As indicated above, these projects have, over the years all developed understandings of active learning, and learner centred education in South Africa and Namibia through research that was undertaken within the projects and through their formative monitoring and evaluation processes (van Harmelen,2000; Janse van Rensburg & Lotz-Sisitka,2000; Lotz-Sisitka & Raven, 2001; NEEP-GET 2005a, b). These understandings have also been extended by various other research projects. I summarise some of the main findings related to this body of research on active learning and learner centred education below.
Hoabes (2004), conducting research in the Namibian context into learner centred education in Life Sciences found that teachers were mainly interpreting learner centred education in terms of changes in method only. She found too that with some teachers there appears to be little understanding of their own practices as being learner centred. Teachers are also not in
agreement whether learner centred education works. She recommended that continued support should be provided to teachers in the form of in-service training to help teachers: (a)
understand LCE better (this would include understanding the social constructivist nature of the reforms in Namibia), and (b) understand how the methods they use reflect LCE.
Similar research was undertaken in South African schools looking at how action competency and active learning has been taken up by teachers and learners in their approach to the environmental focus in the learning areas, outcomes and context. One of the key challenges that have come forth is to move out of simplistic nature studies or superficial activities to more in-depth engagement with issues in context. Mbanjwa (2002) for example reported from his study into learning support materials and active learning, that there is a need to examine the usage of learning support materials, and how they are aligned with outcomes
based education approaches and methods with specific reference to how the materials are designed to promote learner centred education and group work.
Jensen and Schnack (1997) distinguish between action and activity in environmental
education, arguing that one of the key features of an action is that it needs to enable learners to participate in investigating and solving environmental problems. Jensen and Schnack have found in their studies that action in lesson plans often appears to be understood as action for activity’s sake, with little evidence of in-depth understanding of the issue. In most cases, they argue that it appears that learners do not always understand why they are doing activities, which affects meaningful learning. As reported above, the NEEP-GET research (2005a) also emphasized the need for teachers to have in-depth knowledge of the issues they are dealing with, since their knowledge also affects the learning opportunities for learners, and thus learner centred education approaches and how they are implemented. Such issues have been raised by other researchers, such as Mvula Jamela (2007), where she reports on an isolated activity making items out of waste which was considered to be an action. However, the learners did not situate the activity within the problem of waste management nor did they consider how reusing waste might reduce the waste problem. Mbanjwa’s (2002) study indicated that the way that learner centred activities are planned and resourced are closely associated with the teacher’s knowledge of the topic (e.g. waste management issues in this case), and the teacher’s knowledge of how to teach in learner centred ways (i.e. pedagogical knowledge). The Mvula Jamela (2007) study sheds further light on this, since her study revealed that active learning approaches may also lead to a loss of valuable learning
opportunities, particularly for learners to develop their reading and writing skills, as too much can be left up to groups of learners, without giving adequate attention to whether each child in the group is learning. She recommended that the use of active learning approaches require teachers to fully understand the enquiry process, and that teachers should carefully consider reading and writing opportunities available to learners in which individual reading and writing should be encouraged, even in group work activities.
The Mvula Jamela study revealed that Eco-Schools policy and active learning approaches are consistent with outcomes based policy and philosophy. She argues that the active learning approach allows for the constructivist orientation of the curriculum to be developed by
teachers and learners, while the School Environmental Policy allows for contextualising of the curriculum, and for the building of school community relationships. Her study, by identifying specific pedagogical problems (such as the lack of adequate reading and writing opportunities in group work), and inappropriate levels of assessment, however, showed that even if
something is consistent with educational policy (e.g. Eco-Schools’ consistency with
outcomes-based education) it is still the teaching process, and the teachers’ understanding of learner centred educational processes that are significant in ensuring that meaningful learning takes place. Mbanjwa’s (2002) study showed that this has a link with how teachers inform themselves (i.e. improve their own knowledge) and how they use materials, as well as how the materials are designed. Hoabes’ (2004) study in Namibia showed that understanding learner centred education requires teachers to see it as wider than just a change in teaching methods. As indicated above, the NEEP-GET (2005b) research also emphasized the importance of an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning processes. These issues have also been raised more recently in the Eco-Schools evaluation (Rosenberg, 2008) where the question of how Eco-Schools contribute to educational quality in South Africa has been raised.
In the next section I consider learner centred education in more depth, since it has been such a strong feature of environmental education developments in both Namibia and South Africa, as outlined by the overview provided above.
2.6 LEARNER CENTRED EDUCATION