connection to motivation started outside the classroom. He realized that students
had lives outside of school and the teacher needed Ieam about what the students

were doing and what they were interested in. In Batsirai’s words:

One way of finding ways to motivate them is to interact with the students, so
that you know what interests them at what stage of development. I think we
need to interact with the students so we know what they like, their fashion, the
stories they are talking about, life and maybe some of their expectations. I
think those are some of the ways of finding out how to motivate them. If you
start with something very abstract and talk about a spaceship and they don‘t
know one and everything becomes bleak and they start to withdraw and that
is it (int-1, June 27, 1997).

Batsirai was aware of the need to know whom he was working with, to
know what interested the students. He was concerned with knowing his Ieamers
and what they knew, so that he could start with that point as he taught. Though
Batsirai called this motivation, it was also a part of his general pedagogical
content knowledge, specifically his knowledge of Ieamers and his view that

leamers' prior knowledge needs to be a part of the Ieaming process (Borko &

Putnam, 1995).

For Batsirai, knowing what the students did outside of school in their

everyday lives was also important.

You have to start from what they do so you have to know what is fashionable
for them during that time. And if you go to them you start at the right level and
off they go. They say, “Ah, he knows this way.“ You have this friendly
atmosphere and then you can even introduce these foreign skills and they
can master them and they know, “Ah, we can start here from where we are
and then here“(int-1, June 27, 1997).

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Batsirai was trying to build a Ieaming environment in his class to promote
Ieaming. With this environment in place, Batsirai could let the students take on
more responsibility for their own Ieaming. Batsirai viewed students taking on this

responsibility as part of student-centered Ieaming:

Student-centered Ieaming, to me it implies the student is actually directing his
or her own Ieaming process. In other words, the student has to be in control,
one. And the teacher has to design teaching methods which will involve the
students, in the sense that the students have something to do and the teacher
not doing a lot of things. So I think student-centered means the student has to
be involved in the Ieaming process. The student has to do something instead
of just sitting and listening to what the teacher says (int-2, August 1, 1997).

In such a class, Batsirai expected the students to work after class to study
the concepts in depth and probe more into the class discussions. Batsirai
expected students to take notes during the class as well as textbook notes after
school. Batsirai said of these two types of notes, “They [students] have to
integrate the two. In class we scratch the surface and give them direction” (int-1,
June 27, 1997). Batsirai said that the students needed to spend time after school

and to read in-depth those areas touched on in class.

In addition, Batsirai promoted group work, in which the students took on
responsibilities in helping each other Ieam. Groups were more than a way to
rearrange students; they were a way for students to probe each other’s thinking.

Batsirai said of groups:

Sometimes one student might get stuck with a problem and then you [the
teacher] sit there and don't know what to do. So if they are in a group, we
assume that one of them will kick off and open the minds of the others and
they will start to see where they are supposed to go and maybe if they do that

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they start sharing ideas and even those who thought they had no idea about
solving the problem start opening up and enter the discussion (int-1, June 27,
1997)

This concept of group work endorsed the view that students would Ieam
from each other. Even the students who initially had no ideas might, in this
environment, begin to come up with their own ideas to share. It was the students’

own thinking that was being used. What did this group work look like?

On June 27, Batsirai had the students use paper models to demonstrate
how enzymes could breakdown a substrate. The students received paper models
of substrates and enzymes. The students had to do two different activities in
groups. First, they had phrases that described what was happening and they had
to place these in the correct location around the paper models of substrates and
enzymes. Some phrases were “two substances produced“, "molecule of
substance“, and “active site“. The students worked on this in groups and Batsirai
walked around the room checking progress on the model. He did not give
answers, but asked questions, such as “Why did you put that phrase next to
active site?“ Then, Batsirai wrote on the board two questions: 1) How does the
model differ from the real enzyme molecules and 2) How are the processes

illustrated by models different from the real enzymatic reactions?

After time for discussion, he asked representatives from two groups to
come up and write their answers. The student for the first question wrote three
answers: 1) real enzymes are in 3-D shape, whereas the models are in 2-D; 2)

real enzymes can change shape to accommodate the substrate; and 3) real

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enzymes are globular. After looking at the answers, Batsirai asked for other
differences. When there were no responses, Batsirai added that size was
different: real enzymes are smaller than the model. While Batsirai added his one
answer to the students’ list, by examining the students' answers he was also
confirming that the student-generated answers were important. This was slightly
different than Rumbi’s use of students’ answers. Rumbi supplied the complete

answer whereas Batsirai merely added to the student-generated list.

On the previous day, Batsirai also used group work that led to a
discussion on students' understanding of a concept. After talking about enzymes
and how they change the rate of chemical reactions, Batsirai said, “Now take ten
minutes and look at the general properties of enzymes in the tables. Have the
group secretary write. Write general properties.“ The students moved into groups
and were talking and taking notes. Batsirai then asked one group to write down
its answers on the board and the other groups to add comments. One student
wrote his group's answers on the board. The list included denatured by heat,
effective in small amounts, each enzyme has a specific pH at which it can
catalyze, are not affected by chemical reactions, protein in nature, and action

specific substrate.

After talking about the first answer, this student said, “The second speaks
for itself.“ There was laughter and Batsirai asked, “Can someone in the group
help?“ One of the group members started to answer but she had trouble
explaining. Batsirai asked for more help and a student answered, “A small

amount of enzyme works on a large amount of substrate.“ Then another student

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said, "I don’t understand.“ Batsirai took another direction to help the students

understand. The following conversation occurred:

Batsirai: How about everyday life. How many students do we have in class?
Student: 22

Batsirai: OK, 22. If the number exceeds 40, we need 2 biology teachers. One A-
level teacher can teach up to 20 students. I should demand more money. But a
small amount of enzyme will work on large number of substrate.

In this part of the class, the students worked in groups and the ideas on
the board were used to see what ideas students might be confused about. While
the student had written “effective in small amounts“, there appeared to be
confusion on what that meant. Rather than provide an answer, Batsirai asked
other students for help and found that there were some problems in
understanding. Again, rather than give the answer, he used a metaphor
connected to school to make his point. He was constantly drawing on the

students’ ideas from the group discussions and using alternative methods to help

the students understand the ideas.

In addition to group work that drew on students’ work and ideas, Batsirai
also motivated the students by bringing the local context into his classes. He
connected topics to the students’ lives. The use of stories in Batsirai’s teaching, a
technique one of his own secondary teachers used, was one of the powerful
tools for helping his students connect to the subject matter. Following is a two-
way story he used to draw the students in as participants in an introduction to the
topic of enzymes. The story stimulated the students to think about mediators in
everyday life and how enzymes are a type of mediator in the body (ob-2, June

26,1997»

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Batsirai: Freedom fighters fought Smith. Freedom fighters won the war. But what
was in between? Who were in between?

Student 1: The heroes, the mujiba [males who helped the freedom fighters] and
chimbwido [females who helped the freedom fighters];

Batsirai: I was away from 1975-79; l disappeared. Do you also still write letters
asking favors? Put letters in textbooks and hope the person will find it. Is this still
happening? (Laughter with some saying yes and some no.) For example, if C
wants to communicate to D. They might come across each other. If C has no
guts, what does he do?

Student 2: Sends someone.

Batsirai: Right, let’s say G. What do we call G in English? Or in French?
Student 3: Messenger

Student 4: Mediator, go between

Batsirai: Is it a bad thing in everyday life?

(Some students say yes and some no.)

Student 5: It helps.

Batsirai: If G helps, it is OK if G doesn’t fall for C. Or until the problem comes
back. What if you have a problem with mom or father? What do you do?
Student 6: Go through mother to make father aware.

Batsirai: If I go to my father, I might get kicked. So need to go through someone
else. Where do they go in our culture?

Student 8: To tete [aunt from fathers side)]

Batsirai: To correct aunt... (laughter) to work out differences. In everyday life,
people go between to solve problems, so there is peace. Also look at
biochemical reaction in same manner. Life, community, society. Biochemical
reactions need aunts and go between. In biochemical reactions, who are major
actors? (writes on board, BIOCHEMICAL REACTION, ENZYMES)

This use of a story was both historically based as well as linked to the new
topic: enzymes. It was not just a story for the sake of a story. The story drew on
students’ knowledge of the war of independence, society and a scientific
concept. Batsirai was trying to connect a Zimbabwean situation with a scientific

concept

This story was not just told and left. Later in this class, Batsirai referred to
this story again saying, “One enzyme, one substrate. Back to mujiba. They can’t

go to Zaire and do the same.”

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Batsirai’s students also testified to the power of Batsirai’s stories. They
indicated that the examples in society he brought up related to the concepts. One
student said, “He is not the same as other teachers. He gives examples in
society related to the concepts he is talking about.” Another responded, “The
examples are very practical. Things are realistic.” A third added, “He links

everyday society to concepts. In the end we get the overall picture.”

Batsirai taught in a way that drew on what the students knew and allowed
the students to interact. He enacted his view of student-centered Ieaming with
the student as central. Batsirai’s view of Ieaming in his classes also connected to

how he Ieamed as a student.

Batsirai talked directly about how he Ieamed. He stated that he Ieamed

best through doing things and talking about them:

I Ieamed by doing things and talking about things because I remember we
had lots of arguments at school. Our hostel was notorious for noise at form 1-
4 because we used to form groups and say talk about Maths, school work,
social issues. So discussing and doing things was best for me (int-3, Sept. 18,
1997)

In this quote, Batsirai suggested that he Ieamed best by doing and talking
with others. In the next section, Batsirai's experiences in school are examined
and we see that he did have many opportunities to participate in and talk about

science.

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Educational Background

Overview
Batsirai attended mission schools in Zimbabwe through O-Ievel and went

to Australia for his matriculation year and B.Sc. He describes his matriculation
year as equivalent to the A-level in Zimbabwe. He earned his B.Sc. in Zoology in
1982 in Australia and retumed to Zimbabwe where he had been assigned to
work in the Parks Division. He did not want this job, so asked what other work
was available. He was sent into teaching. He enjoyed teaching. After teaching for
two years, he applied to the two-year part-time Postgraduate Certificate in
Education (PGCE) program at the University of Zimbabwe and eamed his

certification”.

