Definitions
Plagiarism implies: direct duplication of the formulation and insights of a source text with the intention of presenting it as one’s own work. Academic writing misconduct implies: cribbing in tests and examinations; collusion and fabrication or falsification of data; deliberate dishonesty; purchasing assignments, dissertations and/or theses on the Internet and presenting such documents as one’s own work; presenting the same work for more than one course or in consecutive years; and the submission of another person’s work as one’s own original work. Student statement: I have read the University’s Policy on the Prevention of Plagiarism and Dealing with Academic Writing Misconduct: (http://www.ufs.ac.za/faculties/documents/H1/HD1/policies/Plagiarism_Prevention_Policy.pdf). I understand that I must: abide by all the directives of this Policy, the Assessment Policy, course guides, specific and general regulations and assessment requirements; seek assistance if I am unsure about appropriate citation and referencing techniques; accept responsibility for having full knowledge of the Policy; submit only my own work for any form of assessment, except where: – the work of others is appropriately acknowledged; and – the assessor/moderator has required, or given prior permission for, group or collaborative work to be submitted; refrain from intentionally or negligently deceiving the reader by preventing my own work from being copied by another student, who may or may not have an intentional or negligent aim to deceive the reader; be aware that according to the Policy, measures for all Level Four violations and repeated Levels One, Two and Three violations are reported and investigated in accordance with the UFS Statute on Student Discipline (see Chapter XIII, pp 50 – 58); and Include with my assignment a Blackboard-Turn-it-in report if required/where applicable. Signature P MUGERI Date: 31 may 2018 Assessment rubric: Summative assignment Title 5 4 3 2 1 0 Title succinctly and successfully reflects the content of the assignment.
Reader is guided by the title. Title reflects the content of the assignment to a certain extent but reader guidance not always clear. Title does not reflect the content of the assignment. Technical editing and organization 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Assignment carefully composed and has a professional appearance. All the relevant sections included and in the correct order. Assignment has a clear beginning, middle and end with clear transitions and focused closure.
Assignment composed correctly but some editorial issues present. All relevant sections included but the order is problematic. Assignment is loosely organized in places and transitions are weak and/or the closure is ineffective. Assignment composition problematic with an unprofessional appearance. Few of the relevant sections have been included and/or the order is incorrect.
Assignment is disorganized and underdeveloped with no transitions or closure. Content Introduction 5 4 3 2 1 0 General background information regarding a paradigm and education provided. Defendable and succinct thesis statement presented. Brief overview of content provided.
Background information regarding a paradigm and education provided but not always clearly shown. Thesis statement provided. Overview of content present but not clear and/or verbose. Background information regarding a paradigm and education not provided or problematic.
Thesis statement absent or problematic. Overview of content not provided or problematic. Content Paradigms and education 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Detailed definition of a paradigm provided. Relevance of paradigms to education context successfully shown.
Definition of a paradigm provided. Relevance of paradigms to education context not always clearly shown. Problematic or no definition provided of a paradigm. Relevance of paradigms to education not adequately shown. Content Observation and critical commentary 40 38 36 34 32 30 29 28 26 24 22 20 18 16 15 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 All categories critically commented on based on observations. Relevant and specific examples provided.
Relevance to South African education context successfully shown. Critical comments well supported by sources. Most categories commented on but not always critically so. Examples provided but not always relevant and specific.
Relevance to South African education context not consistently shown. Use of sources to support critical comments not consistent. Few categories commented on and/or comments superficial. Few examples provided and/or examples are not specific or relevant.
Relevance to South African education context not successfully shown. Use of sources inadequate. Content Conclusion 5 4 3 2 1 0 Thesis statement restated. Succinct summary of main findings presented. Exact same thesis statement provided. Summary of main finding provided but not always clear and/or succinct.
Thesis statement not restated. Summary of main findings absent and/or verbose and/or unclear. New information included in the introduction.
THE ANALYSES OF THE PARADIGM THAT WAS OBSERVED DURING TEACHING PRACTICE
INTRODUCTION
The most difficulties that our schools face today is the challenge of practising the paradigm in the classroom, engaging students and creating excitement about learning.
Most of the paradigm in teaching students help them to recall specific content given to them through lecture. Exciting students about learning and education is an important part of preparing them for future success as students and as members of society. In order to make the classroom more exciting, attention must be paid by educators to the capacities, interests, and habits of students. Effective approaches in the learning process help students to remember what they have learned by reflecting back to the approaches practices.
The aim of the assignment is to analyses the observation made during a practical teaching by reflecting on teaching paradigms. It is all about the role of paradigms in classrooms. How teachers used the paradigms and how learners participation was tested using the paradigm.
