Die opleiding van biologieonderwysers in die ontdekkende onderwysbenadering

Abstract

For the past twenty years the designers of biology curricula in the Republic of South Africa have become insistent that in the teaching of biology, the conventional lecture as main teaching method, should be abandoned. Much emphasis is placed on the importance of the participation of the learner and therefore, even during a lecture, the teacher should engage the learner in such a way that the exploratory approach becomes fully implemented. Questions which gave rise to this research project are: what is teaching and effective teaching? which subject-related skills will provide the pupil with an opportunity to exploit the teaching- learning situation in an exploratory manner? what contribution do the various teaching strategies and -methods make in promoting the acquisition of subject-related skills by pupils? which teacher training model will enable student teachers to implement the above mentioned didactic procedures? In this study an attempt was made to elucidate the concepts "teaching" and "effective teaching". The basic assumption was made that if the teacher structures the teaching-learning situation to include all the basic characteristics of teaching, he can be certain that teaching has taken place (see figure 2.1). In order to derive optimal benefit from the teaching-learning situation, the learner will have to employ certain skills to obtain knowledge. This necessitates the identification of subject-related skills by means of scientific pronouncements regarding these skills. Although teaching strategies and methods have been identified in this study, it is important to bear in mind that in each of them exploratory learning forms an integral component. Therefore, in the application of any of the above mentioned strategies, the learner must be afforded the opportunity of attaining the predetermined goals by means of creative thinking. On the basis of this reasoning, it was decided to propose a training model which would comprise all the viewpoints of the current study. It was also deemed necessary to launch an enquiry by means of a structured questionnaire regarding the exploratory approach in Transvaal secondary schools. The questions were formulated in such a way as to provide an overview of aspects which are basic to the exploratory approach. The following conclusions are drawn from the results of this research: teaching depends on the functional organising of the five characteristics of teaching which occur simultaneously and inter-relatedly with each other; the effective implementation of the exploratory teaching approach is, inter alia, dependent on the practising of relevant cognitive and psychomotor subject related skills; the can demonstrative, all accommodate interactive and exploratory strategies subject-related skills to varying degrees, so that the exploratory teaching approach can be promoted according to the strategy employed and during their training student teachers should be afforded ample opportunity to achieve the highest, level of competence in the exploratory approach and the development of skills.