Batsirai had been teaching biology for around fourteen years when he
began to participate in the SEITT project. He had taught at a poor rural district
school for nine years before changing to a rural mission boarding school. At this
school, the students lived in dormitories, as did most of the teachers. Batsirai
lived on campus. He was head of the science department, soccer coach, and a

house tutor, a role in which he helped students with their studies in the evenings.

Doing and talking
In Batsirai’s experiences of education up to college, there were many

instances of his doing science and talking science. In secondary school in

Zimbabwe, Batsirai served as a lab assistant and made charts and apparatus.

 

:9 Teachers who earned a B.Sc. degree had to earn a PGCE if they wanted to
continue teaching. ‘

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He did things. Batsirai talked about his teachers providing opportunities for him to

become involved in science in secondary school:

They tried to help us see or get an interest in science. There were lots of
experiments, group experiments and individual experiments. And also the fact
that when they saw that I was one of the students interested in science, the
teachers started to use us [students] as lab assistants to make apparatus and
charts. That gave us more hands on (int-3, September 18, 1997).

As a student, he was involved in science. He was exposed to group work
and experiments. In addition, he actually constructed equipment. He commented
about one teacher at O-Ievel, “He was very practical-oriented, student-centered,
solving problems, and all sorts of what we call natural teaching. Not using

textbooks. He could use ordinary life in his teaching“ (int-2, August, 1997).

Batsirai added that in form 3 and 4 of secondary school20 his mathematics
teacher told stories about history and current events to help connect the world to
the t0pics in the classroom. These stories helped Batsirai remember school work

so Batsirai thought that he would include such stories in his own classes.

Batsirai also discussed issues with other students. In Zimbabwe in lower
secondary, he remembered talking with friends at night. He said, “I remember we
had lots of arguments at school. Our hostel was notorious for noise at form 1-4.
We used to form groups and talk about mathematics, school work, and social

issues. So discussing and doing things was best from me“ (int-3, 1997).

 

2° Lower secondary school be an after standard 5 and consisted of Form 1,2,3,
and 4. Form 3 and 4 are the 0 years before A-Ievel.

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Batsirai’s experiences in Australia provided him an opportunity to continue
Ieaming in groups, as well as to take responsibility for his own Ieaming. He said
that the Australian education, at that time, was student-centered (int-2, August 1,

1997). About the matriculation21 year, he explained:

 

2‘ Batsirai talked about the matriculation year as equivalent to A-Ievel in .
Zimbabwe. Though It was only one year, he suggested that it did prepare hrm
for the unrversrty.

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The school was experimenting with an independent style of Ieaming.
Students were given guidelines to follow and then they were expected to
study and Ieam on their own, and going to the teacher for confirmation that
they had Ieamed the material (int-3, September 18, 1997).

This style was quite different from the style he was used to in Zimbabwe.
Of this experience, he added, “So when I started it was a bit unusual, but after a

few weeks I got used to it because we got into small groups.”

This matriculation year presented Batsirai with a very different perspective
on both teaching and Ieaming. The teacher was not standing in front teaching.
Instead, the students were expected to Ieam the material on their own and in
groups. The students talked to the teacher when they had trouble understanding

ideas or when they wanted to check their understanding.

Acquiring subject matter: University and professional education
Batsirai actually talked very little about his university and professional

education. When asked about his experiences in the university in Australia and
the PGCE program in Zimbabwe, he talked about the matriculation year. When I
asked him if the university program was similar to the matriculation year he said
that it was not. “The university was just like all universities. These lectures and
then three hour practicals. The matriculation was more student-centered“ (int-3,

September 18, 1997).

I asked him specifically about the PGCE program and he mentioned
motivation. “It was part-time. I think what stands out is ways of motivating
students. We had one lecturer who advised us on how to motivate students so

that they get interested“ (int-3, September 18, 1997). Here again he spoke of

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"motivating students“ rather than his own motivation. He said of one teacher,
"She was young and energetic. She would jump around and remind us of what
we should do in the classroom to motivate students and prepare the lessons“.
Though he did not provide details, his idea of motivating students was one
aspect of his student-focused perspective that permeated his view of teaching. In
the PGCE, this was what he also remembered. Batsirai added though, that most
of his pedagogy came from his matriculation year, that is, through his own
apprenticeship of observation. He said, “The PGCE and university education
helped me with the subject content at A-level; but on the methodology, it was

matriculation that influenced me" (int-3, September 18, 1997).

Batsirai’s early school experiences provided him with opportunities
to engage in his own Ieaming. In Zimbabwe, he worked in groups, carried out
experiments, constructed equipment, and solved problems. In Australia, the
matriculation year was, in Batsirai’s own words, student-centered. At this time, he
continued to take responsibility for his own Ieaming. Teachers did not lecture.
Rather students studied science independently and in groups and talked to
teachers to clarify their ideas or to check their Ieaming. His early experiences as
a student and his matriculation year helped to shape his view of teaching and
Ieaming that incorporated the concept of a Ieaming environment for students to
Ieam and think about their ideas. These views are illustrated in the vignettes in
his classroom. Batsirai was a teacher who used many constructivist ideas in his
own classroom. If we used the Stages of Concern model to examine where he

was located, it would be at 6 REFOCUSING because he was using constructivist

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ideas and finding new ways to improve them (Hord et al., 1987). Additionally,
Batsirai suggested that one reason he decided to participate in SEITT was to

work with other teachers in thinking about how students Ieam.

Reasons to Participate In SEITT
Batsirai indicated that he decided to participate in SEITT so that he could

interact with other teachers and become a better teacher:

I just wanted to work with other teachers. I enjoy working with other teachers.
When we work together we exchange ideas, we exchange problems, and I
think, maybe, that will make me a better teacher so my students will pass at
the end. I think that is it (int-2, August 1, 1997).

Among these three resource teachers, only Batsirai included working with
teachers as a reason for participating in the project. Batsirai wanted to share and
work with others as he did in his own education both in Zimbabwe and in

Australia. He wanted more contact with teachers.

. Batsirai hoped to work with teachers, improve his teaching and help his
students pass the A-level. Batsirai connected his teaching with students doing
well on the exam. He understood that his teaching influenced the students’
ieaming. He was very much concerned with his students doing well on the
examination and Ieaming biology, as his inclusion of “will pass at the end“
suggested. Batsirai saw a clear link between his students’ success in biology and
his own professional development, which could be informed through working with
other teachers. Rumbi, Tendai and Batsirai all wanted their students to do well on

the examinations. However, when talking about student leaning, Batsirai did not

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focus exclusively on the examination and tests as Rumbi and Tendai did. Batsirai

also considered the students’ ideas and how they arrived at these ideas.

Learning for Batsirai in the Project
What Batsirai decided to Ieam from the project seemed to have less to do

with the explicit aims of SEITT-training resource teachers to take charge of
SMCs and organize workshops-and more to do with his current needs as a
teacher and a potential teacher educator. While he did Ieam how to organize and
carry out a workshop, he also became more aware of ways to refine his practice
and of potential problems connected to working with peers. I start by describing
how he refined his beliefs about practice in the classroom and then examine

what he Ieamed about doing workshops and the issue of working with peers.

Refining Beliefs and Practice
Batsirai indicated that SEITT helped him refine what he was then doing in

the classroom. Before participating in SEITT, Batsirai was already using many
strategies that SEI'I'I' espoused. For example, in one of his classes, students
worked in groups using paper models of enzymes to understand how these
enzymes functioned. This was similar to a SEITT strategy. Batsirai indicated that
he had been using these paper models for two years. “I made them myself. This

is my second year and I also use it at lower forms“ (int-1, June 27 1997).

Nevertheless, Batsirai felt that SEITT provided him new insights into
Ieamers and how they differ. In one residential period, a SEITT staff member
made a distinction between problems and tasks. The instructor explained that

problems were situations in which the answer was not known and the students

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needed to find the answer. On the other hand, tasks were routines that did not
involve solving a real problem, but merely finding out what the teacher already

knew.
Batsirai said of this:

I was made aware of things that I had taken for granted. What is a problem to
one child may not be a problem to another. So I have to be very careful when
I give them work to do (int-3, September 1997).

We have already seen that Batsirai tried to construct an environment in
which students could work with their ideas together and in groups. This
presentation by a SEITT staff member stimulated Batsirai to reevaluate how the
activities he used in his classes also need to be considered as the students might
conceive of them--as tasks or problems. This interview came near the end of my
stay in Zimbabwe and after the residential period when this problem-task
differentiation was introduced. However, during this residential period much more
on curriculum design was presented. Nonetheless, Batsirai grabbed onto this
idea because he felt that it could improve his teaching practice. This Ieaming
about the difference between problems and tasks was not a specific teaching

behavior but a perspective on teaching. It refined his current practice.

Participating in SEITT also helped Batsirai re-focus on the students and

their Ieaming. Batsirai said:

I think the SEITT program has helped me focus on the student-centered
methods of teaching that we need to use a lot of them. I was trying to use
them but sometimes I would ask myself, “I have a syllabus to cover.“ Each
time I feel that I may be lagging behind I would do away with student-centered
methods because they are time consuming and I would use the rush rush

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method, lecture, lecture, lecture. You cover more ground and then, maybe,
when I know that I am comfortable, I would go back. But now, I think, I have
Ieamed that if I use more of the student-centered method, I know that it is
slow, but eventually I think that the students will gain more because they will
be involved in doing things. So I think the SEl'l'l’ program has reminded me
that we have to, even if I am behind the syllabus, I should use a lot of these
student-centered methods and also the problem solving part of it. So the
students are involved in the thinking process not in recording (int-1, June
1997)

The above statement reflects a view of the importance of keeping students
involved in the Ieaming process. SElTT’s focus on student-centered Ieaming
converged with Batsirai’s and supported his own efforts at providing students the
time to work together and Ieam. Parts of this quote, actually, might have come
from Tendai or Rumbi. All three of them mentioned the importance of student-
centered Ieaming. However, Batsirai did not just talk about the time that student-
centered Ieaming activities need. He also talked about involving the students in
the “thinking process,“ something that SEITT talked about but did not model.
Batsirai understood that students needed that opportunity and time to think about

biology.

