Zambezia (1978), VI (i)VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGE*P. G. S. GILBERTScience Education Centre, University of RhodesiaTwo NEW DEGREES in education were introduced in 1976 by the Universityof Rhodesia: the B.Ed, and the M.Ed. Both of these degrees are centred oncurriculum studies. Also, the second chair in the Department of Educationhas been allocated to this field of education. These are three domestic expres-sions of the prominent, even dominant, position that curriculum developmentholds for educationists today; a fourth resides in my own department, theScience Education Centre.Recommendation for the establishment of the Centre included a clearremit to be engaged in the appraisal and development of school sciencecurricula. Paragraph 96 of the 'Plan for the Triennium 1970-72' drawn upby the University College of Rhodesia in February 1969 states;The Science Education Centre exists at present as a 'cell' withinthe Department of Education. Since it is of the first importancethat the flow of adequately qualified science entrants to the Collegebe increased over the years, it is clearly essential that problemsbe tackled at the roots rather than that various remedial operationsshould be mounted ... in or just before the first University year.It is therefore proposed to 'hive off the unit [the Science Educa-tion Centre] as a separate entity . , .Such were the beginnings of autonomy for the Centre seven years ago. Sincethat time we have been engaged on two fronts ŠŁ with teacher education andwith contributing to the renewal of school science curricula. The latter areaof activity we have regarded as being a proper response to our brief thatproblems in science education 'be tackled at the roots' and tonight I shalldescribe very simply something of what we have been attempting in thefield of curriculum development.In this account I shall virtually ignore the issue of what science shouldbe taught in schools, and of how it might be taught. This is because what-ever course is designed to be taught, its translation into action, its successand its evaluation is dependent on factors additional to Š and sometimesmore significant than Š its intrinsic soundness conceptually and methodologi-cally.1977.* An inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Rhodesia on 20 OctoberZ VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEMy account will have two different focal points. Firstly, I hopeto establish some of the main considerations of a curriculum study ventureand to illustrate the operational effect on them of the context or setting inwhich it is intended the proposed curriculum change should be broughtabout. My first example of our work, relating to secondary school ecology,has a relatively simple context; my second example, relating to Africanprimary science, has a much more complex and sensitive context. As aresult the method of attack adopted in the two projects differs accordingly.The second generality which will emerge from my description of ourpersonal experience in curriculum development, is that the pivotal role ofthe teacher in the implementation of curriculum change cannot be over-estimated. Change in a subject course, by definition, must require teachersto understand new content and to adopt new teaching styles. In so doing athreat is made to their confidence and to their control of the situation. Thisis so even when the change is sought and regarded as desirable by theteachers; still greater must the disturbance and threat appear to be when thechange is not so welcomed.I say this not deprecatingly of teachers, but sympathetically and real-istically. The day-to-day life of a teacher with his class of pupils is in-tricate, idiosyncratic and private. It is here, the world over, where the pres-cribed de jure syllabus operates as the de facto hidden curriculum Š acircumstance which serves to remind us that an educational project directedto effecting curriculum change can never have the control and confidenceof a scientific investigation: at best it will be a venture.We can note then that the intended curriculum of developers becomesthe operational curriculum of the teachers. But interpretation does not endthere, of course; the pupils will also make their interpretation of what theteacher offers. Work of the Ford Teaching Project, based at the Universityof East Ariglia, has revealed that in a 'discovery learning' situation a verylarge communication gapgenerally exists between teachers trying to innovate and pupilsaccustomed to traditional patterns of teaching . , . For example,they tend to assume that when a teacher 'asks questions' he is want-ing them to display knowledge they already possess, rather than todevelop new lines of reasoning (Elliott and Andelman, 1974,p.18).In such instances pupils misinterpret a teacher's message not necessarilybecause they cannot understand, but because 'they feel impelled to act outroles they have come to expect of themselves in classrooms' (Munro, 1977,p.38). The customary patterns of interaction between teachers and pupils areparticularly conservative in African schools, and thus become an importantconsideration when innovation is designed for these schools.P. G. S. GILBERT 3SCHOOL ECOLOGY PROJECTOur first completed curriculum development project culminated in 1974in the production of a school text, Studies in School Ecology; its originatorand author is my colleague, Sylvia Parker. Is this book another example ofa school textbook written by a single author, or can it be regarded as an end-product of a curriculum development study? The answer lies in applyingto its origins and development certain criteria which can characterize acurriculum study. I will pose these criteria as questions.Criterion 1. As an essential preliminary, has the context of the proposedchange been examined? It is essential before getting down to the real busi-ness of designing a curriculum change to assess the market place, to findout as much as possible about the setting into which the curriculum changewill be eventually introduced. The first of these contextual aspects is theorigin of the mooted change. Is it the response to needs expressed by teachers,or is it something to be imposed upon teachers?In our case the project came about in response to a professional callfrom the Biology Committee of the Ministry of Education. Ecology, althoughprescribed as a topic in current biology syllabuses, was in fact neglectedby most biology teachers. The reasons for this were understandable. Theecological studies suggested by the examining boards were unnecessarilytime-consuming, they were ecologically old-fashioned and offered little satis-faction or purpose, and they inspired students to write purely descriptivereports, sometimes adorned by rather spurious and glib association of causeand effect. If ecology was to be meaningfully taught in Rhodesian secondaryschools, some examples of ecological investigations needed to be worked outwhich (a) had national relevance through reflecting the interests of local,practising ecologists and the methods that they were using; and (b) could becompleted in the few weeks that biology teachers would be able to spare fromtheir