Papers Presented at the 1st National NADEOSA Conference
Held 11-13 August 1999

Author: Carol Bertram

Title: Delivering a quality B.Ed. - reflecting on the UN/SACTE experience
The Quest for Implementing Quality in Distance Education

Introduction

This paper is a case study of the first semester of the B.Ed offered by the University of Natal and the South African College of Teacher Education. It explores the present challenges of distance teacher education in South Africa, the aims of the B.Ed and the quality assurance systems we have in place. One of the keys to quality assurance is an organisational culture which encourages and expects reflection. The second half of the paper discusses some results from a student evaluation questionnaire administered at the end of the first semester. It explores some of the themes which emerge: students’ perceived level of difficulty of the learning material, their struggles to shift from an information-laden course to one which requires conceptual understanding, the challenge of learning via print which faces students who have less competent English reading and writing skills, as well as the conundrum that giving students the assessment criteria of an assignment does not necessarily help them to meet these criteria.

The teacher education context in SA

It is a truism to say that teacher education and development is an enormous need in South Africa at present. Statistics in1998 showed that 28% of teachers in the country are un- or under- qualified, that is they have qualifications less than M+3 (Edusource, 1998:10). The figure is an improvement on the figures recorded in 1990, when 47% of the country’s teachers were un- or under-qualified (Edusource, 1990:3). However, this improvement in qualifications has not necessarily meant a great improvement in the quality of learning and teaching in schools, which in many South African classrooms can be described as dominated by teacher talk, with an emphasis on rote learning and pupil passivity (Taylor and Vinjevold, 1999:131). Certainly matric results have not improved over this time (although it is recognised that these are only one narrow way of recognising quality education).

Teacher beliefs about education, English language competence and teacher knowledge bases are some of the issues which need to be addressed by teacher education and development programmes. Obviously there is also a massive need for teachers to develop the skills and competences required by an out-comes based curriculum, and to understand all the new education policies. How will this teacher development happen?

Distance Education for teachers

Distance education (DE) is the largest sector of formal teacher development in South Africa, with more than a third of existing teachers involved in some form of DE in 1995 ( SAIDE, 1995: iv). The majority of these teachers are Inservice teachers studying to upgrade to M+2 or M+3, and the most rapid expansion in enrolments is teachers upgrading ‘above the line’ to M+4 or M+5 (Ibid.:84). The Report for the National Teacher Education Audit was not terribly positive towards those providing teacher education at a distance, concluding that material was generally of poor quality with a focus on learning as a process of memorisation, that there was little or no student support, that programmes did not focus on the development of good practice and that assessment was usually made up of a content-recall exam (Ibid.:85). The Audit was also wary of the very high through-put and pass rate, given the lack of support, poor learning materials and inadequate assessment techniques (Ibid.: 91).

So South Africa has a situation where large numbers of teachers are involved in distance education, but where the programmes provided do not appear to be addressing the needs of the education system, nor of the teachers. Teachers emerge from their studies with formal qualifications, but not necessarily with the knowledge, skills and competences which they need to ensure that quality learning happens in their classrooms.

The purpose of the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed)

The COTEP Norms and Standards for Educators (1998) states that teacher education programmes should develop three kinds of competence in teachers: foundational, practical and reflexive. The B.Ed aims to develop all these competences, but with a stronger focus on foundational and reflexive competences.

The B.Ed course does not explicitly aim to change teaching practice. We do not have the capacity and the mechanisms to visit every student’s classroom to verify whether any changes have occurred, nor is the degree a professional teaching qualification. However, we do hope that what students learn, does changes the way in which they think about education and that this change in beliefs will manifest in a change in teaching or management practice. The B.Ed aims to develop a broader understanding of current educational policies and debates, a deeper understanding of teaching practice and better critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills. There is a strong focus on applying theoretical concepts to practice and on encouraging teachers to reflect on their own practice in the light of what they are learning.

The structure of the B. Ed

The UNP B.Ed has always been offered to full time teachers, who can complete the degree part-time over 2 years. The shift to offering the B.Ed as a mixed mode course (both contact sessions and print based materials) took place in 1994, when it was offered at a learning centre in Madadeni, Newcastle. Holding lectures in four weekend blocks as opposed to weekly, led to a teaching approach which relied more on materials and tutors and less on whole class lectures. The Madadeni experience convinced us of the importance of having tutorial sessions for students. In 1997, negotiations were entered into with the South African College of Education (SACTE) to offer a joint B.Ed programme nationally.