At this point in his teaching career, Batsirai was focusing on ways of fine-
tuning his teaching. Burden (1990) summarizes research on stage theories of
development that point out this readiness at different times in a teaching career

to focus on different teaching concerns:

In general, teachers in the early stages need much assistance with the
technical skills of teaching and would benefit most from a highly structured,
directive staff-development program. Practical information and application
would be most useful. Teachers who are a little more advanced
developmentally would seek information to add variety to their teaching and
would prefer a collaborative approach to staff development and supervision.
Teachers at the highest developmental levels would focus on more complex

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and crosscutting concems and would prefer more team types of
arrangements and staff-development programs that are non-directive (p.
323)

Batsirai’s needs at this point in his teaching career were less on technical
skills and more on finding ways to help students Ieam. He was doing more than
adding variety; he was concerned with helping students think and Ieam. This
fine-tuning of a distinction between tasks and problems fit into and even

strengthens his way of thinking about teaching and Ieaming.

Batsirai was reminded that the students needed to be solving problems
and thinking, even if it took time. While Rumbi faced a similar problem about time
and group work, she was different than Batsirai in one important respect. Rumbi
was not using activities in the same way as Batsirai. In Rumbi’s class, the
students talked in groups but the responses were not pursued. In Batsirai’s class,
the students’ answers were used for further Ieaming. The students ideas were
used for understanding the concepts. It was not that Rumbi did not try to involve
the students more. Rather, her past experiences in school and in professional
development did not provide the opportunities to use the activities in class as
Batsirai had. In Batsirai’s past, he had helped construct biology material, he had
discussed science with friends, and he had heard stories connecting science to
everyday life. In a sense, Rumbi and Batsirai were ready to Ieam different

aspects of teaching and Ieaming.

However, the workshop was something new to Batsirai. Like Tendai and

Rumbi, he was also stepping into new territory.

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Workshops: Organizing Activities and Thinking about Colleagues
In the third residential period, the focus was on organizing and practicing a

workshop that would be carried out in the regions. Like Tendai and Rumbi,
Batsirai Ieamed the details of putting together and carrying out a workshop in the
region. As this section will show, he also conceived of this role as a technical
activity of following the schedule. However, as he worked on this activity in the

residential period, he became aware of problems of working with teachers.

Learning to do a workshop: Peer tension
Batsirai and Tendai participated in the same group during the third

residential period. Both were part of the ecology group. The residential period
provided Batsirai the opportunity to work with other teachers around creating and
organizing a workshop. While Batsirai did carry away the finished format of the
workshop to conduct in his region, he also became aware of tensions involved

with working with peers.

In Residential Period Three, he helped prepare the lesson plan, organize
the workshop, and took part in the rehearsal. In this rehearsal, the group
introduced ecology and used wordwebbing, a strategy Ieamed in the residential
period, to find out what the participants associated with the word “human
activities.“ Then the group led a case study of the problem of Quelea birds and
their influence on the environment. The group used the answers from the Quelea
case study to investigate how answers could be marked on an A-Ievel
examination. This was an activity to Ieam how to write a marking scheme or to

decide on how many points for each answer. After each section, there were also

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feedback sessions to hear from the participants how the rehearsal could be

improved.

Batsirai’s specific role was to lead the word webbing activity. He wrote
"HUMAN ACTIVITIES“ on a large paper and asked the participants to suggest
effects on the environment. He had the participants work on this individually and
then asked them to share their answers in groups. During this time, he and the
other members of the group walked around to see how the participants were
doing. Then Batsirai asked the groups to report their findings. The presentations
by the groups were fairly rushed with Batsirai writing the ideas on the board.

Without discussing the ideas that were written on the board, Batsirai said:

We are mainly interested in agriculture, so we would like to focus our
attention on man, in terms of what he does. We need to go to the pesticides
to see what these pesticides are used for and after that the effects on the
environment.

I The next person in the ecology group took over to introduce the case
study. Batsirai’s participation as a facilitator was limited in the rehearsal and he
really did not interact a great deal with the groups. He gave directions and wrote
the group’s answers on the board. He did not lead a discussion of the answers.
However, after the ecology group finished the rehearsal, the members gathered
and revised their handouts and schedule. These revised documents were what

they used at the biology workshops in the regions.

While the residential period provided Batsirai the opportunity to work

through the rehearsal and develop a workshop schedule, working with the other

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resource teachers made him aware of potential problems of working with other

teachers. He talked about working with resource teachers:

I have Ieamed to be tolerant. I Ieamed to be tolerant to other people’s views
and to be accommodating because it was very tricky. Sometimes you think,
“Ah, I don’t care about other people“, but you have to work with them and you
have to accommodate them even if there are, let’s say, personal differences
and you don’t agree totally with what they say or do but they are very
emotional and this and what not. You have to accommodate them. This has
taught me to be very tolerant, especially in discussions (int-1, June 27, 1997).

Batsirai talked about being tolerant of other resource teachers’ ideas and

accommodating them. He suggested that this was particularly true in

 

discussions. He added that this was also true with working with the resource

teachers in his region when organizing the workshops and setting up the SMC:

Even at the resource center when we are having meetings, when we are
organizing, when we were organizing this workshop and maybe talking about
those group reports that we write...And when we give each other
responsibilities, like you do that, you do that and I do that. You find one of the
RTs lagging behind; they are dragging their feet so you have to find a way of
saying, “Hey, can we go ahead.“ Otherwise we won't finish, so we have to
minimize friction.

Again, Batsirai talked about minimizing friction with other resource
teachers when working on assignments in the regions. In this same interview,

Batsirai also talked about the problems of working with colleagues in his own

schook

That interaction with the RTs also has a bearing on the way of running the
science department at my school. I am the head of the department and, just
like interacting with your peers, assisting teachers in a department can give
the same problems as with other RTs. You are interacting with your peers; it
is almost the same. So that has helped me to smoothen out the differences
even with my own teachers in the department.

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At this time, I did not probe this answer, but when I sent the case study for
Batsirai to respond to, I also asked him about working with teachers in his school.
He sent back two written pages describing a specific incident with a new teacher
who, it seemed, wanted his position as head of the department. In the science
department, this teacher talked about how other schools were running their
science departments and complained about Batsirai’s school. Batsirai wrote, "I
listened to a lot of his stories and tried to inform him about the unique problems
at every school." However, this teacher began to bypass Batsirai and talked to
the headmaster and deputy headmaster on issues, such as ordering equipment
and books. He also reported tea time discussions to the headmaster. Batsirai
wrote, “Despite all this, I continued to work and relate to the teacher as if nothing
was happening between him and myself.“ As conditions worsened, Batsirai
considered quitting. "At one time, I actually wanted to leave the school, but for
the sake of the A-level exam class I had, I stopped and opted to adjust to the
conditions of working with an assistant teacher who hates me as a person.“
Batsirai, then added that this teacher attended the SEITT workshop and began to
change. “After this he came to me and opened up to me the benefits of the
workshop. Slowly this teacher is fitting into the department which I think is a

healthy situation. If I had left the school, maybe this would not have happened.“

In this situation, Batsirai’s patience and avoidance of confrontation
seemed to have paid off since the teacher, according to Batsirai, began to fit into

the department. Batsirai’s laid back way of handling the situation was successful

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in helping this teacher become a part of the department. Batsirai, as we will see,

also used this “wait and see“ attitude in his work with other teachers.

Organizing activities in a workshop
Batsirai’s workshop followed the rehearsal closely, although he did not

have enough time to discuss how the Quelea case study might be used for
checking marks on the examination. In carrying out the workshop, Batsirai went

through the steps that he had practiced in the residential period.

Batsirai was the only biology resource teacher in his region and thus had
full responsibility for running the Ecology workshop. Batsirai, similar to Rumbi
and Tendai, also linked the topic to the syllabus. After handing out the materials

with the activity sheets, Batsirai linked the topic to the syllabus:

OK on page three are the aims. (He reads them). Ecology is part of the core
syllabus. Most of the overlap of ecology and the option is in agriculture. From
the syllabus, the areas that highlighted are these... (workshop, July, 1997).

Batsirai then read the parts on the syllabus. One teacher pulled out a
syllabus that he had brought with him and looked at that. Batsirai linked the

content of the workshop to a specific option on the syllabus.

Batsirai also made it clear at the beginning that he was a colleague and
not a deliverer of knowledge. He emphasized the need to share ideas and
exchange views. In Batsirai’s words, “I am not here to deliver the goods but to
share and to talk about problems we face. We should assist each other on these
activities“ (workshop, July 1997). He used wordwebbing to introduce the Quelea

case study; however, he changed the phrased from “Human Activities“ to a

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phrase more closely connected to the topic of the case study, “Crop Production

and Effects on the Environment.“

Through this word webbing, one of the words that the participants came
up with was “pests.“ He asked them to provide examples, and the Quelea bird
was named. Batsirai then introduced the case study concerning the Quelea and
its destruction. Within the case study, he followed the rehearsal quite closely. He
introduced snowballing, where a pair begin discussing the case and then two
pairs get together to talk and then two groups are formed to discuss the
questions. As the groups discussed, Batsirai played a passive role. Batsirai
walked around and listened to the discussions, but he did not try to direct them.

He let the ideas emerge from the discussions without interjecting his view.

After the two groups had discussed for thirty minutes, Batsirai asked the
groups to present their results and justifications. Batsirai provided each group
with some large pieces of paper and a marker so that they could write down their
findings. Each group had a representative present the group’s findings in about
ten minutes. After these presentations, it was one o’clock, the time for the
workshop to finish. Batsirai ended the workshop rather abruptly saying, “I hope
you use this approach in your school. I have Ieamed a lot from you. I hope you
come again.“ There was no discussion on how the participants might use a case

study in their own classes.

As in the rehearsal, he did not discuss the feedback session itself. Batsirai
played a rather technical role of deciding when activities started and stopped and

of listing ideas generated by the participants, colleagues. He did not really probe

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in to responses from the participants. This was quite different from his own
classroom where he did ask the students to explain their answers. In the

workshop, he was hesitant to really work closely with the teachers.

Learning about Teachers Versus Learning to Work with Teachers
Through working with other resource teachers in the residential period and

with teachers at the workshop, Batsirai seemed to become more aware of
teachers as Ieamers and as peers. As Ieamers, he discovered that they were
similar to students. As peers, he concluded that caution must be used in
interactions. Following is an example of an incident that made Batsirai aware of

teachers as learners.

During the workshop, Batsirai had listed on the board birds that are pests
in Zimbabwe. On the list on the board, Batsirai circled two words: Quelea and a
Shona word for Quelea. One group had included both as different pests. The

following discussion occurred:

Batsirai: How can one group put Quelea together with the Shona name and the
other put them as totally separate. How can we address this?