heavily committed time-table allowance. This was the daunting briefwhich was passed to Sylvia Parker. In accepting it was it necessary for herto explore further the needs of biology teachers? On the whole, No; forshe knew already from her visits to schools and from science teachers' meet-ings that most biology teachers were dissatisfied with their teaching ofecology and sought assistance, although it was doubtful whether a consensusof opinion existed about how the situation could be improved. Accordingly,it was justifiable to go ahead and produce some tangible, provisional sugges-tions which subsequently, as we shall see, teachers could try out and com-ment upon, before they were put into print.What other contextual aspects did Parker need to examine? Againprobably, none in her case, because it could be said in positive terms thatshe knew the standards of competence of the teachers and their teachingstyles; she was familiar with the target pupil population; she was acquaintedwith the content and rationale of the biology syllabuses and with the examin-4 VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEing format; she was au fait with the range of technical facilities available inschools; she could safely assume favourable attitudes of parents, if onlybecause most secondary school parents admit that what their children learnat school these days is quite beyond them! More generally, she was aware ofthe growing expression of concern by authoritative institutions in Rhodesiawith the protection and utilization of the environment and of the positiveclimate this public concern created for any renewed study of ecology.Criterion 2. Has the intent of the study been specified? Before the adventof modern curriculum development, curricular change was mainly broughtabout by modification of the prescribed examination syllabuses and by theissue of new textbooks. One of the hallmarks of modern curricular studieshas been the formulation of aims and objectives of the mooted change withgreater precision than that characteristically put forward by examiners andauthors. Although examining boards are slowly improving on their poorrecord, we can note with some dismay that of 20 prescribed subject syllabusesstudied by O-level candidates in Rhodesia, 17 set out content-to-be-learnedonly and give very little or no indication of the purpose of the course inhistory or whatever subject it may be.Ralph Tyler, who can be regarded as the father of pupil-orientated be-havioural objectives, said in 1949 (p.44):since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructorprepare certain activities but is to bring about significant changesin the students' patterns of behaviour, it becomes important to re-cognize that any statement of the objectives of the school shouldbe a statement of change to take place in the students.Tyler saw the need to state any desired change as precisely as possible inorder to give directions to the development of that change and to providea basis for its evaluation. Many curriculum studies have followed this advice.However, other workers such as Stenhouse (1975, pp.70-83) have arguedthat prior and detailed specification of aims and objectives and close ob-servance of them can seriously restrict the creativity of the curriculum de-velopers and that it can discourage re-statement of purpose in the light ofexperience. In fact, tightly worded prescriptions of intent may serve todeflect attention from the unexpected when the new proposals are introducedŠ and it is the unforeseen responses which are so often as important asthose which have been anticipated or hoped for. As a consequence, therehas been some move away from the formulation of detailed aims and objec-tives as an essential preliminary exercise to curriculum development.I will not comment further on this debate, which runs high in curri-culum development theory, except to say that our experience supports thecogency of the second viewpoint and that we would disagree with Tylerin his relegation of teachers' actions as of secondary importance. Apartfrom other obvious considerations, teachers hold a more lasting position incurriculum progress than do pupils; and, if behavioural objectives are toP. G. S. GILBERT 5be pre-specified at all, it would seem to be eminently desirable to directthem, as Stenhouse (1975, p.90) has suggested, to the behavioural responsesof teachers as well as to pupils.In Parker's case, as we have seen, her brief was a clear cut one. Rightlyshe made no attempt to refine this mandate into more specific aims and ob-jectives until she had made herself familiar with Rhodesian ecological activity.In the final version of her text each chapter is prefaced by a short state-ment of intent.Criterion 5. Has comprehensive considerattion been given to the means toachieve prescribed ends? The end-products of curriculum projects can covera wide range, especially in science; there can be a text, a laboratory manual,specially designed apparatus, films, film strips, audio-tapes, worksheets,background readers, batteries of tests, a teachers' guide and an in-serviceprogramme for teachers. However, greater volume and range of curriculumproject end-products do not necessarily bring about greater saleability in theschool market-place, and there is no doubt that judicious selection of ap-propriate products is one of the necessary arts of curriculum development.What did Parker do and what did she produce? First of all, as I havesaid, she made herself thoroughly acquainted with the wide range of ecologi-cal work going on in Rhodesia and with the ecological workers in Govern-ment departments and at the University of Rhodesia. The co-operation shereceived in this regard was unstinting, and was constantly reinforced anddisciplined by the fact that her office-laboratory was housed in the complexof the University Division of Biological Sciences. As a result she not onlygained a wide and up-to-date technical knowledge about natural resources,conservation, veld management, wild life and afforestation, but also a newunderstanding and a new commitment relating to the complexities of ourRhodesian eco-systems and their exploitation. Armed with this background,Parker now set about extracting what might be of value and practicablein the classroom. She eventually devised seven practical investigations whichmet the criteria that she had been given, and which between them weresuitable for each level of secondary schooling from Form I to Form VI.The aim of these investigations was to encourage teachers to use theiravailable surroundings to purposeful ecological ends for their pupils, byhaving them practise techniques, obtain data and speculate on the meaningof the data, both biologically and from the national conservation point ofview. The production of a comprehensive teachers' guide seemed to fit thisparticular bill and Studies in School Ecology does so in providing backgroundinformation, practical suggestions, lists of required equipment, sample fieldworksheets, course outlines, discussion points, achievement testing questionsand references. No apparatus kits have been prepared as all requirementsare either readily available in schools or can be