We have just completed the first semester of the UN/SACTE B.Ed. There are 600 students registered in KwaZulu Natal attending at 9 Learning Centres in the province. There are 900 students registered outside of KwaZulu Natal, attending tutorials at 22 Learning Centres. The course is delivered via learning material and three contact sessions per module (on Saturdays). Contact sessions are facilitated by tutors working with groups of about 25 students. Each module is divided into 3 units. The delivery design expects students to work through the first Unit of the materials before attending the first contact session. Contact sessions are structured so that students develop a deeper understanding of the concepts and issues which they covered on their own at home. This happens through small-group tasks where students are given opportunities to discuss issues with and learn from their fellow students. Tutors do not lecture the material to students, but obviously explain and clarify concepts where necessary.

Assuring quality

The key issue is how do we know that we are delivering a quality education to students and how do we ensure that we continue to do so? There are some very useful quality checklists which give clear guidance for providers in the areas of course design, learning materials, student support, administrative systems etc. These are useful tools to set in place the mechanisms and systems needed to assure quality. Checklists are necessary but not sufficient in assuring quality and have the danger of making quality assurance an atomistic and technical exercise. Consensus seems to be emerging that quality assurance systems are more effective when their existence is motivated by the need to bring about improvement in education, rather than to demonstrate accountability to some outside body (Webbstock, 1998: 1) We believe that one of the keys to quality assurance is an organisational culture which encourages and expects continual reflective practice. Both academic and administrative staff should constantly be reflecting on what they do, and be thinking about how it could be done better.

Quality assurance systems

Presently the B.Ed programme has the following internal quality assurance processes in place. The role of tutors is vital, since they are the "face" of the B.Ed. Tutors receive the material in advance of a 1 ½ day training workshop where they are introduced to the ethos of the course, the outcomes of the module, the key concepts and have opportunity to mark some "mock" assignments using the pertinent assessment rubric. They complete evaluation forms at the end of each contact session, as well as at the end of the course. These reports inform future tutor training and course delivery. For example, evaluation forms completed at the end of the semester indicate that we need to spend more tutor training time on the concepts underpinning each module as well as on assessment issues.

Course material is written according to accepted principles of distance learning with a strong emphasis on developing conceptual understanding, rather than presenting an enormous amount of fact. It is hoped that through in-text activities, students will develop their skills of using these concepts. Material is written by course teams and is critiqued by external commentators, who comment on overall structure, language level and conceptual coherence and clarity.

Student evaluations are done at the end of each module to ascertain students’ perceptions of the course, their tutors and of the administrative support which they received. Such evaluations inform the development of course materials, the design of assignments and the delivery of the course.

The marking of the major assignment and the exam is done centrally by a panel of tutors with the co-ordinator of the module moderating this marking. Markers all mark the same two or three scripts using the marking rubric and then spend at least two hours in discussion around the interpretation of assessment criteria, before starting to mark. The question paper and exam scripts are moderated by an external moderator, in accordance with standard University practice. Assessment tasks are clearly linked to course outcomes and require students to demonstrate their ability to use the knowledge gained.

These systems are underpinned by a reflective organisational culture which encourages efforts to improve the quality of the course, as well as by a clear cycle of planning, reporting, action and review. The Module Co-ordinator is a key internal quality assurer, who needs to monitor the tutorial sessions, the marks from each assignment and constantly reflect on the how the module could be improved.

Student perceptions of the course

The second half of this paper will draw on the results of the student evaluation questionnaires completed at the end of the first semester this year. A questionnaire consisting of 54 questions was administered by the various tutors in each Learning Centre, data was captured and analysed at the University. The questionnaire dealt with student profiles, administration issues and the two compulsory modules offered : School Organisation and Change (SOAC) and Curriculum and Assessment (CA). This paper will focus on the School Organisation and Change module.

These results are based on the questionnaires completed by 339 students registered in KwaZulu Natal and 325 from the Pretoria region - a total of 664 (of a student body of 1500).