Teacher 1: Use one language.

Batsirai: What if I go to Binga [a western part of Zimbabwe] and talk about it.
English is not known.

Teacher 2: Bring an actual specimen.

Batsirai: Many things go by five names. A specimen would have done it. I had
hoped to bring one but...

There was a “mistake“ in language. Batsirai did not merely say, “You have
one word for Quelea in English and one in Shona. That is wrong.“ Rather Batsirai
addressed the language problem that teachers might face in school and

suggested a way to avoid such a problem--bring a specimen. In fact, Batsirai had

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contacted me and asked me if I could have someone from SEITT bring a

specimen! If that had happened, this particular situation would not have occurred.

In an interview after this workshop, Batsirai indicated that during this talk
on Quelea he felt like a teacher because his students would make the exact
same mistake. Batsirai said that this helped him realize how much teachers are

like students in their Ieaming. He said:

There was that confusion about the Shona names and English names and
when I chipped in and said, “When you are doing this with the students you
need to be very careful because some of the names could be of the same
organism.“ Now I really felt like I was more of a teacher of the students
because I often find that type of problem with students. I didn’t expect it from I
teachers (int-2, August 1997).

 

Leading the workshop put him in the position in which he began to think
about some of the problems his colleagues have around science. Batsirai
indicated that SEITT has helped him Ieam more about teachers as Ieamers. He

found that teachers and students make the same mistakes:

I think you remember when we were writing the names of birds [We wrote
Quelea in English and also in Shona as separate birds]. So even the students
do that. So for me it is an eye opener because we won't look at students as
different human beings because if students are making the same mistakes as
teachers. I think, we, as teachers, tend to say students fail because of this,
they are like this, they are like that, not knowing that we are like them
ourselves. Given the same problem we make the same mistakes (int-2,
August 1997).

Batsirai made connections between errors made by students and
teachers. He realized that mistakes in biology were not limited to students.

Teachers might make the same mistakes. Batsirai became aware of this

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similarity of students and teachers through facilitating a workshop. He was in a
context that Loucks-Horsley et al. (1998) suggest is necessary for effective
professional developmental experiences. That is, “Effective professional
development experiences use or model with teachers the strategies teachers will
use with their students“ (p. 35). By facilitating this workshop, Batsirai came to

understand that teachers and students made the same mistakes as Ieamers.

However, at this time Batsirai did not see these common mistakes as
opportunities to probe teachers as he might probe students. He suggested that
he was put into the position of a teacher by the presentation of the English and

Shona names and he did not like it:

What I did there is exactly what I do that is exactly the way I talk with
students. Only in the workshop, I said this can also happen with your own
students. I think they put me in a tight comer. I felt I was more of a teacher
than a colleague.

Batsirai expressed his concern about being put in a comer. There was a
misunderstanding and he needed to respond to it. Though he turned around the
mistake and suggested it is something they, as teachers, need to consider when
teaching their own students, he was still uncomfortable and wanted to avoid this
type of problem. He did not want to take the role of teacher with the teachers. His
conception of his new role of resource teacher did not seem to include examining
each other‘s beliefs about biology. When he was put in that position, he avoided

it by getting out of his comer.

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Batsirai’s Role in Teacher Education
Though Batsirai had become aware of mistakes that teachers make, he

did not seem to believe that this type of issue would be the substance of working
with teachers. He seemed to conceive of the new resource teacher as a provider

of materials and organizer of workshops.

At the end of the workshop in his region, Batsirai presented some sources
of materials that teachers could use. Batsirai said, “We will give you some
materials. Here at the SMC we have a book of materials for you to use. Also we
have some marking schemes for the June 1995 examination. Over lunch we can

talk about texts."

As the teachers were looking at some texts that Batsirai had brought, one
participant asked, "Can we have certain publications on options?“ and Batsirai
responded, " At my school we have these books from Cambridge, a series of 10.
They are very useful with excellent photos.“ Batsirai showed the books that he
had brought. Another participant asked, "Can you get subscription to New
Scientist?" Batsirai indicated that he could bring up the topic at the SMC’s
management committee. More teachers came up front and they all started
sharing ideas about books to use as resources, magazines to order, and kits to
use in the classroom. The participants went as a group to lunch and talked about
how the workshop had created a unique opportunity to share ideas about
resources. These teachers talked about how they might use the case study in
their classes. To Batsirai, one role of being a resource teacher meant literally a

resource person, one who identified resources for other teachers.

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In addition to being a resource person, Batsirai suggested the new role

involved organizing workshops so teachers can share ideas:

If all goes well, I think I would like to be involved more in the organization of

these workshops so that we have teachers together where they come and

discuss the issues which are pertinent to the teaching of the subject. Having

more workshops and organizing more workshops so that we can help each

other with the subject teachers in other schools. I think that would be one of

my aims (int-2, August 1997).

This interview was five months before the end of his studies in the project.

He had had many opportunities to work as a resource teacher. He had surveyed
A-level biology teachers in his region, interviewed education administrators,

worked with other resource teachers and education administrators in setting up

the SMC at a regional school, and carried out a workshop.

Now he was looking toward a role of organizing workshops to bring
teachers together to Ieam and share. His role would be that of a workshop
facilitator. He would facilitate the meetings of teachers and their discussions. This
role does not seem to include examining teachers’ thinking and conceptions of
biology. His concerns were with nurturing relationships and not colleagues’

conceptions of biology and Ieaming.

Teacher Education: Nurture Versus Conflict
Batsirai indicated that one reason he decided to participate in the SEITT

project was to work with colleagues. Batsirai talked about his own Ieaming and
how doing and talking were important. Both in his schooling in Zimbabwe and in
the matriculation year in Australia, Batsirai talked about how his Ieaming was

social. Batsirai was interested in working with teachers, but he found it involved

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tension. His concerns had less to do with the content and structure of the
workshops and more with the relationships with teachers and administrators.
Batsirai mentioned these concerns when he talked about the differences

between working with peers and with students:

I think it is dealing with peers at a workshop, people who are your equals and
what not and you have to more careful of what you say and do. With the
students, they are at a certain level and you have to guide them a lot. With
the adults at a workshop, they need to be left alone to do things and pay
attention to what they are doing. I think the students need to find out if they
are doing what is expected, whereas with the adults you assume that they
know how it is supposed to be done. The approach is almost the same in
terms of coverage of the material, like the types of activities and what not.
You can do the same at the workshop and do the same thing in class. I think
the only difference is in the way or the role of the resource teacher or the role
of the teacher in the class has to change a bit (int-1, June 1997).

Batsirai realized that the role of the resource teacher and teacher had to
change even though the content might be the same. Teachers have to be left
alone. Yet he also talked about the need to foster a relationship with colleagues

over time, in order to avoid conflict:

You need to inculcate that relationship slowly. You need to take calculations
so that you end up with a positive relationship and not a negative one
because sometimes if you start with a bang, then the other person might think
you are being showy. So I think if you do it slowly, I mean slowly find out what
they like and don’t like, so that you can work properly together (int-2, August
1997)

He spoke of nurturing a relationship. He planned on working with these
teachers for many years and did not want to appear “showy“. Whereas Rumbi
talked about “not being a dictator“ with teachers, Batsirai's actions in the

workshop meshed quite closely with his words. He was much more cautious. He

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did not provide answers or push the participants to move along. He left them

alone, so to speak. In fact, his own workshop ended without closure.

Batsirai’s concerns encompassed two aspects: conflict and nurturing.
Conflict is a common barrier mentioned in the literature. Little (1990b) discusses
the risk of conflict as a high transaction cost. Bird (1986) alludes to conflict when
he talk about mentors and their dilemma. He says of mentors, “If they assert
themselves too strongly, they will be rude or disruptive. If they assert themselves

too little or unskillfully, they will be useless“ (p. 8).

The nurturing component is less often discussed in relation to the conflict.
Feiman-Nemser and Parker (1992) seem to refer to these together when they
talk about how mentors need to be agents of change rather than just local guides
and educational companions. As agents of change, the mentors can help foster
norms of collaboration and inquiry. However, Batsirai seemed more concerned
with how to nurture teachers in an educational context, where peers have not

been critical of each other’s ideas and where his role was also new in the system.

This nurturing is not limited to the sense of caring for each other in an
emotional and supportive sense (Noddings, 1984). Rather, Batsirai’s idea of
nurturing involved building mutual trust so that an environment could be
constructed in which teachers can exchange ideas. He saw the construction of
this environment as a precursor to working with colleagues. In his classes, he
constructed such an environment, yet he encouraged divergent views. With
teachers, though, it appeared he found it much more difficult to construct this

environment.

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This concern for potential conflict also arose when Batsirai talked about
working at the centers. He was worried that the host school of the SMC might not
continue to welcome the resource teachers. The staff at the host school might
see the resource teachers as an “inconvenience” since the resource teachers will
need to go in to the office to get keys whenever they go to the SMC. This is a

type of administrative control that was feared. Batsirai said:

At the moment, what we are worried about is the resource teacher and the
host school. Are these people going to continue to welcome us the way they
are doing or are things going to change? And if there are changes, what will
happen. Now, it is OK. We are not making a lot of visits. Going once per
month or five times per month people might think, “Ah, you are bothering me“
(int-3, September 1997).

Batsirai wanted to work with teachers in the SMC, but he had concems
around relationships and maintaining them. These include relationships with the
teachers he will be sharing with as well as the staff at the school where the SMC
is located. Batsirai's concerns revolved around communication with different

actors. While SEITT did mention these different actors, Batsirai's specific

concerns about building relationships were not a main part of the SEITT project.

Summary
Batsirai engaged in teaching that drew on students’ ideas and also helped

the students prepare for the examinations. Many aspects of his teaching seemed
to arise from his own past experiences. He had opportunities in secondary school
to make charts and make equipment. In Australia, he was involved with a new
way of studying that required the student to study and check Ieaming with the

teacher. Batsirai also suggested that he Ieamed best by doing and talking. In his

215

own classroom, this was the way he taught. Batsirai’s ways of teaching fit closely
with the ideas espoused by SEITT and Batsirai refined his practice through

participating in the project.