assembled there. No pack-ages of slides, audio-tapes and films have been prepared. Their provision6 VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEwould have conflicted with the very purpose of the investigations, namely,to gain first-hand information about a specific local site.Criterion 4. Has the provisional form of the project been evaluated? Acharacteristic feature of modern curriculum studies has been the trying outof provisional new materials in schools. In the United States this has beenconducted on a very extensive scale using hundreds of teachers and involvingtens of thousands of pupils. In Britain school trials are now less extensiveand place far less emphasis on measuring the learning gains of pupils. Theyare as much concerned with the interpretative imponderables I referred toearlier Š with the analysis of teacher reaction, pupil reaction and theirclassroom interaction, and with the wider reaction of heads, administratorsand parents. The implications of introducing curriculum change, it is argued,are not confined to, nor revealed by, pupils' scores on tests set to behaviouralobjectives. More 'illuminative', albeit less objective, evaluation must bemade of a wider range of human responses to change.Parker taught her provisional investigations in six different schools.Although she used no formal tests, questionnaires or checklists in thesetrials, she was able to identify the successful and unsuccessful aspects ofthe practical exercises and, more importantly, she gained evidence about theresponse of the pupils Š what captured their interest, what difficulty theyhad in understanding, what sort of questions they asked, how long it tookthem to complete the exercises, and what were reasonable and effectivequestions to assess their understanding of the work. Thus she now had abetter idea of the sort of information teachers would require to teach theinvestigations effectively. She taught all the classes herself and obtainedonly impressionistic observations from the school-trial teachers, so that thenext step she took in her refinement and evaluation of her provisional schemesaimed to offset this omission. It was also a novel one, which could be under-taken readily only in a small country such as Rhodesia; she invited all theO and A-level biology teachers in the country to take part in a five-daypractical workshop with the schemes she had devised. At this workshopteachers provided a great deal of constructive criticism and collectively de-clared that there was an acute need for the sorts of investigations whichhad been designed and for the general information backing them.From the three inputs which I have described Š that from the profes-sional ecologist, that from the school trials and that from the teachers' work-shop Š Studies in School Ecology was compiled.Criterion 5. Has the final form of the project been evaluated after its adop-tion by schools? Until a new curriculum plan has been adopted by schools itscontent has been artificial, however realistically the school trial stage hasbeen managed. Even when it has been accepted by a school it will takeseveral years before the staff teaching it will feel fully familiar with itsP. G. S. GILBERT 7rationale and with the skills required of them. Accordingly, evaluation of theecology enterprise and has a very different and more complex contextualsetting, the essentials of which were and still are:evaluation will have provided, at bests some assessment of its potentialworth. No summative evaluation has been made of Studies in School Ecology,Five hundred copies have been sold, there is a demand for more and it hasprompted amendment of the ecology section of a public examination syllabus.So far so good, but as curriculum developers we need to have answers tothe following sort of questions:(a) Where schools are not using the text, what are the reasons?(b) Is the background information sufficient? Is it understood by theteachers? Are most teachers using it? Or are they merely teaching thepractical investigations, without reference to the national implications?Do pupils read it? If so, should the style be changed?(c) Is each of the seven practical investigations equally popular? If not,why not? What modifications have teachers made to them and whichof them ought to be incorporated in the text?(d) Have the examination questions changed in any way?(e) Are more biology teachers teaching ecology than before? And are morebiology candidates answering the ecology questions? (In the event theselast two questions are not answerable as no comparable data weregathered in a pre-development survey.)Thus we see that Parker's curriculum project in school ecology meets someof the criteria which can characterize curriculum studies. The fact that itdoes not measure up fully to all of them does not detract from its merit, noris it surprising. The considerable variation in purpose, scale, nature andcontext of curriculum ventures forbids the application of a set formula,in toto, for operating and assessing every individual case.AFRICAN PRIMARY SCIENCE PROJECT: ITS CONTEXTOur engagement with African Primary Science began at the end of 1967when the embryonic Science Education Centre was still enwombed in theDepartment of Education, It came about through a benefaction of some£25,000 from the Baird and Tatlock Company. This enabled us to appointMike Robson, who has been the chief designer of the programme since itsinception.The project has been concerned with developing a science coursethroughout the seven years of African primary schooling. The end-productsof the study, a series of teachers' guides, Discovery Science, are now used inGrades 1-5 throughout the country. Work on a course for Grades 6 and 7has been proceeding for two years but is now in abeyance, whilst decisionsare being made regarding the possible amalgamation of science, history andgeography in the primary school curriculum as environmental studies. As8 VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEsttch, this project is a much bigger undertaking than the secondary schoolecology enterprise and has a very different and more complex contextualsetting, the essentials of which were and still are:1. Science would be a new component of the primary school curriculum.In 1967 science was represented in Rhodesian African primary schools by arather bookish form of nature study in the upper two Grades only. Thusany course we proposed would not be replacing or extending somethingwhich was already part of the curriculum. Starting a subject course do novohas its disadvantages, but on the credit side no established teaching habitsor attitudes have to be challenged.2. The vast majority of primary school teachers would have received noform of science tuition in their own schooling or professional training. Whatlittle they might know about the subject would have been gained largelyfrom hearsay from friends or relatives, who had attended secondary school,and, as a consequence, science might well be held in awe, or even as afrightening proposition to teach. Even worse, a very distorted and un-fortunate image of the needs of primary science may have been acquired.Since 1967 the educational qualification