Los Sistemas de Partidos en Europa del Este

After completing my planning and designing of the genetics course I gave the document to four colleagues for their feedback. A critique by colleagues was necessary as it would help to validate my course outline and also to see if the process of designing the course that I had undertaken was a useful exercise to do. Three of the four colleagues were biology lecturers in our Science Division and the fourth one was picked up from outside the Wits School of Education. The idea was to get views of a person who is external to the teaching profession. The following pseudonyms were used in the discussion that follows:

Georgia (G) - Biology teacher educator Alaska (A) - Biology teacher educator Michigan (M) - Biology teacher educator

Kansas (K) - Lecturer in the faculty of Engineering. He has no teacher education

background.

These colleagues were invited to read the course breakdown document focussing on the appropriateness of the content that I was planning to teach and the sequencing of the topics after which we would meet and discuss. I was not able to meet with Michigan. She however wrote some comments for me.

Michigan’s comments

Michigan said it was a ‘lovely’ document. She agreed with me that the unpacking of the syllabus is an important exercise and was happy with my suggestion that it be done for all courses at Division level as a collective exercise involving all lecturers in the Division.

I managed to meet with Georgia, Alaska and Kansas. During the discussion with the three colleagues, I took down notes, some of them verbatim. Below is a discussion of what transpired during the discussions.

Georgia’s comments (G)

G: The course breakdown together with the concept map is invaluable as they both clarify

the content and the sequencing of that content to whoever will teach it in future. You know, after reading this (meaning my course breakdown document), I am of the opinion that we should have something like this for every course but ah-ah only after my retirement.

124

G: This is a lot of work so ah-ah after my retirement

According to Georgia, my course breakdown clarifies the content to be taught and its sequencing for whoever will teach the genetics course in future. Georgia’s comments show that the course breakdown document is of value and wishes that the same be produced for every course. She can however also see the amount of work that went into its production and therefore doesn’t wish to see this exercise being implemented during her time because it will mean a lot of work for her too.

Alaska’s comments (A)

Alaska’s comments focused on the content part of the document. She was of the opinion that the topic mutations should be taught at the end instead of the middle where I had put it. She saw the content about genetic disorders and genetic counselling as content in which the knowledge of genetics is being applied. She therefore felt that it is more appropriate to teach it at the end after everything else. Her argument made sense so after the discussion with her; I took her comments into consideration and shifted the topic mutations to the end (see appendix C for the final course outline). I however needed more feedback from her so I asked her the following question:

Eunice: Do you see this course breakdown as of any value?

A: I do. If I had taught this course before seeing this document, my teaching would have involved me just stating my understanding of genetics without thinking pedagogically, not thinking about why. This document provides structure to the course and moves your thinking beyond content. If we had time, it would be good to do this for other courses.

What I could pick from Alaska’s comments are issues of content and pedagogy; that it was important that I had considered both content and pedagogy in my planning of the course. Alaska just like Georgia could also see value in the document that I had produced. She also wished that it could be done for other courses.

Kansas’ comments

Kansas’ comments were given in point form:

 Your document is saying: don’t make assumptions about what students know. Find out.

 What you did is partly curriculum development and partly evaluation of the courses

and this is part of your responsibilities.

 A course outline is a living document that needs continuous evaluation. It is like a

125

 A course syllabus is very broad and if unpacking of that syllabus into a course outline

is done by individuals may result in misalignments according to the lecturer’s preferences, competence and interest. Course outlines should therefore be treated in the same way that we deal with internal exam reviews.

When I discussed the comments above with Kansas, he said this was a summary of what he could pick from my course breakdown document. His first comment concerns students’ prior knowledge that we should not make assumptions about what students know about a topic. This comment came as a result of what I said in one section of the course breakdown document where I said ‘Over the years, I have realized that a big number of students who

enrol for the genetics course have never done genetics before. Even for those who have done genetics, it is important to find out what they know about genetics so as to know where to start from and how fast to go’. Kansas said that by saying this, I showed an awareness of

the importance of the knowledge that learners in this case students bring to class. Kansas also saw the document as partly curriculum development and partly curriculum evaluation because he could see that the syllabus entry from which the syllabus breakdown was produced was not a straight forward piece of text and that the production of the course breakdown document led me to identify some gaps in our Life Sciences programme.

In addition to seeing the production of the course breakdown document as curriculum evaluation, Kansas was of the view that the unpacking of the syllabus into course outlines should go through an internal review process just like what is done with examination papers for quality control and assurance purposes. This suggestion came from a concern that if the unpacking of the syllabus entry is left to individuals only, there is a possibility that those individuals may choose the content that interest them and/or are comfortable to teach. The individuals may also overlook and leave out important content. Hence the comment: if

unpacking of that syllabus into a course outline is done by individuals may result in misalignments according to the lecturer’s preferences, competence and interest. Kansas’

suggestion never crossed my mind when I was developing my course outline. I am however happy to say that some of the steps that I took when I was planning the genetics course catered for such biases thereby helping to make the course breakdown authentic and free from my own preferences. For example, I read literature to put together the core knowledge of genetics. I also involved high school teachers and colleagues to validate the content of genetics that I was proposing to teach.

126

My reflection: When I reflected on the process that I had gone through to develop my

genetics course outline and on the feedback from colleagues, I got a number of insights for my practice as a teacher educator. The first insight that I got is that a course outline is a very important document. While one person could be responsible for the preparation of a course outline, members of the subject should have an input into its development for two important reasons: Firstly, to avoid situations where individuals would choose content that they are comfortable to teach or content that interests them and leave out important content. Secondly, to ensure continuity: if all members of a subject get involved in the preparation of course outlines at various levels, they will all be aware of the content that is taught in the courses before or after theirs; the vertical curriculum (see section 2.3.2). This will prevent situations where content is repeated or left out. The second insight is that syllabus documents and textbooks describe what is called common content knowledge (see section 2.3.4) about a topic. This is the content that teachers and teacher educators usually teach. There is however specialized content knowledge (section 2.3.4) that is necessary for the development of a better understanding of a concept or a topic that the above listed sources are silent about. It is our responsibility as teacher educators to be aware of this specialized content knowledge so that we can teach it to pre-service teachers. One source of specialized content knowledge is research literature. The third insight that I got is that our roles and responsibilities as teacher educators go beyond teaching to curriculum development and curriculum evaluation. The question is: Are teacher educators aware of these roles other than the teaching role? The last insight was the realisation that there is not enough time for us as teacher educators to fulfil our roles and responsibilities. My question then is: what are we going to do about it?

After reflection on the development of my course outline and on colleagues’ comments, I presented the course breakdown document together with my colleagues’ comments to my critical friend for a critique. I wanted her to look at the significance of developing a course outline to my practice as a teacher educator and to my study. In the next section, I discuss what came out of my discussion with my critical friend.

4.5 Designing the genetics course outline: Significance and lessons