Capacity for Instruction in Science and Mathematics in a Primary School 01 March 2006 CICE, Hiroshim

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Capacity for Instruction in Science and
Mathematics in a Primary School 01 March 2006
CICE, Hiroshima University, Japan

• Promoting A Self-Reliant Approach To Basic
  Education Development in Africa Programme
• Loyiso C. Jita loyiso.jita_at_up.ac.za
• Thembi C. Ndlalane tndlalane_at_postino.up.ac.za
• Sibusiso J. Chalufu sibusiso.chalufu_at_up.ac.za
• University of Pretoria, South Africa

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

• Statement of the Problem
• Preliminary Literature Review
• A New Conception of Capacity for Instruction
• Research Questions
• Study Design
• Phase 1 (Pilot) Data Collection
• Launching Activities and the Dialogue
• Research Findings
• Policy Impact A Link with Self-Reliance
  Sustainability Approaches

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STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM What makes two
schools, with similar sets of resources, offer
instruction of radically different qualities
and/or to have markedly different student
achievement levels?
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Preliminary Literature Review
3 Major Research Programmes Investigating Quality
and Effectiveness in Schools (Conceptualization
of Capacity)

• Effective Schools Research (ESR)
• School Improvement Research (SI)
• Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) Project

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Effective Schools Research (ESR)

• ?Colemans study US (1966) Schools dont
  matter as much as family background in explaining
  achievement differences (black white schools).
• ?Heynemans study Uganda (1976) disproved
  Colemans thesis in a developing country context.
• ?Plethora of studies (USAID/WB) developing a set
  of school characteristics teacher behaviours
  associated with effective schools.
• Capacity viewed as deficit at school level
  (labs, textbooks, etc.) or at the level of
  teachers (knowledge, qualifications).

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Effective Schools Research (ESR) Critique

• ?Failure to locate conceptions measures of
  school quality effectiveness within the
  everyday classroom processes of teaching,
  learning, assessment organization.
• ?Limited conceptions of effectiveness as defined
  by test scores.
• ?Flawed research designs in most studies (e.g.,
  failure to control for learners background,
  history of the schools achievement, etc., in
  analyses).

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School Improvement Research (SI)

• ?SI research has a distinct stamp in major govt.
  supported reform initiatives in RSA mainly
• ?Whole School Development (WSD)
• ?Quality Learning Project (QLP).
• WSD Major problem in RSA context de-emphasis of
  classroom processes of teaching learning.
• QLP Major thrust of intervention training
  evaluation beginning with district personnel
  school officials in organizational systems
  dev., then educators in curr. mgt, content
  knowledge, use of learner support materials
  learner assessment.
• Also has an evaluation component to assess
  extent to which the above-mentioned training
  leads to improvement in learner performance.

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School Improvement Research (SI) Critique

• ?Shares some history with SER relies largely on
  developing lists of characteristics of schools
  or teachers that define the outcomes of the
  proposed intervention.
• ?SIR studies suffer from their reluctance to
  study develop detailed analytic case studies of
  schools constructing their conditions defining
  their capacities for teaching learning as a
  basis for engagement in improvement.
• ?The pre-specification of the effectiveness
  factors towards which a school improvement
  intervention is geared, cannot adequately account
  for the interactions relationships in the local
  conditions.
• This fails to account for two most important
  factors about capacity multidimensionality the
  fact that it is dynamic.

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Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) Projects

• ?IEQ significant improvement from its
  predecessors
• did not import a specific research project.
• ? Issues to be addressed, the design,
  instrumentation, data collection, analysis and
  reporting were a collaborative activity between
  IEQ core staff and host country research team
  members.
• ? In-depth focus on generating knowledge about
  the school and classroom experiences of
  educators and students (a focus on the
  processes context).

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Improving Educational Quality (IEQ) Projects
Critique

• ?Its scope and time-frame too short to foster a
  sustained reflection and discourse of the kind
  that would lead to redefinition of capacity
• (e.g., RSA component of the IEQ was for 1994
  1995).

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A new Conception of Capacity For Instruction

• Instructional capacity as a framework for
  bringing together, in a dynamic way, the
  investigations of classroom processes school
  wide organizational resources arrangements that
  promote quality instruction and learning.
• Conception of capacity as something much more
  than just the power or ability of an individual
  or an organization to do some particular thing.

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Corcoran and Goertz (1995)

• Conception of capacity as the maximum or optimum
  amount of production of worthwhile learning
• ?Issue of results (student learning and/or
  achievement)
• ?Issue of efficiency (amount of production from
  a given set of resources and organizational
  arrangements).
• Studying instructional capacity of schools from
  this perspective enables our research to focus on
  any school type (high or low achieving) as having
  some capacity in terms of the quality of its
  instruction (i.e the organization and utilization
  of resources).

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Cohen and Ball (1996 1999)

• Linking capacity with classroom instruction.
• Central Thesis Instruction begins with
  involves interactions among 3 components
  teacher, students materials (both physical
  intellectual) instructional unit (see next
  slide).
• If quality instruction requires all 3 components,
  then instructional capacity the capacity to
  produce worthwhile learning - must also be a
  function of the interactions among these 3
  elements, not one, such as teachers knowledge
  and skill or the curriculum.
• Capacity to deliver high quality instruction
  depends not only on the individual teachers
  intellectual personal resources but also on
  their interaction with, inter alia, specific
  groups of students, colleagues at school, subject
  area committees, the curriculum materials
  developed by others, the broader social norms
  conventions at the school in the society about
  teaching learning.