of teachers entering African primaryschools has much improved, but the bulk of teachers will have little, if any,background in science.3. Teachers and pupils would be members of a society more inclined, per-haps, than Western societies to attach theistic interpretations to many causeand effect relationships. Their cultural beliefs would be less conducive tothe questioning of authority through recognition of its dependence upon evi-dence and not so much upon the status of the person who voices it.4. The science course would be imposed. During the period we were de-veloping the courses it is doubtful whether any call had come from the class-room for the introduction of science into the primary school curriculum.5. Many teachers had not yet become familiar and confident with the 'newapproach' to teaching being vigorously inroduced by the Ministry of Educa-tion at the time. The keynote of this approach Š and of our science courseto be Š was more purposeful child activity and less teacher exposition.6. The provision of equipment in schools would be limited. In many partsof the country even items such as newspaper, offcuts of wood and stringwould be unavailable or difficult to obtain for reasons of cost. As a con-sequence, simplicity and improvisation of materials would be necessary.Even where it would not be a problem to supply everyday materials in suffi-cient quantities for activity by all the pupils in a class, teachers would berequired, more than they had been before, to collect, construct and store!items of equipment and to acquire the habit of planning well ahead of theirP. G. S. GILBERT 9EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A TEACHERS' GUIDEIn the context that I have described, the role and response of the teacher tothe introduction of a new science course is critical. To introduce any sciencecourse, of whatever merit, in this situation requires the authors of it to com-municate to the teachers with the utmost clarity, but succinctly, the purpose,rationale and working details of the course. In the event our sole agent ofcommunication was the series of teachers' guides, and so it was imperativethat each of these guides should be an effective communicator.In 1975 after the guides had been in use in schools for a few years anevaluative survey of them was conducted by the Ministry of Education inassociation with ourselves. Findings intimated that teachers in general ap-proved the Discovery Science series for Grades 3 to 5, but found it difficultto understand (Robson, 1975, p.l). As one Education Officer wrote (pp.2-3):M am firmly of the opinion that there should be an objective survey to as-certain directly what part of the course teachers fully understand. Wheremore than say, 25 per cent do not understand, that topic should be re-written'.This was constructive criticism of the effectiveness of the teachers' guides,and interestingly enough, echoed an investigation I had already begun intothe effectiveness of the Grade 3 guide.Each of the guides for Grades 3-5 aims to provide pupils with oppor-tunities to gain some knowledge and understanding of natural phenomenacommonly found around them, through acting and thinking scientifically,i.e. through observing properties, classifying, measuring, asking questions,learning to ask useful questions, and quantifying (making histograms),etc. To support this scientific approach, the actual content is presentedto the pupils not as a long list of isolated topics such as 'burning', 'foodand its sources' and 'germination*, but integrated under unifying themesof which the main ones are Properties, Change, Systems, Measurement, andLocations. This approach, which does not exclude the learning of facts andconcepts, we borrowed from the Minnemast scheme for primary schoolmathematics and science produced at Minnesota University from 1964 on-wards. We also incorporated their idea of reinforcing children's learningwith story-telling.From this brief description it will be seen that a teachers' guide had tocommunicate effectively in at least three ways, namely:(a) in establishing and in distinguishing between the purpose of pupilactivity, the facts which could be derived from a set of activities andthe main idea or concept illustrated by the facts;(b) in enabling the teacher to appreciate the scientific point of a story;(c) in indicating to the teacher how to promote purposeful pupil activity,i.e. by not just providing and managing pupil activity, but by giving iteducational productivity through the asking of thoughtful questions,through the use of pupils' questions to promote further activity and,on occasions, through the giving of hints rather than instructions.10VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGETo attempt to assess these three dimensions of effectiveness I had theco-operation of two teams of colleagues in the Faculty of Education to deter-mine with me, independently and then collectively, the main ideas presentedin the first five chapters of the Grade 3 teachers' guide, the points of thefive related stories and the teaching skills which were operating in thesechapters. The two teams then scrutinized the pencil-and-paper test itemswhich I had constructed to assess effectiveness of communication in each ofthese three areas. The whole of this procedure was repeated with a team ofsix African teachers in Umtali.This group activity was a necessary preparation to the compilation ofa 'test' to be sent through the post to a number of teachers of Grade 3classes for their completion and return. In reality the 'test' would be anassessment of the guide, not of the teacher: if the majority of the teachersfailed to show an understanding of the point of a story, for example, itwould not be their fault but the failure of the guide to communicate thepoint. My faith was that teachers would accept this argument, despite thefact that considerable apprehension is traditionally attached to the settingand sitting of tests in schools and that it is not usual, to say the least, totest (or appear to test) teachers. This faith was further stretched by the finalform of the 'test' becoming nineteen pages in length (Gilbert, 1976a). Ithad three parts, each directed separately to the three aspects of communica-tion described above.Illustrative Test QuestionsPART A: RECOGNITION OF MAIN IDEASFor each chapter a set of ten statements was provided (seven examples aregiven below), Each statement had to be marked with a tick or cross to in-dicate whether or not it represented to the recipient a main idea Š as op-posed to an activity or fact.1. Pupils to discover that different types of cloth have different amountsof roughness.2. Pupils to discover that similar objects may have diffent amounts ofthe same property.3. Pupils to learn how to heat things gently and safely.4. Pupils to discover that a piece of ball-point pen changes its proper-ties when heated.5. Pupils to discover that some properties can change or can be changed.6. Pupils to discover that milk and cabbage leaves go rotten if left inthe open air.7. Pupils to discover some properties can be changed permanently,others can be altered and then changed back again.P. G. S. GILBERT 11PART B: RECOGNITION