THE ROLE OF PARADIGM IN SCHOOL
A scientific paradigm, in the most basic word, it can be defined as a way of looking at something. The word paradigm comes up a lot in the academic, scientific, and business worlds.
It can also be referred to the different standard, perspective and set of ideas (Wesley, 2014). Paradigms normally guide the way we do things and this can differ from the thought pattern to action. Paradigm also gives the teachers, the direction of how to approach the classroom and which strategies they must follow to test the level of the understanding of learners. This makes the teacher have the teaching plan in time and be able to know what is expected from them.it is important for the teachers to be able to understand and be able to use the paradigm because, teachers will be able to engage students in active, hands-on, creative problem-based learning and also the paradigm provides opportunities for teachers to plan students will access and use resources and information to solve problems.
Teaching discovers the shortage of what will be needed during the lesson immediately.
OBSERVATIONS AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY
The observation i made during your practice teaching During my practical teaching observe economic management, business studies, Accounting and life orientation as one of my majors. This observation was very interesting because I learned so much from my mentors on how to approach classrooms and to also make the learners have the feeling of belonging in the classroom. I had to sit in class from the first class until the last class every day.
Learning how to do admin was very interesting, as I had to mark the register and be able to learn how to teach learners to mark files. They were also some moral activities that I attended, which was a great experience that I had to learn how to interact with learners inside and outside the classroom. I also attend teachers meeting, this was a very good experience because it gives me an overview of what expect when I get into the field of permanent work. The observation was the experience that builds confidence and also teaches someone that the teaching field needs someone who can be able to interactive and collaborative with their colleague.
I have observed that if you tend to teach learners at an early age, it shape them to be responsible and respective learners. At the school that I was, learners are taught to be more social towards one another. This is good as the school composed of Indians, coloured, blacks and whites. Education paradigm(s) that underlies the observation The paradigms that underlie my observation was constructivism and behaviourism. My mentors used this paradigm(s) to pose questions and problems, then guide students to help them find their own answers. They use many methods in the teaching process (wretch, 2008).
For example, they encouraged students to formulate their own questions, allow multiple interpretations and expressions of learning, and encourage group work and the use of peers as resources (collaborative learning). Behaviourism and constructivist approach were used simply because they have many practices in the pursuit of their primary goal such as helping students to learn how to learn. Constructivism and behaviourist learning were the decent approaches because students were not treated as blank slates, their knowledge was impressed by posing different questions and activities that they will have to do. They come to learning situations with already formulated knowledge, ideas, and understanding.
Using these two approaches was good because learners used the previous knowledge that they have constructed for the new knowledge they will create and also pace learners in an assignment to work from their most basic to the more completed concepts. For example, the teacher presents a class problem to measure the knowledge of the learners. Rather than starting the problem by introducing the basics of approaching the balance sheet, the teacher allows students to reflect and to construct their own approaches to calculating the balance sheet. Learners were also allowed to ask questions for more clarity in direction and ask for feedback.
Again, behaviorism approach was very useful in teaching because the teacher used reinforcement to encourage learners to do their best work and also to encourage improvement. The teacher tried, by all means, to avoid punishment unless if it was absolutely necessary for her to use it. As it was the first opening week for term two, she also tried to explain her expectations towards the learners and have a clear, printed out and verbally explained directions of the term assignments. She was very determined to encouraged learners that regardless of their previous mistakes, they can do it and do it well (Skinner et al, 2013:45). In these approaches, the student is the person who constructs new understanding for him/herself. The teacher coaches, moderates, suggests but allows the student’s room to experiment, ask questions and try things that don’t work.
Learning activities require the student’s full participation like one on one section, where learners can have a discussion about the certain topic that they will be given. An important part of the learning process is that students reflect on and talk about their activities. Students are also helped to set their own goals and increase the level of their understanding towards certain assessment (wretch, 2008). For examples, in a middle-school language, art teacher sets aside time each week for a writing lab. The emphasis is on content and getting ideas down rather than memorizing grammatical rules, though one of the teachers concerns is the ability of her students to express themselves well through written language.
The teacher provides opportunities for students to examine the finished and earlier drafts of various authors. She allowed students to select and create projects within the general requirement of building a portfolio. Students regarded as editors who value originality and uniqueness rather than the best way to fulfill an assignment. Another example can be in a history class, asking students to read and think about different version and perspectives on history can lead to interesting discussion. As student will try to construct their own understanding of different perspective. This can help them not to forget about the perspectives as they would have been constructed their understanding.
In both paradigms (s), Students control their own learning process, and they lead the way by reflecting on their experiences. This process makes them experts of their own learning. The teacher role is to help them to create situations where the students feel safe questioning and reflecting on their own processes, either individually or in group discussions. In constructivism, the teacher also created activities that lead the students to reflect on his/her prior knowledge and experiences. Taking about what was learned and how it was learned is very important.
