Multigrade teachers' experiences in implementing a curriculum streamlined for the single grade classroom setting, in a multigrade classroom setting, and their professional development needs
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Date
2011-01
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Publisher
University of Fort Hare
Abstract
Multigrade teaching is part of the daily reality of teachers in many primary schools, farm schools, rural schools and urban schools. Regardless of the motivation for multigrade practice in primary schools, that is, economic or pedagogic, multigrade teaching is not acknowledged in national school policies in South Africa. At district and school level, respectively, there are no policies to guide 'critical multigrade functions' such as grade combination, curriculum adaptation, assessment, selection of learners for multigrade, selection of teachers to teach multigrade, and learner duration in multigrade.
The South African curriculum is streamlined for single-grade classes. All textbooks and other teaching and learner support materials are geared for single-grade classroom settings. When this curriculum is introduced to multigrade settings, the multigrade teachers are required to adapt the curriculum and change their pedagogy in order to effectively deliver the curriculum. All this in the time allocated for one grade. While this calls for specialised skills, the teacher education training they received in their pre-service or in-service training prepared them for teaching in single grade settings only. Thus, the absence of relevant and specialised training could create a gap in the teacher's pedagogical skills. This study aims to understand the extent of that gap. It therefore seeks to investigate the experiences of multigrade teachers so that the findings could provide insights about teaching and learning practices in multigrade schools. The challenges experienced by multigrade teachers could help guide the content of continuing professional teacher development of multigrade grade teachers. If teachers are properly trained in multigrade pedagogy, then, they can make a significant contribution to providing quality education.
Description
PhD Thesis
Keywords
Combination of grades, Education and state, Education change
Citation
Murugan,P.Multigrade teachers' experiences in implementing a curriculum streamlined for the single grade classroom setting, in a multigrade classroom setting, and their professional development needs.Alice.University of Fort Hare.