OF SCIENTIFIC POINT OF A STORYStory: Warthog and the PumpkinsWhich ONE of the following statements describes best the scienti-fic point of the story for the children? Circle the capital letter ofyour choice.A. Hare quickly showed Warthog how easy it was to sort ripe andunripe pumpkins.B. Hare quickly showed Warthog that he had many more goodpumpkins than he had bad ones.C. Hare showed Warthog a quick way of seeing the quantity hehad of good pumpkins and the quantity he had of badpumpkins.PART C: RECOGNITION OF APPROPRIATE ACTION IN A TEACHINGSITUATIONTen teaching situations, based on the lessons given in the guide, were posed.Teachers were required to select from a choice of responses that which theyjudged to be the best and the worst response. The teaching skill operatingin the example given below is the ability to pose a question which ap-propriately consolidates the activity the pupils have been carrying out.TEACHING SITUATION 4Topic 3. Lesson 1, p.28.See paragraph in right-hand columnheaded 'DISCUSS'The boy /girl histograms have been made by all the groups. Theyhave been coloured and they have been pinned up for all thechildren to see. As this is the first time pupils have made a histo-gram, the teacher wants the children to understand the sort ofinformation which can be gained from these coloured histograms.Teacher ResponseThe FIRST question the teacher asks the class is:A. Which group has the least number of girls in it?B. Is there a group with as many boys in it as there are girls?C. Which group in the class has the largest total number ofpupils in it?BEST response A B CWORST response A B CIn view of the length and demand of the test the quantitative response ofteachers was surprisingly high. As Table I indicates, a large proportion notonly completed the questions but also chose to volunteer comment and torequest receipt of another copy of the 'test' with the adjudged correct answers.12 VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGETable IQUANTITATIVE RESPONSE OF TEACHERS TO TEST OFEFFECTIVENESS OF GUIDESetYBBTeachersN15099113%Replying777860%CompletingOpen Page60NA71RespondentsRequestingAnswersNA9894The exercise was repeated with more than one group of teachers because itbecame evident from the first set of returns that distinction between thetwo concepts, 'a main idea and ca fact' had not been made sufficently clear.Most teachers in the first group had hopefully ticked all the statements of thetests indicating 'main ideas*. By the introduction of two simple, illustrativeMain Ideas Recognition tests, this practice of wholesale ticking was reducedin the completion of the substantive tests by subsequent groups from 60 to20 per cent of the individuals responding. However a teacher was only deemedto have understood the demands of the Main Ideas Recognition test when heor she made not more than one mistake in each of the two illustrative tests.Such teachers are referred to as 'unconfused' respondents in Table II, whichsummarizes the results of the investigation. An arbitrary level of acceptableeffectiveness in communication for each of the three aspects under considera-tion was taken to be: 50 per cent of the responding teachers achieving50 per cent or more for the relevant test.Table IIEFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHERS' GUIDEPERCENTAGE OF TEACHERS ACHIEVING 50 PER CENT OR MOREPER SECTION OF THE TESTSection of TestOf TotalRespondents(N = 66)Of 'Unconfused'Respondents(N-32)Recognition of point of stories69Understanding of teaching skills67NAEffectivenessof GuideRecognition of Main IdeasChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5NANANANANA6334344425satisfactoryunsatisfactoryunsatisfactoryunsatisfactoryunsatisfactorysatisfactorysatisfactoryP. G. S. GILBERT13This way of assessing the effectiveness of a teachers* guide is clearly sub-jective and, in this instance, involving a very small number of teachers.Nevertheless the approach must be viewed with the acceptance that anevaluator can rarely provide proof about any aspect of a curriculum study;he can only supply information with limited validity and reliability for deci-sion makers to take into account as they think fit.I have dwelt at some length on this method of assessing the effective-ness of a teachers' guide through the teacher understanding of key conceptsand skills. I have done so because it seems to me that the making of suchan assessment is a vitally necessary step to take in situations where the curri-culum change makes particularly heavy and new intellectual demands onteachers. Of course, there is the rub, what is to be regarded as a particularlyheavy and new intellectual demand? Perhaps they occur more often thanwe think, but resort to an evaluation technique which asks teachers to com-plete tests is a rare practice in curriculum development. I know of onlytwo other cases. In 1974 B.L. Young required his school-trial teachers inthe northern states of Nigeria to sit cognitive tests before and after usingthe provisional science materials he and his team were producing at AhmaduBello University. About the same time John Brooks, in Bombay, assessedthe effectiveness of training workshops in raising the level of mathematicaland scientific understanding of teachers called upon to teach a very muchrevised curriculum in these subjects. It is noticeable that these two cases o\'testing-through-teachers and our own have taken place in less developednational settings. Have curriculum developers in Britain, for example, re-garded such an undertaking as unnecessary or unprofessional? In those caseswhere content revision has been marked, have they over-estimated the capabi-lities and enthusiasm of their target teachers? I have put these possibilitiesto the three organizers of the original Nuffield O-Level Science projects. Allthree Š Professor W. H. Dowdeswell (biology), Frank Halliwell (chemistry)and John L. Lewis (physics) Š have replied similarly to the effect that theyhad not over-estimated the qualities of their teachers, almost by definition,because they were all graduates. With due respect, I regard this assumptionas dubious: degrees gained vary in nature, class and vintage. Rather thandebate the point here, however, it is more profitable to take up a related onemade by Dowdeswell in his reply. Having described the general beneficialinfluence the Nuffield Science project has had on science teaching inBritain during the past decade, he makes an important qualification:But the influence has been very largely in the area of the materialtaught, the kind of experiments used, the type of apparatus madeavailable, facilities in laboratories, and all this kind of thing. Wherewe have been much less successful Š indeed it is questionablewhether we have achieved any success at all in certain areas Š-is in altering attitudes. Attitudes are very difficult things to change, . . They are part of human personality. It is very questionablewhether you can change attitudes by writing something in a book.14 VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEthe teachers' guide, for example. Attitudes tend to be transmittedfrom one person to another by human interaction. And this I thinkis where