Modularization: The Unknown Unknown

An ideal (a.k.a. radical) modular system has some important criteria. a. Curriculum and the relations to other educational programs: Restriction of learning content and/or qualifications, flexible combination of different modules; b. Curriculum and guide lines: Standardization of learning contents, qualifications, and methods of measuring learning outcome; c. Assessment: Output-orientation; d. Certification process: Certification of each unit; e. Participants: Unrestricted entrance and exit opportunities by participants; and f. Providers: Unrestricted option to offer all types of modules by all kinds of schools and training providers. [Pilz, M. (2002). Modularization in the Scottish Education System: A View from the Outside. Scottish Educational Review 34(2): 163–174.] Those Ethiopian higher education institutes implementing the modular programs can easily see the inadequacies of the programs in terms of these criteria.

Cognitive-Metacognitive System

Metacognition is regarded as an important construct in helping educators develop better teaching and learning strategies, contexts, and materials. The development and use of good teaching and learning strategies and materials emanating from metacognition require profound understanding of how it promotes the efficiency of the cognitive system in learning. A proposed system called cognitive-metacognitive system illustrates how the metacognitive system promotes the efficiency of the cognitive system. The cognitive-metacognitive system enters into a six-step sequence of mental activities to process cognitive inputs; and yields cognitive outputs. It is well-established that metacognition promotes learning via identifying and deploying appropriate and effective cognitive processing strategies and tools; and identifying and deploying metacognitive strategies to regulate cognitive processing. Hence, the effectiveness of the cognitive-metacognitive system in promoting learning depends on its ability in helping learners generate manageable meta-level models of cognitive inputs for cognitive processing.

Metacognitive Reflections

Metacognitive (post-instructional) reflections are conscious reflections which indicate that students: (a) had some beliefs, assumptions, or understandings that are contradictory to what was presented during instruction, (b) are conscious that they had such beliefs, assumptions, or understandings, and (c) are declaring that they are abandoning, modifying, or changing those and assimilating/accommodating the conceptions presented during instruction. Examples:

I thought that the organ that thinks is the heart but not the brain. Because, I usually hear people saying: ‘a fool without a heart that can think’ (10 years old, 5th grade boy, Mekelle-Ethiopia).

I used to believe that fishes are created from the water in which they live. I never realized that they get reproduced by sexual means (11 years old, 5th grade boy, Mekelle-Ethiopia).

I used to hear about malaria. I thought we catch malaria when it is cold or when we sleep around moist locations, but I didn’t know that it is transmitted by mosquito. I thought we catch malaria from the moisture (13 years old, 6th grade girl, Mekelle-Ethiopia).

I used to believe that diseases are transmitted only via breathing. But now I understand that diseases can also be transmitted by water, food, contact and vectors (11 years old, 6th grade girl, Mekelle-Ethiopia).

Teacher Education Students' Epistemological Beliefs:...

Joanne B.

Teachers, like all knowledge workers, need to be self-regulated, critically reflective lifelong learners. Therefore it is important to attend to the 'how' (processes) of learning as well as the 'what' (content) (Klatter et al., 2001). With this in mind, a growing body of research is indicating that teacher educators need to focus on teacher beliefs as a way to facilitate effective learning in tertiary education (Fang, 1996; Richardson et al., 1991). In particular, the body of literature related to teacher beliefs about knowing and learning, otherwise known as epistemological beliefs, may provide valuable insights into how to improve teaching and learning in higher education (Beers, 1984; Hofer, 1994; Hofer and Pintrich, 1997; Schommer, 1990, 1993a, b). In the context of this study, epistemological beliefs refer holistically to personally held beliefs about what knowledge is, how it can be gained, its degree of certainty, and the limits and criteria for determining knowledge (Perry, 1981).

LINK: HERE

The Witchdoctors Are Not Wrong...: M.S. Tembo

The African indigenous epistemology has been impugned, despised, and denigrated since the advent of European colonialism. The Western or Eurocentric view has consistently and widely used the pejorative terms "witchdoctor" and "superstition" when describing, referring to, and in the majority of cases dismissing elements of African indigenous world view. The twin concepts of witchdoctor and superstition have been used to negatively portray virtually all elements of African epistemology in the process destabilizing, seriously compromising, and in some cases destroying African individual physical and mental well-being. The paper will argue that the discipline of psychology has the potential to play a very useful role in the lives of Africans. Modern psychology can achieve this by formally incorporating and integrating the positive non-African elements of individual psychology with those emanating from the indigenous African epistemology of individual behavior, world view, and conception of well-being. Specific examples will be cited to support this contention.

