Transcript Shanu Misser - Fundisa for Change

STEPS TOWARDS
TRANSFORMATIVE
LEARNING
Presented by:
Shanu Misser
Report Prepared by
Dr H Lotz-Sisitka
Dr
* Eureta Rosenburg
www.fundisaforchange.com
environment
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society
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science
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sustainability
Transformative Learning
Transformative learning involves experiencing a deep structural shift
in the basic premises of thought, feeling and action.
It is a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters
our being in the world. Such a shift involves our understanding of
ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other
humans and the natural world; our understanding of the relations
of power in interlocking structures of class, race and gender; our
body awareness; our visions of alternative approaches to living; and
our sense of the possibilities for social justice and peace and
personal joy.
(O’ Sullivan, 2002: 11)
27 February 2014
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page 3
Climate Change FET –Mpumalanga Elukwatini
• Teacher Johannah – Completed a Secondary Teacher Diploma – Elijah
Mango College of Education.
• Works at Litjelembube Secondary School – Live in Elukwatini – speaks
English, Afrikaans and Siswati.
• Most valuable aspect of the course for her – working with climate
change content knowledge as it related to her subject and the wider
discourse.
• Felt that the readings on the course and the research aspect of the
assessment task helped her to expand her thinking and help her
understand what she did not know because she did not know what
she did not know.
27 February 2014
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page 5
Johanna Achievements
• An increased level of confidence in working with climate
change and environmental content.
• During workshop sessions – she willingly adopts a
mentoring role – supports teachers and is one of the lead
teachers in the province supporting environmental
education.
• She has initiated projects in her school linked to:
– water conservation,
– energy conservation and
– waste management.
• From the curriculum she initiated projects related to the
content and thereafter developed contextualized formal
assessment tasks that demonstrate the thread from
content – assessment - project
Mr Ngwenya Mpumalanga
(Life Sciences – Biodiversity)
• Lives in Kabokweni (Mpumalanga) – Teachers at Guduza Senior Secondary.
• Completed a Senior Teacher Diploma at EC Mango College and an ACE in
Educational Management.
• His diagnostic analysis revealed that learners are struggling with higher
order response questions:
– answering questions requiring comprehension,
– application and
– synthesis type questions.
• Mr Ngwenya also highlighted his own personal developmental needs in
terms of setting and developing higher order questions
• He found the critical analysis of two different types of field work tasks
linked to the biodiversity content extremely valuable .
• His participation in doing both tasks and working in a group of life sciences
colleagues from his area provided additional understanding and exposure
to content on biodiversity.
27 February 2014
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page 8
Mr. Ngwenya’s Achievements
• Working as a group of teachers in the same area they
redesigned the field work tasks for their own contexts and
undertook two levels of fieldwork.
• They engaged with SANBI in the Lowveld and took learners
on an excursion to do part of the study biodiversity
fieldwork.
• They conducted an additional field work task on their own
school grounds.
• Together with the other participants of the training – he
adopted a mentoring role in supporting and encouraging
other teachers in their school and area around the
biodiversity content.
• One of the main achievement was the vast increase in
personal confidence to conduct fieldwork.
Gauteng Life Sciences Curriculum
Advisors (Biodiversity)
• Grizelda Van Wyk – Works in Sedibeng East District
– Gauteng. She obtained her masters degree in
2012 from UJ.
• Grizelda valued interacting with current trends in
the field of biodiversity, the resources that were
provided and the readings that supported the
exemplars.
• Of particular interest to her was the different types
of methodologies used in teaching biodiversity:
– Reading,
– using case studies,
– participatory methods together with dialogue
27 February 2014
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page 12
Grizelda’s Achievements
• Used the Fundisa framework to support her
workshops with teachers and the PLG’s.
• Used the concept of the self-sustaining
ecosystem as a way of working with models to
support the teaching of complex issues.
• Engaged teachers in developing their own selfsustaining ecosystem and thereafter engaged
them in a dialogue using their CAPS documents to
explore concepts in Life Sciences that could be
taught by using the models they has constructed.
27 February 2014
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page 14
Transformative Learning
1. What does the teacher value from the
professional development courses they attend?
2. What new possibilities can they see for their
own practice?.
3. How does the teacher use their capabilities
when the opportunities arise to do so?
Transformative learning is a process and cannot be
achieved overnight. But its like stepping on
stones across a pond to get to the other side.
One step at a time. Starting the journey!!