the big difficulty comes if in a curriculum project you weregoing to try to change attitudes, because you are faced with anenormous problem of human communication.AFRICAN PRIMARY SCIENCE PROJECT: CONTEXT CONTINUEDThis important matter of attitudes raised by Dosdeswell leads me to drawattention to another Š the seventh Š important contextual element influenceing our primary science project. I refer to the viewpoint that parents, heads,teachers and pupils Š the community at large Š have about the purposeof primary schooling. This consideration presented itself when we weretrying out our ideas at the Grade 6 level in 1975 in schools in the ChiotaReserve, south of Salisbury.Our motives, proper ones I feel, were that young children should learnsome useful scientific information and something of what it is to act andthink scientifically by tackling some real-life problems, such as (a) whathappens to the properties of sand and cement when mixed in different pro-portions and treated in different ways, and (b) which variety of tomatoesgrows best in our school grounds? In the former investigation, children madesmall slabs of different mixtures of sand and cement, dried some slowly,some quickly and some under water and then tried to think of simple,standardized means of comparing 'hardness* or 'scratchability' and break-ability. In the second investigation, we had teachers and pupils occupiedfor a term growing tomatoes of different strains under different conditionsof trenching, manuring and spraying. In a few schools all went well Š inhindsight remarkably well Š but in most schools, after perhaps an initialstart, excuses were now offered for failing to acquire materials or tools.There was an air of unreality about these excuses. One very blatant casewas when we were told that no compost had been prepared for the tomatotrials, as manure was difficult to obtain in the district. Robson and I had justdriven through a veritable sea of cow dung right at the school gate.The story behind all this eventually emerged. It had two themes: firstly,the community held firmly that the main purpose of primary schooling is toget their children at all costs into the Fl High Schools, i.e. passing the Grade 7examination at a high level. Insofar as only a small percentage of Grade 7leavers cross this hurdle, this strongly held viewpoint is fully understandable.Anything which obstructs this achievement will not be tolerated, so that itwas regarded as quite immoral to waste children's time during formal naturestudy lessons in making bricks (as they thought) and in pursuing intensivehorticulture (as they thought). Presumably the parents thought that suchpractices made inroads into their studies of 'Horses and Their Kind', 'Plantsthat Eat Insects', 'Swallows' and 'Milkweed' Š to take some of the moreexotic topics, presented in the nature study textbook Š and reduced theirchances of correctly answering a question which might be asked in theP. G. S. GILBERT XBGrade 7 public examination. Secondly we gained the hint that teachingwhat appeared to be 'building' and 'agriculture' in Grade 6 lessons was tooffer the wrong sort of education; it smacked of training for second-class,menial careers. Both of these reactions showed clearly that Robson and Ihad been remarkably unintelligent in not foreseeing that they would arise,and for not going to greater lengths in explaining the true purpose of thetwo investigations to heads and teachers. It was a typical example of thedisease to which curriculum developers can so easily succumb Š an evangeli-cal euphoria that causes the sufferer to imagine that all other teachers inhis field are as fanatically enthusiastic about his subject interests as heis, and that they hold the same educational aims as he does.From these experiences it was decided in 1976 that the approach toour development and school trial evaluation of our schemes must be puton a very different basis. In short, we needed to(a) make some assessment of the acceptability of our provisional teachingunits before the school trials took place;(b) make greater efforts to gain the support of teachers and heads beforebeginning the school trials;(c) formulate far more precisely the information we sought from the schooltrials.This prescription we attempted to meet in the following ways.Initial Evaluation. We contacted a sample of Grade 6 teachers and schoolsupervisors by postal questionnaire to assess to what extent a change fromnature study to a science course would be welcomed and, if so, what sortof science course. Within the severe constraints of this questionnaire, theresponse was just what we wanted! In essence, it was that a change wouldbe welcomed which offered the child a better practical knowledge of familiar,natural and man-made phenomena (Gilbert, 1976b).For some years Robson and I have had the benefit of the services of aConsultative Committee made up of senior members of the African Divisionof the Ministry of Education. This committee has not only given us in-valuable advice about our provisional ideas and materials, but it has alsoadvised on and supported our requests to the Secretary for African Educa-tion to hold school trials and for a teacher to be released to assist with thetrials. I take this opportunity to express in public our deep appreciation ofthe professional and tangible support the Science Education Centre has con-sistently received since 1967 from this Division of the Ministry. We decidedthat this committee needed to be augmented by another made up of primary-school heads and teachers who would give us firsthand information andopinion about our proposals for the Grade 6 science course. This AdvisoryCommittee, as it has been called, has also rendered invaluable service. Essen-tially we have been concerned with these questions: Is this teaching unitworth teaching? Is it within the grasp of the teacher? Is it within the grasp16VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEof the pupils? Does it in any way run contrary to African customs or beliefsand is it feasible in terms of materials and time required? Our often heated,but always amicable, discussions have ranged from the acceptability oflearning about sex organs, animal and human, in primary schools to theconstruction of a pupil's activity book which would usefully supplementlessons without becoming the be-all of the lesson in the teacher's eyes.Prior support of all concerned. Before the school trials began we broughttogether all the teachers, heads and supervisors concerned, with seniormembers of the Division, to discuss what the school trials would entail, tomeet any worries schools may have and above all, to foster a feeling that thiswas a corporate exercise in curriculum development.Formative Evaluation. With our centre of interest on the teacher we devisedan evaluation scheme which would focus upon four facets of the teacherduring the school trials, namely, his attitudes (what was his general impres-sion about a teaching unit initially on reading it and later after teaching it),his understanding of the material (more correctly, as underlined earlier, theeffectiveness of the unit to impart understanding), his classroom responseto the