For example, students keep journals in a writing class where they record how they felt about the class projects, the visual, verbal reactions of others to the projects and how they felt their own writing had changed their behaviour towards learning. The constructivist classroom relies heavily on collaboration among students. There were many reasons why collaboration contributes to learning. The main reason it is used so much in constructivism is that students learn about learning not only from themselves but also from their peers.
When students review and reflect on their learning processes together, it is easy for them to pick up strategies and methods from one another. For example, in the course of studying mathematics, students undertake different strategies for approaching mathematics by just observing on how other get to understand the learning content fast. As the students find different strategies, the teacher introduces classifying techniques. This encouraged students to set up a group by developing criteria and choosing which strategies to use and collaborate with other students who worked in different strategies from them. The main activity in a constructivist and behaviorist classroom is solving problems. Students used inquiry methods to ask questions, investigate a topic and use a variety of resources to find solutions and answers.
As students explore the topic, they draw conclusions, and as exploration continues, they revisit those conclusions. Exploration of questions leads to more questions. For example, Sixth graders figuring out how to purify water investigate solutions ranging from coffee-filter paper to a stove-top distillation apparatus, to piles of charcoal, to an abstract mathematical solution based on the size of a water molecule. Depending upon student’s responses, the teacher encourages abstract as well as concrete, expressive as well as practical, creations of new knowledge.
Students have ideas that they may later see were invalid, incorrect to explain new experiences. These ideas are temporary steps in the integration of knowledge. For instance, a child may believe that all trees lose their leaves in the fall until she visits an evergreen forest. In both teaching takes into account students current conceptions and builds from there. What happens is that when a student’s gets a new piece of information. The constructivist (teacher) model says that the students compare the information to the knowledge and understanding he/she already has.
This can be resulted in that the new information matches up with his/her previous knowledge very well. So the student can end up adding it to their understanding. Another thing can be that if the student information doesn’t match with their previous experience. The student can change her previous understanding to find a fit for the information.
For example in the elementary teacher believes her students are ready to study gravity. She creates an environment of discovery with objects of varying kinds. Students can explore the differences in weight among similarity sized blocks of wood and lead. Some students can be still assuming that heavier objects fall faster than light ones.
The teacher provides the materials (posters and videos) about a certain subject and allows students to be engaged in the discussion about falling. The student then can imitate what they have seen/ experiment on the videos or posters by dropping objects of different weights and measuring how fast they fall. Students will be able to see that the objects weights actually usually fall at the same sped, although surface area and properties can affect the rate of fall.
THE PRACTICAL IMPLICATION OF BEHAVIOURISM AND CONSTRUCTIVISM
Their central idea is that human learning is constructed that learners build new knowledge upon the foundation of previous learning.
This view of learning contrasts with one in which learning is a passive transmission of information from one individual to another (Fobes, 2005, 20). For example in South African schools, teachers act more in giving the learners information, the learner uses the information in the learning process and end up constructing their own learning from the information that they were given by the teacher. In these approaches, learners construct their new understandings using what they already know for example in the classroom of social sciences and arts and culture learners can be taught that men are more powerful than women. But students can just construct their own understanding by what they see every day and what is implying in their everyday life. Learner’s constructs and observe learning situation with knowledge gained from previous experience and that prior learning influences what is new or modified knowledge they will construct from learning experiences. In these approaches learners are allowed to raise their opinions then the teachers can just correct or give learners the best explanation of what they have to learn and understand.
For example in a class of economic management science, when the teacher is presenting the lesson about the different levels of management. The teacher can pose a question to the learners on what they think out those levels, learners will give their overview then the teachers will correct the students by giving them a full clarification, together with what is right and what they need to understand as their part of learning. Learning is active rather than passive. Learners confront their understanding in light of what they encounter in the new learning situation. For example, if what students encounter is inconsistent with their current understanding, their understanding can change to accommodate new experiences.
Learners will remain active throughout the process. They apply current understanding, note relevant elements in new learning experiences, judge consistency of prior and emerging knowledge based on the judgment, they can modify knowledge. Constructivism has important implication for teaching. The teaching cannot be viewed as the transmission of knowledge from educating to educated, constructivist and behaviorist teachers do not take a role of being clever in the classroom rather the teacher acts as guides on the side who provide learners with opportunities to test the levels of their current understandings. If learnings are based on prior knowledge, then teachers must note that knowledge and provide learning environments that exploit inconsistencies between learner’s current understandings and the new experiences before them.
These challenges teachers because they cannot assume that all children may need different experiences to advance to different levels of understandings. If learners have to apply their current understanding in situations in order to build new knowledge, then teachers must engage learners in the learning and bring them to current understanding to the front. Teachers can ensure that learning experiences include problems that are more important to the learners, not to those that are primarily important to teachers and the educational system. Teachers also encourage group interaction, where the interaction among learners helps individual learner gain understandings by comparing it to that of their peers. If new knowledge is actively built, then time is needed to build it.
