Developing and implementing conceptual teaching strategy in organic chemistry through lesson study.

Abstract

In South Africa, Physical Sciences is one of the subjects with a high failure rate in the grade 12 National Senior Certificate (NSC) Examination. This observation was reported by the Department of Education and supported by several scholars. This study reports a case study that focused on how practising teachers developed and implemented conceptual teaching strategies to improve the learning of organic chemistry. The study was underpinned by topic-specific pedagogical content knowledge (TSPCK), a theoretical construct emerging from Shulman’s idea of content amalgamation with pedagogy. There were three questions raised in this study: (i) What is the quality of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in planning to teach a section of organic chemistry before the lesson study? (ii) What is a suitable conceptual teaching strategy for teaching grade a section of organic chemistry? (iii) How do teachers implement the conceptual teaching strategy developed through lesson study to teach a section of organic chemistry? Four in-service teachers participating in this study, including the researcher, were selected purposefully to participate in the study from Hlabisa Circuit in Mkhanyakude district in Kwa-Zulu Natal. Data was generated from the lesson plans of the participating teachers before lesson study intervention and further used two lesson study cycles to collect data through the use of the (content representation (CoRe). The findings revealed that teachers had limited knowledge of the conceptual teaching strategy before lesson study intervention. After the exposure to the intervention, findings revealed that teachers successfully improved the quality of their conceptual teaching strategy through the use of CoRe as a planning template. Participants could show the good quality of TSPCK and how TSPCK components interacted during the lesson planning. Furthermore, this interaction of TSPCK components was also developed in enacted TSPCK. Therefore, the lesson study played a critical role in improving planned TSPCK and enacted TSPCK. Further research is needed to explore the development of conceptual teaching strategies in other chemistry topics. Thus, the study recommended the inclusion of lesson study in the continuous professional development of teachers.