unit, and, finally, his criticism and suggestions. The scheme outlinedin Table III indicates the method we introduced to these ends.Table HIDISCOVERY SCIENCE, GRADE 6: EVALUATION SCHEME, 1976Initial EvaluationFormative EvaluationTeacher UnderstandingTeacher AcceptabilityTeacher ReactionTeacher ActionPupil UnderstandingPupil ActionAdvisory CommitteeConsultative CommitteeMain Ideas Recognition TestCognitive TestTeacher RatingsTeachers' NotesPost-teaching DiscussionField Assistant ReportsCognitive TestField Assistant ReportsI will comment briefly on two of the methods that we employed. Firstly,with regard to the promotion of teacher understanding, I can report, withadmiration once again, that all the trial teachers were prepared to com-plete cognitive tests before they taught the unit and afterwards. I wouldnot pretend that they did this with alacrity and smiling faces, but not one ofthe twenty-one teachers missed the pre-teaching sessions or post-teachingsessions when these tests were given, despite the fact that after the firstof such meetings had been held the news must have been passed around.P. G. S. GILBERT17Secondly, it must be stressed that the job of a field assistant during schooltrials is a very exacting one. He has to be fully conversant with the rationaleof the course which is being developed; in a situation such as ours whereno science course has existed in schools previously and our proposals wererelatively avant garde, this demand on the field assistant was virtually animpossible one. He had to be a diplomat and attempt, by his natural charmand tact, to dispel the feeling of the trial teachers that they were on trial.He had to be alert to the unexpected and he had to refrain from regard-ing any discrepancy in the classroom between the expected and the realityas being automatically detrimental to the teacher; accordingly he had to bealert to where the provisional teaching unit was deficient. All of the threeprimary school teachers who have been seconded to the project as fieldassistants have met these demands surprisingly well and have supplied per-ceptive information. However, I would not be honest if I did not say Šwith no criticism implied of them whatsoever Š that their greatest contribu-tion has been to foster the idea amongst the trial teachers (and further afield)that we, the curriculum developers, were genuinely attempting to fit thescience course to the prevailing context, particularly to the teachers.CURRICULUM PLANNING IN RHODESIABut enough said of the production of courses and materials. I should like,in conclusion, to broaden my frame of reference from the level of curriculumdesigning to the level of curriculum planning and to comment briefly onits current position in Rhodesia.Curriculum planning embraces curriculum designing and much more.It is concerned with the holistic view of the school curriculum; with whatits educational purposes should be; with what disciplinary pattern it shouldhave; with the contribution to the whole of its individual components; withthe alerting of teachers, teacher trainers, supervisors, examiners and othersof the various rationales emanating from these considerations and, above all,with the institution of measures to assist each of them to understand andpractise the dictates of their particular responsibility within the overallcurriculum rationale. Thus curriculum planning has two fronts : on theone hand it has a productive front which aims to activate and co-ordinatecurriculum renewal and on the other, an implementation front aimed at nar-rowing the gap between the planned curriculum and the taught curriculum.In Rhodesia levels of operation on these two fronts have been particu-larly marked in the field of African primary education. The Committee ofEnquiry into African Primary Schooling which sat in 1974 put forward com-prehensive guidelines for re-orientating and re-structuring the curriculumfor this level of schooling at this stage of its development in this country.In its wake the Educational Development Unit was established in the Afri-can Division of the Ministry of Education and during the past three years ithas carried out a remarkable set of curricular revisions which are being18VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEdisseminated to the teachers through a newly established and vigorouslyactive force of 117 school supervisors. The entry qualification for primary-school teacher education has been raised from junior certificate to O-leveland a more intellectually demanding training programme is to be introducedfrom the beginning of next year. One primary teachers' college has acquiredassociate status with the Institute of Education and as a consequence itssuccessful candidates will receive the Certificate in Education of the Univer-sity of Rhodesia. It is probable that in the near future other colleges, throughthe rapid internal re-adjustments they are making, will soon measure up tothe requirements of associate status. All in all, these recent developments inAfrican primary education illustrate a commendable example of concertedcurriculum planning. There are other positive manifestations of the attentionwhich is being given to curriculum planning in Rhodesia. A happy situation,indeed; however, I must voice the question Š directed particularly to myeducational colleagues within and outside the University Š have we anorganizational structure regarding curriculum planning which is sufficientlyco-ordinated to meet the strident call for educational expansion and changewhich is imminent? Ipso facto are we operationally marshalled to determinewith confidence the priorities of action in these regards?The history of educational development has shown that expansion andchange proceed hand in hand. Expansion involves the admission to schoolsof a wider range of talent which, in turn evokes curricular issues such asthe need to broaden the variety of subject areas (academic and non-academic,if we must use the terms) and the introduction of streaming, setting or mixedability classes. Slower academic streams Š to pick on one issue Š do notmerely require a longer time to reach the same end point by the same means;they need different approaches. The nub of our problem, as it has been inall newly independent African countries, will be to reconcile the acute desireof politicians and the public at large for rapid educational development withthe fact that sound educational change can be designed and truly effectedonly with time. Of these two aspects of the problem Š curriculum designand curriculum implementation Š the former, given money and personnel,is intrinsically easier to effect in a reasonably short time. The implementa-tion aspect, which is the more fundamental because, as we have seen, it isconcerned with the development of teachers' understanding and with re-orientating their attitudes, is far less conducive to being hastened. Thereis no instant method whereby teachers can be told what to do; they have tobe shown and they have to practise new activities before using them in theclassroom. Morever, there is a limit to the frequency and intensity of changethat teachers can withstand.The main bottleneck to true educational