Sufficient time facilitates learner’s reflection about new experiences line up against current understanding and how a different understanding might provide the student with an improved view of the world. These paradigm(s) are designed to provide learners with the opportunities for construction and observing. In these paradigm(s), the learning is not just a domain of children but of all learners. The constructivist professional development gives teachers time to make explicit their understanding of learning and teaching, for example, it examine if the teacher is an orator or facilitator and what is the teacher understanding of the content ( jappe,2014). Furthermore, such professional development provider’s opportunities for teachers to test their understanding and build new ones. Constructivism and behaviorism represent one of the big ideas in education.
Their implications for how teachers teach and learn to teach are important. If the efforts in improving education for all learners are to succeed, then it must focus on the leaners. A focus on learner-centered learning may be the most important contribution to constructivism and behaviorism. For example, this encourages and also motivates learners to be self-reliant and it makes their understanding easily towards the learning content.
PARADIGM THAT WAS NOT PRESENTED
The critical pedagogy paradigm The approach of critical pedagogy was not used because of it the paradigm whereby the teacher teaches and the students are taught.in this approach, the teacher knows everything and the students know nothing.
The teacher talks and the students listen. In other words, the teacher is the subject and the students are ordinary objects. The critical pedagogy does not motivate learners to be creative thinkers. Critical pedagogy also has a political agenda; it views education as a means to achieve social justice and change.
Critical pedagogy also has a political agenda, which is, it views education as a means to achieve social justice and change (Weimer, 2009:26). Critical pedagogy never encourages learners to collaborate and work cooperatively on projects if the grading representation is competitive. This hinders the learner’s levels of communication. It also discouraged to be hard workers because whatever that they perceive, they can never apply it to their learning because this paradigm treats learners as empty vessels that need to be filled. Critical pedagogy was not used teachers and learners we going to face challenges of re-socializing learners to accept the learning experiences.
At the beginning of the term, learners were going to feel uncomfortable with discovering and recovering their own voices, asking questions and tolerating ambiguity and uncertainty (Weimer, 2009, 28). At first, learners are more comfortable with the traditional model of compulsory note taking and the regurgitation of facts. Yet our experience is that learners adapt quickly. Pedagogy can make the learner’s life difficult because it decreases the levels of learner’s confidence and the feeling of belonging to the classroom. For example, if learners are given an opportunities to express their own understanding. This will those not to feel isolated in the classroom, because when learners are engaged in the lesson by asking questions and giving answers.
This makes the classroom to be more interesting and learners will never forget what they have learned. Again, it was not used because as a teacher you must have an approach that you think the best help your learners to cooperate more towards their learning. As the mentor was using the behaviorist and constructivism, she regarded them as the best approaches to her teaching because it encourages interaction and collaborative learning among learners. Learners were able to express themselves and it was also easier for her to know the level of learner’s knowledge and she has to improve.
CONCLUSION
The analyses of the different paradigm (constructivist and observation) was the best experience that guides one as the upcoming future teacher to be ready to have different approaches to the classroom.
As the culture of the classroom differs. The necessities of using paradigm in school were that it makes teachers train their abilities and their interest more in the classroom. After observational analysing, the constructivist and behaviorist have shown that they are the best approaches in class because they analyze the context of learning in schools and also encouraged teachers to collaborate more in the learning process rather than to just teach and never allow learners to be engaged in the learning process. This was the best experience because now I know how to approach classes and also what to expect in the teaching process.
REFERENCES
- Bandura, A.2011.
- Learning theories in plain English. London Fobes, C., and Kaufman, P. 2008. Critical pedagogy in the sociology classroom: Challenges and concerns. Teaching Sociology, 26-33 Japp, J. (2014).
- Addressing paradigm: Growing Our Own Teachers in an Urban Setting, the Forum, and spring. http://paradigm.edu/education//BUDWO/credey/intero.html. Retrieved 31 may 2018 Skinner, B, F., Watson, J, B., Pavlov, I., Thorndike, E, L. Bandura A., 2013. Behaviourism Theory of Learning Teachers must learn how to teach. Brittaney.
- Weimer, M, .2009. Critical pedagogy brings new teaching and learning challenges. http/www.facultyfocus.com/articles.teaching and learning/critical pedagogy-bring new teaching Retrieved 30 may 2018 Wretch, J.2008. Voices of the Mind: a teaching approach to mediated action. London: Wesley A. Implications of constructivism.
- Hoover http://www.sedl.org/puns//sedletter/practice.htmlRetrieved on 30 may 2018.
