LAST week I discussed the importance of infusing unhu/ubuntu across all curricula.
You can call this mainstreaming unhu/ubuntu across the curricula.
This means that the principles of unhu/ubuntu inform decisions as to choice of subjects at every level including the content to be taught in every subject, materials such as books and other learning aids, the methodology and indeed the evaluation procedures.
This week as we near the year-end we want to look at other key considerations which the reviewers of our curriculum need to take on board.
Yalden defines course design as the “the attempt to achieve a certain coincidence between the needs and aims of the learner and the activities that take place during course implementation”.
Hutchinson and Waters say course design is “primarily a matter of asking questions in order to come up with a reasoned basis for the process of syllabus designing materials, writing, classroom teaching and evaluation”.
An effective course design begins with asking questions in order to understand who your students are, deciding what you want them to learn, determining how you will measure whether students are learning, and planning activities, assignments and materials that are favourable to student learning.
This has serious implications about teacher training.
It means that new teachers have to be baptised in the new courses and methodologies in the colleges.
It also implies the need to retrain teachers who are already qualified in terms of the new courses or revised course content as well as new methodologies and ideological orientation. Retraining is critical so that players in the educational industry sing the same song, the national song.
Re-crafting new and realigning existing courses begins with needs analysis.
Needs analysis answers fundamental questions of ownership and purpose.
The needs analyst must say for whom the course is prepared.
To respond to what needs.
In our case the main objective of every course is to equip Zimbabweans with skills, values and attitudes that make them serve Zimbabwe above all else.
The people’s values and needs should then guide designers come up with the relevant content.
This content has to be captured in learning materials for all levels of learning.
This is where materials writers become key.
We need to select writers with the right national consciousness as well as subject mastery. Critical to the process of writing is contextualisation.
We are tired of examples from Europe and America.
Tangibility is achievable when content is linked to our daily experiences.
History must focus on the story of Zimbabwe, reflecting the journeys we have travelled all the way from the Stone Age, the achievements of our ancestors, slavery, colonialism and the wars of liberation culminating in the current wars we are fighting against imperialism.
That is our story.
Not the joke about Jan Van Rieback or the exploits of Rhodes.
Real history places the African at the centre where he is viewed not as acted upon, but as the main actor.
The same applies to Geography.
We have rivers and mountains, not just as topographical features, but as abodes of spirits, as sacred features.
Then you are talking about the geography of Zimbabwe.
Talk about our minerals and not about monsoon winds or prairies of Canada.
These are just guiding examples, but I am aware the task requires much more in terms of content alignment.
Then comes the issue of methodology.
You cannot separate methodology from a people’s philosophy or worldview.
Methodology has become an integral part of any course design.
The process of course design needs to address the question of which methods are most appropriate for the delivery for which content?
The method is represented by ‘how’, meaning how is the content going to be delivered. Related to methods are the learner’s activities and the teacher’s role in implementing the course.
There are questions such as: “What are the learners going to do in the learning process?”
Are they to be passive participants or they are to be actively involved in the learning process?
The teachers are the sources of knowledge and that no learning will go on if the teacher of the course is absent.
The teachers are catalysts, guides, consultants and models for learning. Learners can go out with the course even if the teacher is absent and will only consult or confirm when the teacher comes.
A popular African approach which makes learners agents as well as active partakers of their education is the dariro approach.
Dr Mahoso is quite particular about it; not without reason.
It involves the learner not as a loner but as learning with and from each other.
That is in keeping with the spirit of unhu/ubuntu.
The learner-centred approach to course design is the first approach.
This approach places the learner at the centre of the whole process.
A course is designed with a learner-centred focus not only to help learners increase their competence in the acquisition of any skill or knowledge.
It also allows them to develop strategies of ‘learning how to learn’.
The learning-centred approach to course design is the next approach to be discussed.
While the learner-centred approach focused on the learner(s), the learning-centred approach focuses on the learning process, that is, how learners acquire competencies.
The responsibility for learning shifts from the teacher to the students.
Students take responsibility for their own learning.
With students, the teacher creates learning environments that motivate students to accept responsibility for learning.
The approach has an appropriate balance of power between the teacher and the students by giving students some control over the policies; the schedule including deadlines; methods of learning; and methods of assessment.
The language-centred approach to course design is the other consideration. In this approach, language is at the centre of course design task.
This approach is the most familiar and commonly used of the five approaches.
The main feature of the approach is that it draws a relationship between the content of the language and communication approach and the situational needs of the learner.
Then comes the skills-centred approach which deals with skills that learners need to acquire or to have in order to function in given situations.
The designer has to identify the skills required by the learners to deal with the various situations they come across and then come up with the content to facilitate to acquisition of these skills.
In the final analysis, because each of the above approaches has its own competitive advantage, there is need to use all, each where it produces the best results.
This is called the eclectic approach to course design.