However, his background, his use of student-centered ideas in his class,
and his wish to work with other teachers did not prepare him to work similarly
with teachers. He could organize workshops, but he was not sure how to nurture
relationships with teachers or to handle tensions. He wanted relationships but he
did not want tensions. Thus, though Batsirai was an effective teacher using
student-centered Ieaming as espoused by the project, this did not necessarily

prepare him for the new role of resource teacher and working with colleagues.

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CHAPTER 7 CONCLUSION: INTERACTION BETWEEN TEACHER AND
OPPORTUNITY

The SEITT project was initiated due to the Ministry of Education’s
perceived need to improve teaching and Ieaming of A-level science and
mathematics in Zimbabwe. The project aimed to provide a group of experienced
teachers with new ideas and instructional strategies and to prepare them to help
other teachers improve their practice through workshops and support at centers.
Thus, changing current practice and introducing a new leadership that involved

different collegial relationships were part of the model.

While this research was not initiated in order to evaluate the SEITT
project, in a sense, it does examine how these teachers perceive the project’s
influence on them as teachers and leaders. This last chapter starts with a
summary of the cases of the three teachers and then examines their Ieaming in
terms of their classroom teaching and of their new roles as teacher educators. It
then considers how these teachers and their Ieaming fit with literature on

professional development. I end by considering implications of this research.

Three Resource Teachers
Rumbi, Tendai and Batsirai participated in the SEITT project for two years.

They did not enter with the same purposes, skills and beliefs and they did not
leave having gained the same skills and beliefs. While all three teachers did gain
knowledge and experience with organizing and canying out a workshop, the

influence on each teacher's classroom practice differed.

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Rumbi is portrayed here as caught between the old and the new. This
metaphor of caught between also suggests that she was moving between these
two points in both her teaching and her new leadership role. Rumbi’s beliefs
about organizing Ieaming were changing. Before taking part in SEITT, Rumbi
indicated that she had lectured a great deal. While participating in SEITT, she felt
that it was important for Ieamers to be active. She put students in groups so that
they could exchange ideas. However, she still focused on the examination and
syllabus and felt her role was to provide the facts to the students. In the end,
Rumbi had the answers. As a resource teacher, she encouraged teachers to
work in groups and exchange ideas. For her, the resource teacher’s facilitating
role revolved around providing a context for the exchange of ideas, but the role

did not include thinking about these ideas were linked to student Ieaming.

Tendai, on the other hand, changed his teaching very little. He decided to
participate in SEITT in order to get out of teaching. His teaching in the classroom
did not change; he continued to focus on the examination. His beliefs about the
purpose of teaching and Ieaming remained relatively unchanged. At the
workshops, he seemed to focus on skills that he saw as necessary for a
particular role as a teacher educator. He did organize the Ieaming environment to
include group work, but he seemed to push the teachers to finish the discussions
in order to get to the feedback sections. A discussion was a means to an end,
just as going over tests in classes was a means for telling the students what they

needed to know.

218

In his work with SEITT, Batsirai was refining his teaching practice while
developing new conceptions about working with colleagues. As a youth, he had
been involved in his own Ieaming with teachers who seemed student-centered.
For Batsirai, his matriculation year in Australia, in which he took responsibility for
his Ieaming, remains a powerful influence on his teaching. Hence, before SEITT
he was already incorporating constructivist practices in his classroom teaching
and was finding ways to improve the Ieaming of his students. As a resource
teacher, like Rumbi and Tendai, he accomplished organizing a workshop in
which teachers discussed and exchanged ideas. He gained the procedural skills
for this. He also began to notice complexities inherent in working with teachers,

but he had little opportunity to explore approaches to them.

By examining these three teachers together, we can Ieam about the
interaction between teachers and a professional development opportunity.
Specifically, what did each teacher seem to gain in terms of classroom teaching

and in the new role as teacher educator?

Teaching
The links between classroom practice and the professional development

opportunities differed for these teachers. I examined Tendai, Rumbi and Batsirai
using the Stages of Concern Model around student-centered Ieaming (Hord et
al., 1987, p. 31). Tendai seemed to remain at the PERSONAL level, with a
concern that focused on how innovation might affect him in the classroom and
his own career concerns. Rumbi was still concerned with the CONSEQUENCE

and how her way of organizing Ieaming might help the students, while Batsirai

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was REFOCUSING and finding new ways to get the students involved. Tendai,
who wanted out of teaching, took very little away from the project to help his
classroom teaching. Batsirai and Rumbi suggested that they had improved their

teaching because of participating in the project.

Tendai’s beliefs and experiences in his own schooling limited rather than
expanded his view of student Ieaming. Tendai viewed students’ abilities as fixed.

He believed his role was less to help students with new opportunities of Ieaming

 

than to give them the facts they needed. His was a transmission model. I

Participating in the SEI'I'I' project did not greatly influence his teaching practice.

While Tendai made clear that he wanted out of teaching and was not
interesting in putting the time in to implement new ideas in the classroom, both
Batsirai and Rumbi were trying to improve their teaching. However, they arrived
at the project with different experiences in the classroom and different views of

Ieaming.

Of the three teachers, Rumbi had actually made the most drastic change
due to her involvement in SEITT. Rumbi was thinking about how putting students
together to generate answers in groups could help their Ieaming. This grouping
and generation of answers was Rumbi’s way of implementing a student-centered
Ieaming classroom. Her conception, at this point, was limited to using various
strategies that SEITT promoted and modeled. She taught as the SEITT staff
modeled. In this sense, she changed a great deal. However, while she
emphasized some parts of SEITT’s issues, she did not refer to one of the central

ideas of constructivism that SEITT promoted--students constructing their own

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meanings. She did not reject the idea that students might construct their own
meanings. Rather, she had not had the experiences of participating in this type of
Ieaming and, quite possibly, she did not know what it might look like. In addition,
as a Ieamer Rumbi valued tangible experiences and her lack of such
experiences while participating in SEITT may have contributed to her limited

implementation of a student-centered classroom.

On the other hand, Batsirai was helping students make sense of their own
understandings. In his classroom, students discussed questions in groups, wrote
their answers on the board and explored these student-generated ideas. Batsirai
did not Ieam this at the project. He had been teaching this way for years. He
seemed to have Ieamed this type of teaching through early experiences in
Zimbabwe and the matriculation year in Australia. His prior experiences and
beliefs, developed at those periods, helped to shape his way of teaching and
thinking about Ieaming. For Batsirai, SEITT reinforced his prior beliefs, reaffirmed
his approaches, and helped him refine his practice and thinking about student

Ieaming as the task/problem dichotomy suggests.

Tendai did not change his classroom practice, Rumbi was reshaping the
organization of the classroom by incorporating group work, and Batsirai was fine-
tuning his teaching. Rumbi, who was changing the most, was providing students
the opportunity to talk, but the talk itself was not central to the Ieaming in the
classroom. Her reshaping was a technical, not substantive, change in the
classroom. For all three teachers, as they Ieamed to become teacher educators,

this technical aspect of using new strategies also stands out.

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Teacher Education: Technical Yet Discussion-Based
While Tendai, Rumbi and Batsirai responded differently in what they took

away from the project in terms of their teaching, all three of the teachers Ieamed
the technical aspects of carrying out a workshop. Before participating in SEITT,
these resource teachers did not clearly understand what their roles would be as
resource teachers. Running a workshop using active Ieaming strategies was not
what they mentioned as an expectation. Yet, this is one role that all three were
able to carry out in their regions. In the third residential period, they helped put
together a workshop, practiced it, reflected on how to improve the strategies and
use of time, and revised the workshop activity sheets. Then they carried out
workshops in their regions that drew on what they had practiced in the third

residential period.

The workshops in the regions were more interactive than workshops the
teachers were used to. The teachers worked in groups, generated ideas and
listed these ideas. However, in order to carry out the workshops, the resource
teachers could rely a great deal on the activity sheets that they developed at the
third residential period. In this format, the resource teachers did not necessarily
have to think about what Ieaming was being promoted. Though the resource
teachers did reflect on using strategies and how to make them fit with the context
of workshops, the resource teachers never reflected on their own frames of
thinking about Ieaming and how these might influence others’ Ieaming. The
resource teachers did not probe their beliefs about teaching and Ieaming and

how SEITT's ideas fit with their own beliefs. The reflection was limited to the

222

technical concerns of using a strategy with groups and this reflection did not

seem to extend to considering how to work with peers and their ideas.

Teacher Education: Relationships with Peers
All three resource teachers had a common concern about their work as

teacher educators--they were worried about relationships with other resource
teachers and A-level biology teachers. They wanted to avoid instances of
conflict. However, the specific focus of this concern varied. Rumbi did not want to
be a dictator; Tendai felt he might not have adequate subject matter knowledge;
and Batsirai had a dilemma around nurturing and avoiding conflict with other

teachers.

Rumbi talked about how she did not want to be a “dictator“ with teachers
or students and wanted to incorporate active Ieaming activities in both the
classroom and workshops. However, Rumbi said that when working with adults,
“. . .you treat them with respect“ (int-1, July 1997). She added that teachers are
older than students and hold more education. Rumbi's discussion about the
differences between working with teachers and students revolved not around
Ieaming, but around relationships-peer relations, on the one hand, and teacher-
student roles on the other. In the teacher-student dichotomy, Rumbi assumed a
relationship in which she possessed the relevant knowledge that she was to pass
on to the students. Hence, she did not hesitate to correct students' mistakes. The
relationship between teachers, on the other hand, involved respect, and a

facilitator of teacher Ieaming needed a cautionary stance so as not to embarrass

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teachers. Thus, Rumbi was concerned with how to approach mistakes of

teachers while maintaining respect between colleagues.

Tendai was concerned about his possible lack of subject matter
knowledge when comparing himself to his colleagues. He was worried that

teachers might think that he did not have enough subject matter knowledge to be

 

a facilitator of other teachers. He seemed to be less concemed with how to E
respond to teachers than with how his legitimacy as a teacher leader could be
maintained.

Batsirai’s concern was around nurturing relationships, Ieaming about it,

teachers, and avoiding conflict. He wanted to provide an environment in which
teachers could share ideas. He felt that it would take time to build this nurturing
relationship. Batsirai also began to Ieam more about teachers and their
understandings of biology. In the workshop he carried out, he discovered that
teachers made the same types of mistakes as students. Indeed, he expressed
surprise when he noted that the teachers in the workshop listed the Quelea bird
both in English and Shona. However, he did not view these mistakes as his area
of work as a resource teacher. Rather, like Rumbi, he wanted to avoid any type

of conflict.