expansion will be the imple-mentation of curriculum proposals through the teachers already in service.There is no slick formula for removing this bottleneck. So Š to give a speci-fic example of a curriculum planning issue facing us Š would we advisethat the problem could be best alleviated in the primary school sector throughP. G. S. GILBERT19the extension of the supervisor force, or by the creation of teachers' centreswhich have proved to be very effective agencies elsewhere in consolidatingcurriculum advancement, or through radio broadcasts which directly rein-force lessons as opposed to merely supplementing them? In the secondaryschool sector the most potent influence for good or ill on the curriculumand on teacher behaviour is the examination system. Are we satisfied thatour examination system adequately reflects the aims of the curricula thecountry requires? Are we too subservient to what others offer? Althoughregular discussions take place between representatives of the two overseasboards examining in this country and members of the respective Divisionsof the Ministry, how often has advantage been taken of the facility extendedby all examining boards of presenting our own syllabus for approval, andeven our own papers? Do we need an examination branch which not onlyadministers public examinations but which, through the services of full-time professional officers, would also tackle more concertedly than it canat present the very exacting tasks of revising syllabuses and of scrutinizingthe validity of papers set, both by local authorities and by overseas boards,in terms of locally prescribed aims and objectives?Turning to the production front of curriculum planning, would wesuggest that our school system should no longer continue to rely solely uponthe endeavours of curriculum developers permanently appointed by and situ-ated at head office or upon temporarily engaged groups selected by headoffice? What about teachers colleges? Should not they also aspire to becentres of curriculum innovation? I can imagine our redoubtable, one-timecolleague, Professor Roger Bone, putting it: *No teachers' college which doesnot dirty its hand at the coalface is worthy, by God, of associate status withmy Institute!' Do we agree that the potential of teachers as curriculum in-novators should not be overlooked? Elsewhere individuals and small groups,with encouragement and support from educational authorities, have producedmaterials well worthy of wider distribution. The Carribbean MathematicsProject is a notable example. The benefits accruing from such encouragementare considerable: a wider and more active interest is engendered in thecurriculum itself and in its renewal; the inevitability of curriculum changein response to social change is emphasized and teachers come to review theirrole as not being to accept, to imitate and to conform but also to innovate,whether it be in their own classroom or with wider reference.Curriculum planning is multifaceted and calls on a wide range ofeducational personnel. To be effected and effective it requires co-ordination.The establishment of the Schools Council in Britain is one witness of thatneed. I have briefly hinted that there may be a case for the advent of aRhodesian Schools Council, as a national co-ordinating body of curriculumplanning. In fact, there is an added urgency. It is more than probable thatin the near future we shall have to be prepared to withstand the abundanceof international aid for educational development. It has been shown to bea mixed blessing. As one of our external examiners has put it:2O VENTURING INTO CURRICULUM CHANGEHell is proverbially paved with good intentions. Tropical Africais littered with the debris of well-meant but badly conceived, ex-ternally identified and funded, educational projects. These projectsfounder because new governments are reluctant to look a gift horsein the mouth. But in their own interest they must. They must havethe organisation [my emphasis], the clarity of purpose, and thedetermination to channel external aid into the projects they them-selves have identified and not those identified for them from exter-nal agencies . . .Vice-Chancellor, I have ventured far enough. I think it is appropriatethat we began this discourse with a review of Sylvia Parker's curriculumdevelopment project. I say this because when we look at the whole canvasof curriculum planning we see that essentially it is concerned with a humaneco-system which, like the veld around us, is a complex of interacting ele-ments which can withstand only a limited pressure of imposed change be-fore it rapidly and irretrievably deteriorates to our harm. Conversely, withthe application of expertise and sensitivity it can be harnessed for our wel-fare. As such curriculum planning may well be styled educational ecology,and may we in Rhodesia in the formative years ahead be as conscious ofits conservation as we are of our material natural resources.ReferencesBROOKES, J. H. 1974 The Bombay Science and Mathematics Improvement Project(Bombay, Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombav, Education Department).BROOMES, D. R., SCHROEDER, T. L. and PAYNE, R. D. 1974 'Mathematics,curriculum and evaluations: Caribbean experiences', Educational DevelopmentInternational, II, 67-73.DOWDESWELL, W. H. 1977 Personal communication.ELLIOT, J. and ANDELMAN, C. 1974 Innovation in Teaching and Action-Research(Univ. of East Anglia, Centre for Applied Research in Education, An InterimReport of the Ford Teaching Project).GILBERT, P. G. S. 1976a Discovery Science 3 : Information Supplied by Teachersof Grade 3 Classes (Salisbury, Univ. of Rhodesia, Science Education Centre,mimeo).1976b Grade 6 Nature Study : Survey of Views of Teachersand Supervisors (Salisbury, Univ. of Rhodesia, Science Education Centre, mimeo.HALLIWELL, H. F. 1977 Personal communication.LEWIS, J. L. 1977 Personal communication.MINNESOTA SCHOOL MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE TEACHING PROJECTS1964 et seq. (Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota).MUNRO, R. G. 1977 Innovation : Success or Failure? (London, Hodder andStoughton).PARKER, S. F. 1974 Studies in School Ecology (Salisbury, Univ. of Rhodesia,Science Education Centre).RHODESIA, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION 1974 Report of the Committee of En-quiry into African Primary Education (Salisbury, Government Printer).P. G. S. GILBERT21ROBSON, M. J. 1968-74 Discovery Science 1; 2; 3; 4; 5 (Salisbury, LongmanRhodesia).1975 Report on an Informal Survey of the Discovery ScienceCourse at Grades 3, 4 and 5 Conducted by the Educational Development Unit ofthe Ministry of Education (African Division) in Association with the ScienceEducation Centre of the University of Rhodesia (Salisbury, Univ. of Rhodesia,Science Education Centre, mimeo),TYLER. R. W. 1949 Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction (Chicago, Univ.of Chicago Press),STENHOUSE, L. 1975 An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development(London, Heinemann).YOUNG, B. L. 1974 Primary Science: An Evaluation cf Teacher Performance in aTrial Project (Zaria, Ahmadu Bello Univ., Inst. of Education, mimeo).