Overall, the study found that the prevailing pedagogical practice among
participant teachers is a mix of teacher-centred and student-centred
approaches. There is an understanding among teachers of the relationship
between content-knowledge focused lessons, in which teacher-talk and
passive learning is sometimes necessary, and skills- and inquiry-based learning
situations. However, understanding and practice were not necessarily aligned.
Below are comments made by three of the teacher-researchers and observers
of classroom practices.
Comment 1
I don’t think many teachers know what pedagogical approach they are
using. One of the teachers I observed, for example, explained in the talanoa
session that she applied constructivism in her teaching. From what I saw, it
was obvious that for her it simply means mapping students’ prior knowledge
at the beginning of the class. Once the class began, she focused on achieving
the lesson objectives rather than building on the students’ prior knowledge
and prior learning. I mean, she did not stop to help improve students
understanding when it was clear that they had not understood or completed
the previous topic. In all the lessons I observed, it was the same. She asked
questions on what they knew on the topic in the beginning, but then moved
into the lesson and did not come back to what students had said.Comment 2
After about five minutes of trying to quieten them down, he then got
students to open their books and said that we would be marking the work
from the previous day. The first half of the lesson was spent on correcting
previous homework before he put them into groups and explained what the
lesson was about. It was a large class of about 40 students and many were
sharing books. Once the activity started, students worked well, discussing
and working out the answers, but by then it was soon time to end the class.
When the bell went, he reminded them to complete their work and said that
they would go over the lesson the next day.