All three resource teachers Ieamed some skills for carrying out a
workshop and working with colleagues. However, they did not think about the
practice of leadership. They simply wanted to avoid conflicts. Literature on
teachers working together suggests that some conflict is needed to help teachers

change their practice. Little talks about the need for “informed dissent“ (1993, p.

224

138) and the need to examine alternatives as well as underlying assumptions.

Lord (1994) calls this critical colleagueship. He elaborates:

...collegiality will need to support a critical stance toward teaching. This
means more than simply sharing ideas or supporting one's colleagues in the
change process. It means confronting traditional practice--the teacher's own
and that of his or here colleagues--with an eye toward wholesale revision (p.
192)

However, with the content of the SEITT project focusing on Ieaming
strategies, this critical stance was not a part of the content of the project. The
teachers did develop a critical gaze about their use of strategies, and in the
residential period, provided ideas on how to improve the strategies. However,

this critical reflection did not extend to confronting their beliefs about teaching or

their colleagues' beliefs.

The resource teachers were not provided opportunities to think about and
engage in Ieaming in which some conflict could lead to deeper Ieaming. They did
not examine their own beliefs about Ieaming. It might be countered that the
resource teachers only had one or two opportunities to engage with teachers in
half-day workshops, and, thus, would not have had time to build relationships in
which conflict might be accepted. While that is true, it is also apparent that in the
residential periods of professional preparation as teacher leaders, the resource
teachers did not have opportunities to think about and to engage in critical
colleagueship. Without at least some opportunities to examine each others’ ideas
about Ieaming and teaching, it is very unlikely that such critical peer engagement

will suddenly spring up in group work led by newly trained resource teachers. If

225

 

the resource teachers were not provided opportunities to Ieam to lead, they will

not know how to lead.

It the work of the resource teachers is to help other teachers change both
their strategies and their ways of thinking about teaching, then these teachers
also need to be part of a conversation on the role of resource teachers. Since
these conversations did not go on, the role of resource teacher remained a .
technical role for all concerned. If the role of resource teacher as both technician

and cognitive guide had been explicitly discussed and experimented with in the

. A 11'

residential periods, the three teachers might have begun to develop perspectives

 

that drew on teachers’ beliefs and experiences. This would have made what
Tendai, Rumbi and Batsirai brought to the SEITT project more central to the
Ieaming and the resource teachers might not have focused just on acquiring new

strategies that had been developed elsewhere.

Tendai, Rumbi, Batsirai and Professional Development
What can the experiences of three teachers participating in a professional

development offer teachers elsewhere? This study reinforces several views of
professional development projects. It argues that teachers participate in
professional development projects for their own reasons and that the beliefs and
experiences that teachers bring to a project are a key element influencing what
participants may Ieam. This study points out that teachers do not arrive at
professional development opportunities with similar needs, experiences, beliefs,
and skills. It seems particularly significant that the teachers did not decide to

attend the professional opportunity in order to analyze their beliefs. Rather, more

226

often teachers attend professional development opportunities in order to learn
new instructional strategies (Wilson and Beme, 1999). These Zimbabwe

resource teachers and the teachers at the workshops were no different. They
came to Ieam about strategies and possibly subject matter; reflecting on their

own beliefs, experiences and knowledge was not a main reason for participating.

Borko and Putnam’s (1995) warning about the tendency to underestimate F
the need to focus on how teachers’ beliefs and knowledge interact with new

ideas is also important to those planning professional development projects:

 

Furthermore, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs cannot be circumvented by
efforts to reform educational practice. Teaching for understanding, because it
requires thoughtful interaction with students around important ideas, is
especially dependent on teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. Efforts to develop
programmed instruction or “teacher-proof" curricula notwithstanding,
thoughtful teaching cannot be completely predetermined or scripted (p. 60).

SEITT’s model was not unlike a “teacher-proof“ model in the West that
focuses on teaching strategies and subject matter. It appears that the same
criticism could be leveled at SEITT as is leveled at those programs: it does not

change the way teachers think about student Ieaming.

The experiences of Rumbi, Tendai, and Batsirai highlight the need for
professional development experiences to go beyond the level of strategies. This
is especially true when the Ieamer, an experienced teacher, comes to the
professional development opportunity with prior experiences and deeply held and
unexamined beliefs. These aspects of each Ieamer interact in their own way with
the professional development experience. There is not one way of interacting. If

professional development experiences leave these beliefs and experiences of

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the Ieamers unexamined, the opportunities run the risk of adding on to what
teachers are doing without really changing how the experienced teachers think

about, and hence engage in, teaching and Ieaming.

implications
This study was about teacher Ieaming in a professional development

project in a country that has problems because of the distances between
schools, transportation, and limited resources. While the study only examined the
experiences of three participants, the results do help us think about how
opportunities need to draw on, rather than downplay, teachers’ beliefs and
experiences. If teachers’ beliefs about Ieaming and students and their own
experiences are left unexamined, how can teachers become aware of a need to
change? For example, Rumbi seemed to believe that group work would involve
the students more and get them thinking; however, she still believed that she
needed to give them the answers. Her views on knowledge were left relatively
unexamined. Alone, she will not reflect on those conceptions. Rumbi, and
teachers like her, need long-tenn collaborative opportunities with other teachers
and someone who can guide them to bring these beliefs and experiences into the

topic of discussion.

Project organizers need to think about shifting focus from strategies
toward student Ieaming. This would not mean ignoring strategies and subject
matter. Rather it would mean respecting and discussing the teachers' own beliefs
and knowledge and examining strategies and knowledge from their perspectives.

This would mean that teachers would have to have ongoing opportunities to

228

interact with other teachers. In this approach, the SMCs could become the
locations for continued study of teachers’ own concepts of Ieaming and how they
influence student Ieaming. With someone to guide the teachers and with images

of teaching, such as videos of Batsirai’s teaching, this could occur.

This brings us to a possible barrier that these three teachers faced—their
assumptions about relationships with peers. The teachers' views about these [L
relationships, like the teachers’ thinking, need to shift from a fear of conflict
towards an orientation that considers how they can assist each towards the goal

of improving student Ieaming. It might be argued that because Zimbabwe is a

 

society in which hierarchical arrangements grant more authority for knowledge to
some than other others based on one's social status, teachers might not accept a
view that involves being critical colleagues. While some teachers might grapple
with this new role of teacher, a new view might also emerge if teachers discuss
what this new role encompasses and if they then develop the nurturing

conditions that Batsirai seemed to be considering.

Though this research explicitly did not aim at evaluating the SEITT project,
some of the implications do, in fact, address the form and content of the project.
The overall structure of SEITT seemed to promote a sustainable environment for
the project. In a country with limited resources, the systematic approach
embedded the project into the educational system. The project staff were part of
the University of Zimbabwe, the resource teachers were practicing A-Ievel

teachers and the SMCs were established in A-Ievel schools.

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Within this structure, the project introduced teachers to new instructional
strategies so that they became aware of alternatives. However, the focus on
instructional strategies, to the relative exclusion of considering teachers’ beliefs
and experiences supported a view of teachers as technicians. One reason for
this result may have been the narrowness of definitions of words. For example,
while student-centered Ieaming was discussed in a multifaceted way, including
students constructing their knowledge, the teachers never had opportunities to
work with this idea in the same way as they did with strategies. In SEITT, the
participants assumed that they all had the same understandings of these terms,
but this was not true. For example, Rumbi thought that "student-centered“ meant
letting students generate ideas in groups while Batsirai viewed “student-
centered" as generating and using those ideas to probe students’ thinking. The
project’s external consultant viewed “student-centered“ as an approach in which
a teacher made use of a variety of strategies. Similarly, though they discussed
“reflecting on Ieaming", in the project this meant reflecting on how strategies
worked and on the structure of the workshops. Reflection on how students
Ieamed through these new strategies seemed peripheral. These key words
needed to be mutually understood by all participants, including the staff, resource
teachers, teachers and students. The participants also needed opportunities to
put these concepts into practice. As they practiced using strategies, they needed

to practice reflecting on Ieaming.

Programs need to consider the beliefs and past experiences of teachers

and project staff. Beliefs and remembrances of past experiences should be part

230

of the content of the professional development opportunity. The participants need
to do more than share ideas; they need opportunities to confront their own
practices with the aim towards improving them. This will not involve avoiding
conflicts in views on Ieaming, but opportunities to discuss these views and why

teachers hold them.

A caveat, however, is necessary. Many projects start from the premise
that if teachers understand the theory behind new strategies, they will change
practice (Ball, 1989; Guskey, 1989; Guskey & Hubem'ran, 1995). While
addressing beliefs is important, it should be only a part of the content. We need
to keep in mind Guskey’s argument that changes in teaching often precede
changes in beliefs (Guskey, 1989). I am not suggesting that professional
development opportunities should focus entirely on changing teachers’ beliefs
through presenting theory. Rather the beliefs that teachers bring to Ieaming
opportunities need to be an explicit aspect of teachers’ Ieaming in professional
development opportunities. If beliefs are ignored, strategies Ieamed may be

activities that promote interaction but not Ieaming.

This research has closely examined three teachers participating in a
professional development project that aimed to change their teaching practice
and help them become teacher leaders. While change occurred, l have argued
that the change was more technical than conceptual. If the types of changes that
a project seek are student-centered ones that draw on and use leamers’ ideas
and thinking to help them grow, then the teachers need to experience this type of

Ieaming themselves. In the interaction between the Ieamer and the opportunity,

231

 

this makes the Ieamer’s tacit beliefs and experiences key components in the

professional development opportunity.

This suggests that professional development opportunities need to
consider what teachers bring to a project in terms of beliefs and experiences
alongside what the project aims to accomplish. The content and form of the

project need to be organized around these key aspects.

Since teachers often are not used to examining their beliefs and
experiences and how they shape what they do, this aspect of a professional
development project must be made explicit and pursued in both theory and
action. Richardson (1990) calls this empowering teachers, which is what

professional development is often about:

Empowerment is threatened when teachers are asked to make changes in
activities without being asked to examine their theoretical frameworks. In fact,
teacher empowerment does not occur without reflection and the development
of the means to express justifications. Without such empowerment, teachers
may become victims of their personal biographies, systemic political
demands, and ecological conditions, rather than making use of them in
developing and sustaining worthwhile and significant change (p. 16).

