Browsing by Author "Stott, Angela Elizabeth."

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A case study of a high achiever's learning of physical science.
(2002) Stott, Angela Elizabeth.; Hobden, Paul Anthony.
This is a case study of the learning of physical science of a high achiever, selected on the assumption that instruction in learning strategies and styles used by successful learners may improve learning effectiveness of less successful learners. Operating in an interpretive paradigm, qualitative data was gathered by participant observation aimed at sensing the complexities of the case. A rich, holistic description is given, enabling readers to form naturalistic generalisations of their own. The data corpus spans three years and is composed of audio-recorded lessons and interviews, field notes and written material. Data collection, analysis and interpretation were done in an inductive, cyclic manner, guided by research questions about learning strategies used by the learner, instructional strategies used by the teacher, and the roles played by intrinsic factors, practical work and problem solving, in contributing to effective learning of physical science by the high achiever. The study implies that effective learning, even by the highly intelligent, involves struggle and requires the use of a variety of strategies. This fits a constructivist, rather than transmissionist, view of learning, and thus supports learner-centered transformations in South African education. The learner is interpreted to be intrinsically motivated by interest and a high regard for knowledge precision, elegance, and transferability, to use a large number of learning strategies, particularly while solving open-ended problems and performing practical investigations, in order to come to a deep understanding of physical science. The study suggests that teaching children how to learn, particularly by addressing their outlook on learning and introducing them to a variety of strategies, should be an aim of physical science instruction, and that interesting, open-ended, learner-centered tasks should be used in attempts to induce self-regulated learning.
Promotion of critical thinking in school physical science.
(2008) Stott, Angela Elizabeth.; Hobden, Paul Anthony.
This dissertation describes an action research study aimed at promoting critical thinking in learners while learning physical science within the South African national curriculum. The data were primarily qualitative in nature, and were collected primarily through participant observation, composed of audio- and video- recorded lessons, interviews, questionnaires, journal entries and written material. Data collection, analysis and interpretation were done in the inductive, cyclic manner of action research. This process was guided by research questions about task characteristics, their position in the teaching sequence, the role of the learning environment, and the need to adjust tasks to fit the needs of different learners, so as to effectively promote critical thinking. A pragmatic approach was used. It was found that it is possible, using particular strategies and tasks, to promote critical thinking while meeting the curriculum outcomes, although the intense syllabus pressure of the curriculum makes this challenging. Task design characteristics and positioning in the teaching sequence, and conditions of the learning environment, were found to affect a task’s effectiveness at promoting critical thinking. Various teaching strategies can improve attainability by a wider range of learners. An instructional model, The Ladder Approach, emerged as being most likely to promote success. This was found to be successful when evaluated against criteria of active engagement and interest by learners, attainability with effort, display of critical thinking traits, and compatibility with the South African curriculum. In this model, an interesting problem is posed at the start of a section, after which direct instruction and learner engagement with the problem run parallel to one another, linked by scaffolding tools which are engaged in individually and collaboratively.