LINK: HERE

UBUNTUGOGY: an African Educational Paradigm...

Bangura, Adbul Karim

After almost three centuries of employing Western educational approaches, many African societies are still characterized by low Western literacy rates, civil conflicts and underdevelopment. It is obvious that these Western educational paradigms, which are not indigenous to Africans, have done relatively little good for Africans. Thus, I argue in this paper that the salvation for Africans hinges upon employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be subsumed under the rubric of ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity towards others. Therefore, ubuntugogy transcends pedagogy (the art and science of teaching), andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn), ergonagy (the art and science of helping people learn to work), and heutagogy (the study of self-determined learning).

Many great African minds, realizing the debilitating effects of the Western educational systems that have been forced upon Africans, have called for different approaches. The following is a sample of excerpts from some of these great Africans.

Sékou Touré:
We must Africanize our education and get rid of the negative features and misconceptions inherited from an educational system designed to serve colonial purposes. We should also promote an education that will acquaint children with real life-not only by giving them a vocational training, but by closely relating school with life. Life, indeed, is the true school, and our schools, whether of general education or vocational training, should be auxiliaries of life.

Emperor Haile Selassie:
A fundamental objective of the university (i.e. Haile Selassie I University) must be to safeguarding and the developing of the culture of the people it serves. This university is a product of that culture; it is a community of those capable of understanding and using the accumulated heritage of the Ethiopian people. In this university men and women will work together to study the wellsprings of our culture, trace its development, and mold its future. What enables us today to open a university of such a standard is the wealth of literature and learning now extinct elsewhere in the world which through hard work and perseverance our forefathers have preserved for us.

Julius K. Nyerere:
Our first step, therefore, must be to re-educate ourselves; to regain our former attitude of mind. In our traditional African society we are individuals within a community. We took care of the community, and the community took care of us. We neither needed nor wished to exploit our fellowmen.

Kwame Nkrumah:
Intelligentsia and intellectuals, if they are to play a part in the African Revolution, must become conscious of the class struggle in Africa, and align themselves with the oppressed masses. This involves the difficult, but not impossible, task of cutting themselves free from bourgeois attitudes and ideologies imbibed as a result of colonialist education and propaganda.

LINK:HERE

Science Education in Ethiopia

2. Science Education During Imperial Ethiopia

It was indicated previously that the foundation of Ethiopia’s modern secular education was laid during the decade of 1940s, described as restoration period. Therefore, the curricula of the 1940-50 were prepared to meet the immediate manpower needs for post-war reconstruction. Since the teachers and teaching materials were imported, in fact there was no better choice; the curricula did not match with the attributes of Ethiopian children. The National Board of Education (established in 1947) formulated nationwide policy of uniform curricula for grades 1 through 6 (Teshome, 1979). Despite the policy’s effort and commitment to make culturally and socially compatible curricula, the content remained alien both in approach and context. It was only for grade 1 and 2 that Amharic was recommended as a language of instruction. Starting grade 3, students were required to learn science and other subjects in English. Moreover, since the textbooks and other reference materials were written in European languages (usually English), the contexts upon which science was presented and taught were also alien (Teshome, 1979). The Ministry of Education and Fine Arts developed curricular guide in 1949 to standardize instructional practices for grades 7 and 8. Owing to the foreign-based instructional materials, the attempt to gear the curricula to the needs of Ethiopian students was not successful. According to Teshome, ‘the prescribed course in science made little mention of personal or community hygiene, nutrition, health or safety measures, agriculture and conservation of natural resources. The course outlines were theoretical and dealt with such topics as solar system, magnetism, expansion of solids and liquids, and the like. Very little of this had any practical relevance for unsophisticated pupils in a rural setting’ (p. 73).

Teshome, W. (1979). Education in Ethiopia: Prospect and Retrospect. Michigan State University Press.