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• INSTRUCTIONAL UNIT

Materials
Teacher
Learners
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Instructional Capacity Framework
Instructional Capacity (Multidimensional /
Dynamic)
Individual
Organizational
Classroom Processes
School-wide Resources Arrangements
Materials
Leadership
Institutional Culture
Curriculum Physical Resources
Parent Community
Teachers
Learners
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Research Questions
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Research Questions
Research Questions
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Research Questions
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Study Design

• Longitudinal Qualitative Study (3-year period)
• Selection of School Sites
• ? 6-8 schools
• ? Groups of 2 per area (different in terms of
  performance and/or quality of instruction).
• ? Sample Characteristics mix of schools
  originally designed to serve the different
  population groups in RSA
• ? Sample, at least, one pair of rural schools.

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Study Design
Organizational Structure

• Phase 1 (2005/2006)
• Phase 2 (2006/2007)
• Phase 3 (2007)

• Pilot phase (2 schools) development and
  refinement of the instruments techniques
  preliminary data analysis approaches.
• Thorough discourse, training development of
  instruments, collaborators research students.
• Full Study (additional 6 schools)
• Focus of Investigation Research Question 1, 2
  (limited extent), 3 4 5.
• Continue exploration of longitudinal aspect (how
  capacity for instruction changes over time).
• Data analysis (continued)
• Report writing compilation
• Dissemination (seminars national conference
  policy briefs Ministry of Education journal
  articles)

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Phase 1 (Pilot) Data Collection

• Multiple Case Study Approach (in-depth analysis
  of complex issues involved in the construction of
  schools capacity).
• Although our unit of analysis schools, the
  research is designed to capture the
  multi-dimensionality of the concept of capacity.
• Data Collection Techniques Mixed Method
  (interviewsindividual focus groups,
  observations, etc.).
• Sample Two neighboring Primary Schools in one
  Province of South Africa.

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Phase 1 (Pilot) Data Collection
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Launching Activities and the Dialogue
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A Recap On the Dimensions of Instructional
Capacity
Coding and Making sense of the Data

• Teachers knowledge, skills, and dispositions
  (and how it is used in curriculum, pedagogy, and
  assessment.
• Professional Community social organization of
  instruction (culture, as defined by
  collaborations, collective goals, etc.).
• Instructional Programme Coordination focus
  within school.
• Instructional) leadership guidance and authority
  on curriculum and instructional matters.
• Material/Physical Resources Quality and Quantity
  of resources e.g. staffing levels, instructional
  time, class sizes, special rooms and equipment,
  etc.

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Findings
Teachers Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions

• All teachers hold required qualification. Few
  teachers certified to teach at secondary level.
• Majority of teachers are well experienced (five
  years ). All senior phase each have 15 years.
  Collectively, senior phase teachers have about
  100 years of teaching experience.
• Few teachers demonstrated exceptional
  intellectual command of their subject areas.
• Self-definition of the teachers is unusualas
  science/mathematics teachers. Positively
  disposed to subject area and the learners.

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Findings
Strength of Professional Community

• School is active in setting up nurturing
  professional communities for its teachers and
  neighboring schools. 2 teachers are cluster
  leaders (Maths/English). School as center for
  Teacher Development in lesson study.
• Teachers engaged in setting up discussion groups
  on new curriculum. All teachers attended
  regional/provincial training.
• School is part of network of schools that have
  set up relationship with local university for
  professional development in M/S.

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Findings
Programme Coherence and Focus

• School programme is coordinated and focused
  around national/provincial curricula (teachers
  fully trained on new curriculum).
• School has appointed a curriculum coordinator
  (not paid) to attend all curricula workshops.
  Each level of education has an HOD who is
  responsible for programme coherence and focus.
• School timetable is structured around the key
  learning areas such as language and mathematics
  (more time is allocated on the timetable for
  these subjects).

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Findings
School leadership and Physical/Material Resources

• Little data collection on these two issues (Use
  of general school information instrument and
  general teacher interview).
• Clear structure of formal and informal leadership
  at the school. For most part there is congruence
  between formal and informal leaders, sometimes
  though divergence (to follow up closely during
  data collection).
• No exceptional resources for teaching and
  learning science (no laboratories, manipulatives,
  etc.) . How are material resources identified,
  activated and organized?

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Policy Impact A Link with Self-Reliance
Sustainability Approaches

• The study promises to contribute a broader
  understanding of what makes a school effective
  allows it t offer quality learning in science
  and/or mathematics.
• Findings will present characterizations of
  capacity in various schools the factors
  affecting its development use.
• School practitioners policy-makers will be
  presented with several models of how capacity is
  constructed utilized (for better or worse) in
  the different case study schools, thereby
  encouraging informed debate choices in the
  service of school development and reform.
• Developing a Peer Review Mechanism for School
  Quality

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Dialogue with the Ministry of Education

• MoE is the missing link in the study?
• Major Policy Issues What is a school? Quality
  Assurance Mechanism for (Secondary) Schools?
• Clarification of the concepts Development of
  the Instruments and Protocols and Implementation
  Plan