Designing a teaching methodology for the G.C.E. advanced level biology curriculum based on a section evaluated as disliked by students

Abstract

It is apparent that there are always sections in curricula liked and disliked by learners. However, no attempts have been made in Sri Lanka to evaluate such issue. . Hence this investigation was conducted to identify the disliked sections of the units 2&3 of the A.L. Biology curriculum, and to design an improved methodology to convert a disliked section to a liked section for students. During the 1st stage, with the view of identifying disliked section, A.L. students of eight Government schools and a private tuition institution as well as 13 subject teachers were provided with appropriate questionnaires. Besides, verbal comments of some unstructured interviews with the confronted population were also gathered. The evaluation of the information gained showed a disparity between the teachers’ and the students’ views about disliked sub-units. According to the students, the most disliked sub-unit was “Response to Plant Stimuli” which was selected for testing giving the priority to the view of students. For the 2nd stage, where teaching was practised, one girls and one boys school were selected out of the original “lot. To build up two student groups for teaching, Ordinary Level performances in Mathematics and Science & Technology were considered. Group I of both schools were taught with presently practising methodology whilst the group II was taught with the improved methodology using non sophisticated and inexpensive teaching aids. For the improved methodology, views of students and teachers were given due consideration. Before commencing the classes the students were requested to face a pre-test to ascertain their prior knowledge. Three days after the end of the teaching the students were given a post-test. An evaluator was also included during the teaching process to receive behavioral comments. The results revealed that the proposed methodology blended with specific activities was more advantageous than the presently practised lecture based methodology because of more opportunities to participate actively. The proposed new methodology was also successful in converting the disliked section into a liked one as well. This investigation has shown that disliked sections could be made liked by developing new methods attractive to the student. Hence it should be the teachers’ responsibility to launch an appropriate methodology to achieve all the objectives embedded in a section by properly understanding the views of students as different methods are usually effective to teach disliked sections in a curriculum. When converting a disliked section to a liked section it is obvious that a teacher should be able to judge the reason/reasons for the disliked section through understanding the students’ prior knowledge, mental capacity, ability of grasping subject matter etc. Converting a disliked section to a liked section is a big challenge! This challenge will enhance the interest in teaching process as well.