This empowerment, as l have suggested, is not just limited to the
individual. I have argued for both a personal as well as a socially constructed
type of empowerment. While teachers do come with their own beliefs and
experiences that shape what they Ieam, it is the interaction with the professional
development opportunity and the people in it that shapes what a teacher Ieams.
Teachers all come with tacit beliefs about what professional development

encompasses as well as what key words, such as constructivism, mean. These

232

 

 

beliefs need to be discussed and then Ieamers need to engage in activities to

understand what putting ideas into practice involves and how colleagues can

help as all participants Ieam.

 

 

233

APPENDICES

234

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ZIMBABWE MAP

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235

APPENDIX B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TIME LINE FOR RESEARCH
Year SEITT Resource Teachers Scott
1995 5/95 visit Zimbabwe
9/95 initial
workshops
1996 3/96 residential period 1
assignment: needs analysis
8/96 residential period 2
assignment: establish
management committees,
workshop to introduce
SEITT
10/96 examination
1997 1/97 arrive Zimbabwe
2-3/97 2-3/support visits to
support regions
visits to
regions
3/97 introductory workshop Attend workshop
4/97 residential period 3 Attend residential
assignment: workshop period
Begin interviews and
observations in 2
regions
5/27 regan 2 meeting Attend
6/13 refim 2 meetings Attend
June and
July visit
regional
workshops
6/7 workshop region 1 Attend workshop
6/19 region 2 meeting Attend
6/20 workshop region 2 Attend workshm
7/5 2"’1 workshop region 1 Attend workshop

 

8/97 residential period 4
assignment: individual
research paper

Attend residential
penod

 

Sept. and October: L
Final interviews

 

Give cases to RTs

 

 

 

 

 

Leave Nov. 17

 

 

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237

APPENDIX C
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR SEITT RESOURCE TEACHERS

My name is Scott Johnston and I am a doctoral student in the Department of
Education at Michigan State University in the United States. I am interested in
Ieaming more about the process, by which you Ieam to become resource
teachers, and how you carry out the work at Science and Mathematics Centres.
The purpose of this questionnaire is to understand your ideas about science and
mathematics education, and the possible responsibilities as resource teachers in Fl
Zimbabwe. There are no right or wrong responses as far as this study is l '
concerned. I
All responses are confidential. No references to individuals or their schools will ‘
be reported in the final study. Completed questionnaires will not be available for
review by officials of your school or the Ministry of Education. It is necessary to
provide your name and that of your school for purposes of conducting interviews L1
with some of the respondents of the questionnaire. You indicate your voluntary ~*
agreement to participate by completing and returning this questionnaire.

 

PART I. SCIENCE/MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
Directions: Read the following statements and circle one of the numbers that
indicates the relationship of the statement to your feelings about the subject you
teach and its instruction.
Select ONE best answer that reflects the strength of agreement (SA) or
disagreement (SD).
1 2 3 4 5

SA SD

1=strongly agree 2=agree 3=not sure 4=disagree 5=strongly disagree

1. Using past exam questions is the best way to ensure that students are
effectively prepared for their final examinations.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

2. Z.J.C. and O-Level examinations do a good job of testing valuable knowledge
and skills needed to study at the A-Level.
1 2 3 4 5

SA SD

3. Tests provide a good measure of how well students understand the scientific
concepts in the text.

238

 

12345
SA SD

4. Science syllabi provide adequate guidance on the goals of what should be
covered at any given level.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

5. When students work in small groups they often make mistakes which make
group work less effective.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

6. If students get into arguments about ideas or procedures in class, it can
impede their Ieaming of mathematics or science.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

7. Students must master topics and skills at one level before going on.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

8. Since older students can reason abstractly, the use of models and other visual
aids becomes less necessary.

12345
SA SD

9. Teachers who have taught over ten years will not find the workshops and

Centres helpful.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

10. Teachers whose students do well on A-level examinations will not need more
professional development.

12345
SA SD

For the fol/o wing two questions, read the information on four teachers, choose
one answer and circle that number.

Four teachers-Chipo, Grace, Tawanda, and Albert-describe their roles as
teachers in helping their students Ieam.

Chipo: “I mainly see my role as a facilitator. I try to provide opportunities
and resources for my students to discover concepts for themselves.“

239

 

 

Grace: “I think I need to provide more guidance than that. I try to lead my
students to figure things out by asking pointed questions that I hope will get them
to the answer without telling them.”

Tawanda: “I emphasize group discussion in my classroom. We talk about
concepts and problems together, exploring the meaning and evaluating the
reasoning that underlies different strategies. My role is to initiate and guide these
discussions.”

Albert: “That’s all nice, but students really won’t Ieam the material unless you go
over the material in a detailed and structured way. In think it’s my job to explain,

 

to show students how to do the work, and to give them practice doing it.“
F,
11. Which teacher is most likely to be successful in helping students Ieam? ;
(Circle one.) 5
1. Chipo 2. Grace 3. Tawanda 4. Albert
12. Which teacher is least likely to be successful in helping students Ieam? i

(Circle one.)

1. Chipo 2. Grace 3. Tawanda 4. Albert
For the following two questions, prioritize the lists from one to six with one
indicating the most frequent source.
13. When students are successful in achieving intended goals or objectives, that
success is often attributed to one of the following sources. Prioritize the list with
(1) indicating the most frequent source of success.
1. Student’s home background
2. Student’s intellectual ability
3. Student’s enthusiasm or perseverance
4. Teacher’s attention to the unique interests and abilities of students
5. Teacher’s use of effective methods of teaching
6. Teacher’s enthusiasm or perseverance

14. When students fail to achieve intended goals or objectives, that failure is
often attributed to one of the following sources. Prioritize the list with (1)
indicating the most frequent source of failure.
_ 1. Student’s home background
2. Student’s intellectual ability
3. Student’s indifference or lack of perseverance
4. Teacher’s failure to consider the unique interests and abilities of
students

5. Teacher's failure to use effective methods of teaching
__ 6. Teacher's indifference or lack of perseverance

 

240

PART II. SEITT AND RESOURCE TEACHERS
Directions: Read the following statements and circle one of the numbers that
indicates the relationship of the statement to your feelings about the subject you
teach and its instruction.
Select ONE best answer that reflects the strength of agreement (SA) or
disagreement (SD).
1 2 3 4 5

SA SD

1=strongly agree 2=agree 3=not sure 4=disagree 5=strongly disagree

15. The head of my school is supportive of my participation in SEITT.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

16. In residential period two, having other resource teachers observe me teach
and provide feedback was helpful.
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

17. This type of peer observation will be difficult to implement as a resource
teachen
1 2 3 4 5
SA SD

18. Which of the following factors do you believe will be most useful in working
with other resource teachers? (Circle one.)

1. my deep knowledge of subject matter

2. my years of teaching experience

3. my ability to communicate clearly

4. the reputation of my school
19. Which of the following factors do you believe will be most useful in working
with other A-level teachers? (Circle one.)

1. my deep knowledge of subject matter

2. my years of teaching experience

3. my ability to communicate clearty

4. the reputation of my school

20. Which do you believe will be the most important factor in determining the
success of the centre? (Circle one.)

1. amount of resources in the center

2. support of administration

3. work of management committee

4. commitment of resource teachers

5. quality of workshops

241

 

21. In five years from now, what position would you like to hold? (Circle as many
as appropriate.)

. A-Ievel teacher

. head of department

. head of school

. lecturer at teacher college

. university lecturer

. Ministry of Education position, i.e., E0 or RD

. Other (please specify)

\IO)UT#ODN-t

 

PART III. REFLECTIONS AS A RESOURCE TEACHER
Please answer the following questions in the space provided.
22. Why did you decide to become a resource teacher?

23. What are some of your concerns about this new responsibility as resource
teacher?

24. How do you think the training and new responsibilities at the Science and
Mathematics Centers will affect your present relationships with your colleagues
at your school?

PART IV. CONTEXT UAL AND PERSONAL BACKGROUND

A. CONTEXT UAL BACKGROUND

1. Name:

2. Name of School:

3. School location:
Rural Urban:

4. Responsible Authority administering School:
Government Church District Council
Private Foundation Other (specify)

 

242

5. R99

8. PE

IC

 

5. Region of the school:

Harare_ Mashonaland East
Masvingo__ Mashonaland Central
Midlands Mashonaland West
Manicaland Matebeleland North

 

Matebeleland South
B. PERSONAL BACKGROUND

6. Gender: M F

 

 

7. Age:
20-25 years 26-30 years
31 -35 years 36-40 years
41 -45 years 46-50 years
Above 51 years
8. Subjects teaching at A-level: biology _ chemistry mathematics
physics _

9. Highest qualifications:
B.Sc. B.Ed. Grad. C.E._ Licentiate Other

10. A-Level science teaching experience:

1-5 years 6-10 years Over 11 years

Thank you very much for your cooperation.

243

 

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APPENDIX D
INTER VIEWS WITH TEA CHERS”

INTERVIEW 1

“Interview with file name:

“Place Date 21 May 1997

“interview # for this teacher time: begin end total time:
“day of computer input

“keywords:

[The * mark is needed for NUD*IST formatting]

*l. physical description of place:
*ll. Questions

“Q1: What do you mean by the answer to question 13 answer 4, teacher’s
attention to the unique interests and abilities of students?

“0.2: You said that sciences are most difficult at this school. so why don’t
students study something like English, which is perceived easier?

“0.3: I am wondering what you felt the difference was between answer 4 and 5
for questions 13 and 14. The question asked about source of success and failure
of students. Number four says, teacher’s attention to the unique interests and
abilities of students and number five says, teacher's use of effective methods of
teaching.

“0.4: What do you mean by intellectual ability in answer 2?

“0.5: For question 14, the source of students’ failure, you chose student
enthusiasm and perseverance. Why is that?

“0.6: I don't see how enthusiasm fits in?
“0.7: What do you mean by failure?

“0.8: What is the best way to test this understanding?

 

22 These are examples of protocols that I used for the interviews. I used this as a
framework and did not necessarily try to have all the questions answered. I
encouraged the teachers to provide exam Ies and to dISCUSS Ideas the felt
were Important. The rntervrews also inclu ed specific questions for teac ers.
For example, In lntervrew One I ask about specrfrc responses on the survey
and In lntervrew Two I ask uestions about my observations In the classroom.
Only In lntervrew Four did I ry to ask all the same questions.

244

 

INTERVIEW 223

“Interview with file name:

“Place Date: June 6, 1997

“interview # for this teacher time: begin end total time:
“day of computer input

“keywords:

“ll. Questions

“0.1: When students are not prepared at the beginning of class, you sometimes
send them out to the hall until they are ready? Why and what impact?

“0.2: On Monday, you gave the example of a brake in having students start with
key issues. Do students have problem stating key issues? Why?

0.3: Why do you mark papers that students are working on in class? What
purpose?

“0.4: Will you be going over this practicum again before October?

“0.5: In the survey, you said past exams are not the best way to prepare
students for exam.. What do you think is the best way?

“0.6: You indicated one day that you observe other teachers teaching? Could
you tell me more about this? What do you look for?

“0.7: How has being a participant in SEITT helped you in your teaching?
Interaction with other RTs?

“0:8. What do you think you will be mostly involved in doing when the SMC
open?

“General information

1. How many students are in this school?

2. How old is the school?

3. What is pass rate at your school in chemistry?
4. How much cost to come here as student?

5. Where do students go after a-Ievel?

6. Why did you become a teacher?

 

23 For this interview, I_ added General information at the end of the interview to
garn some InforrnatIon on each of the teachers. Not all teachers prowded thIs
In on'na Ion.

245

 

INTERVIEW 3

“Interview informal: File name:

“Place: Date:

“interview It for this teacher Time begin: end: TOTAL
“keywords:

“ll. QUESTIONS

I will start with more questions concerning the survey I gave and questions
regarding science education. Then I will ask about the workshop.
“0.1: What do you mean by student success and student failure?

“0.2: Questions 11 and 12 presented teachers and you had to chose which one
was most likely to be successful in helping students Ieam and which one was
least likely. Why did you choose Chipo, the facilitator- oriented teacher to be
most successful? Why did you choose Albert as the teacher least likely to be
successful in helping students Ieam? Could you tell me what their teaching looks
like?

“0.3: On question three, you indicated that tests do provide a good measure of
how well students understand the scientific concepts in the text. Why is this? Do
you know of other ways to measure this understanding?

“0.4: Tell me more about why you joined the SEITT project?

“0.5: How did you first hear about the SEITT project? How is it different than you
had expected?

“0. 6: What do you see as the role of the resource teacher from January?

“0.7: Could you describe your image of an ideal resource teacher? Could you
give me a metaphor for a Rt. For example, fill In the blank. An RT is like
......... becauseuu

“0.8: You’ve heard the word ’collegiality’ in the SEITT residential period. What is
the closest Shona word you can associate with it? Could you tell me more about
that word?

“0.9: You have often heard about student centered activities in SEITT. Could you
give me examples of some of these?

“0.10: Some teachers have said that student centered Ieaming goes contrary to
Zimbabwe culture. For example, in the home the father is the source of
information. How do you feel about this?

Questions from observations from the workshop:
“0.1: What are your general comments on the workshops?

246

“0.2: How did you improve on the first workshop?

“0.3: Did you notice differences in the teachers between the two workshops?
“0.4: Is there anything you would do different next time?

“0.5: How is doing a workshop similar to and different from teaching (facilitating)
in your own class?

“0.6: How are workshop participants and students similar and different?

247

INTERVIEW 4
“Interview with:

“file:

“Place: Date: October 13, 1997
“interview number: Time: 115-200
“keywords:

“SUMMARY of interview:

“0.1: When you think back to your own experience as a student in grade 1
through A-level, are there any events, situations, or people that stand out?

“0.2: When you think back to your own experience as a student in the university
are there any events, situations, or people that stand out?

“0.3: Where have you taught before you came here? How is the teaching at the
two schools similar and different? [probez students, role of exam, type of
teaching, peer pressure, HM pressure, parent pressure, type of school]

“0.4: Do you think your teaching has changed over the years? What influenced
this change?

“0.5: Do you think that the A-Ievel exam and the national syllabus limit your ways
of teaching? If so, in what ways? If there were not A-level exam, how would
teaching be different?

“0.6: How is the way you were taught in secondary school similar to or different
than the way you were taught in the university or professional school?

“0.7: I am not familiar with the teaching and Ieaming that goes on in [licentiate,
Graduate certificate, teachers college, B.Ed., B.Sc.]. What were your most
memorable experiences?

“0.8: Some literature suggests that teachers teach the way that they were taught
when they were young students rather than how they Ieamed to teach in
professional school. How much and in what ways does the way you teach differ
from the ways you have been taught?

“0.9: The last residential period is completed for the SEITT project. As you
approach the time when you will earn your post graduate diploma and work in the
centers, are there some things you would like to know about or be able to do
better?

“0.9a: In the residential period, I heard some signs of resistance to changing
ways of teaching and designing materials. RTs suggested pressure from

248

 

 

 

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headmasters, students, parents, teachers might prohibit moving away from
traditional ways of teaching and use of the textbook. What do you think?

“0.10: How effective do you think SEITT will be in reaching its goal of ‘increasing
quality of A-level science and mathematics education’? What are some of the
problems you think SEITT will face, what is your sense of how well prepared the
project is to solve these problems?

249

APPENDIX E

oessrr VA rro~ GUIDE“
“RT
“filename:
“Place Date Grade
“observation # for this teacher
“time: begin end total time:
“computer input date
“keywords
“SCHOOL CONTEXT

“I. physical description (seating arrangements, walls)
“ll. students (number, gender, etc.)

“Ill. narrative of field notes: choose a group to focus on and try for direct quotes.

“IV. Summary

“Observer’s comments in interpretative narrative addressing following:
1. agreement of observed with teacher‘s views

2. advanced organizer: How did she plan to teach the class?
3. classroom management: What is the approach and evidence?
4. questions: What kind of questions are asked and what is the pattern?

5. awareness of Ieamers: How aware is the teacher of leamers’ strengths and
weaknesses? How did the teacher find out what students knew?

6. student errors: What type of errors were made? How did the teacher respond?

7. student diversity: How did the teacher respond?

 

2“ I took_a sheet like this to each observation to remind me of my focus. The
narratIon fIIled-up most of the fieldnotes. I tried to get as many quotes as I
could throughou the classes. I also wrote down time in the margrn dunng the
observatrons. WhIle taking notes I would also add my Interpreta Ions by usmg
“cc“.to Indrcate observer comments (Bogdan, 1992). As soon as pOSSI le after
leavrng the school, I summarized what happened and filled outPart 4, the.
summary. Dunng the second half of the year, I added the addrtronal questrons
around next steps and my own suppositIons.

250

8. subject matter: How well did the teacher seem to know the subject matter?
(draw inferences from teacher's stated goal, stories, explanations used,
questions asked)

9. content difficulty: Does the teacher seem to be aware of inherent difficulties in
content?

10. interactions: How does the teacher interact with the students?

fiAS m THINK ABOUT

MAIN THEMES, IMPRESSIONS

EXPLANATIONS, SPECULATIONS, HYPOTHESES

ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS, EXPLANATIONS, DISAGREEMENTS

NEXT STEPS for DATA COLLECTION: FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS. SPECIFIC

ACTION, and DIRECTION OF FIELDWORK
IMPLICATIONS for REVISION, UPDATING of CODING SCHEMES

251

APPENDIX F

THE QUELEA PROBLEM

EXCERPTS from THE QUELEA PROBLEM by Graham Lenton

[The QUELEA PROBLEM handout suggests that the unit will take

between 60-70 minutes]
Plagues of birds: setting the problem

Flocks of a small finch-like bird, the Quelea, inhabit the savanna regions of
Africa. The Quelea is a pest bird that can be compared in number with the locust
and which devours vast areas of crops such as sorghum, whenever it runs out of

its natural grass seed diet.

Sorghum is grown in many regions of Africa. The seeds are ground to
provide flour for bread and porridge. Quelea damage the seeds particularly when

they are soft.

In this unit you are in the position of a Senior Pest Control Officer dealing
with calls for help to combat Quelea damage to sorghum crops growing in
Ethiopia. You have limited resources at your disposal and so you have to assess
the damage done by looking at samples of sorghum seed heads, evaluate the

evidence and decide upon the action to take.

252

Three calls for help

You are based in Addis Ababa and three urgent requests have come in all
asking for help to deal with pest populations of Quelea birds attaching sorghum

crops.
Decision time

You may only respond to one of these requests because time and
resources are limited. Which one do you choose? Weigh up all the evidence...
Decide which is the most deserving case in terms of reliability of information, the
most needy request and the one that will probably be most effective. Bear in
mind that you will probably have about fifteen requests for spraying throughout
the season. When you have made your choice prepare a report which justifies

the decision and explains your proposed course of action.
Request 1
Location: Melkassa Village

Situation: A subsistence farmer has three 2 hectare fields of sorghum
which are each being attached by birds each day. He has sent a sample of
sorghum [this shows 10% damage] to the bird Control team in Addis Ababa. He
keeps a number of cattle and there is drinking water close to one of the fields of
sorghum. There is a large Quelea colony of around 60 hectares about 10 miles

from Melkassa in dense acacia scrubland.

253

Request 2
Location: Debra Zeit

Situation: A local field officer from the Crop Protection Department has
filed a report that a nesting colony of Quelea is beginning to appear in open
acacia woodland (not dense woodland) about 20 miles from Debra Zeit. Sorghum
is grown around Debra Zeit in large 20 hectare plots. These plots are part of a
Government Development Scheme and local farmers have been given grants to
aid the development. The field officer has carried out a damage assessment of
the sorghum but decided only to assess the first four rows of sorghum and
arrived at a figure of 40 per cent damage--a figure in excess of that at which a

control operation would be initiated [actual assessment of damage is about 32%].
Request 3
Location: Awash Valley

Situation: One of the field teams from the Bird Control Unit of the
Government Crop Protection Department has radioed back to Addis Ababa to
say that they have discovered a colony of breeding Quelea in the Awah Valley
and think they should control it. They suspect that the nearest sorghum 40 miles
to the south, at Awash, is at risk and would like damage assessments to be
carried out there [the sample shows about 22.5% damage]. They have all the
equipment ready, enough Parathion for one spray operation, and a good group
support team, but no aircraft or pilot facilities and request that head office

organise this for spraying as soon as possible.

254

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