Student profile

The majority (68%) of our students are female, 30% are male. This figure correlates closely with 1995 national figure of 70% female students studying via distance. More than half (59%) of students are between the ages of 31 - 40. Only 5% are studying in their mother tongue of English, 95% have English as a second or third language. Most students (67%) teach at a primary school, 31% are secondary school teachers. Only 16% hold a degree and a teaching diploma, the rest of the students are diplomates, who have a three year diploma plus an FDE or have multiple diplomas adding up to M+4.

An overwhelming majority (86%) have studied via distance before. The majority last studied one or two years ago (64%). When asked why they are studying for a B.Ed., 44% of comments reflected the desire to gain knowledge about the new changes in South African education (such as OBE). 21% wanted to improve their knowledge about teaching, but this was not necessarily linked to the changes. 37% said that they wanted to improve their qualifications. 9% said that they wanted to develop new skills or change their teaching or management practice. Only 2% were honest enough to say that they were studying to improve their chances of promotion and to improve their financial situation!

Students’ responses to the problems they face and the lack of time indicates how difficult it is for many full-time teachers to attempt to study part-time. 58% of students indicated that financial, personal or health problems had impacted on their studies this semester. For 22% of students these problems impacted on their studies "a lot" and for 24% their problems had "some impact" on their studies. 54% felt that they were not able to give sufficient time to their studies this semester. 30% of students indicated that the work for the two modules was "far too much and that they were unable to cope with it".

Learning Material

The School Organisation and Change module made use of the SAIDE Study of Education material called Creating People-Centred Schools. The Study of Education project is an attempt to produce critical and engaging distance education materials which would develop "the ability to think, solve problems and make value judgments" and which would "teach theory as a practical tool that teachers can use to understand and improve their lives and practices as teachers" (Gultig, in Ndhlovu et al.1999:v).

The modules are designed as mixed media modules, each consisting of a Learning Guide (which is the teacher), a Reader (consisting of additional resource articles and chapters from books), a videotape and an audiotape. B.Ed students did not receive the videotape, as costs were too high to supply each student with a tape and learning centres did not all have the facilities for students to view the videotape there.

The Study of Education material was written for use in colleges of education, but could be used with additional readings and appropriate assessment tasks in higher or post-graduate diploma courses. The B.Ed. materials were accompanied by a "wrap-around" which presented additional readings, as well as assessment tasks suitable for B.Ed level.

Student perceptions of the learning materials

In terms of the School Organisation and Change Learning Guide, 25% of students found that it was clear and understandable and that they were able to understand all the concepts on their own. 43% of students found that it was fairly clear and understandable and that they could understand most of the concepts on their own. 30% found that the Guide was quite difficult and confusing and that it was hard to understand the concepts.

Regarding the School Organisation and Change Reader, 9% of students indicated that the readings were easy and they had no problem with them at all. 25% found the reader fairly easy to read. Almost half of students (48%) said that the readings were "quite difficult" and they had to read them a number of times. 16% found the readings "extremely difficult" with some readings which they could not understand at all. So there is quite a large number (64%) of students who found the readings difficult.

Discussion

Students may have found the reading material difficult because they may have not allocated sufficient time to grapple with and understand the text or because the material really is too difficult for this level. The "correct level" for a B.Ed is a slippery notion - nobody really seems to be able to clearly describe how a Level 6 qualification is different from a Level 7. Certainly in terms of the "old system" we could say that the readings are not particularly complex or theoretical for an M+5 qualification. The evaluation figures then seem to indicate a fairly low level of English reading competence. This may be a problem particularly for junior primary school teachers, who do not teach in English, thus they have less need to develop their competence in English.

The design of the Learning Guide is unfamiliar to many students. The pedagogy of the module relies strongly on students’ participation in the activities; it takes a case study approach and the style of teaching is interactive, conversational and grounded in the experiences of South African teachers. It encourages learners to see the module as a conversation, and encourages learners to build up their understanding through thinking, talking, writing and reading about the key concepts (Ndhlovu et al, 1999: 4). The expectation of being an active participant in understanding knowledge has probably not been encountered in their previous learning experiences, and particularly not through their distance learning experiences. 86% of our students have in fact studied via distance before. Thus it is not surprising that some students struggle to make the shift from a content-laden course to one which demands conceptual understanding.

Students’ school learning experiences probably placed more emphasis on the aural and oral sphere than on writing and reading. There is an absence of a culture of reading amongst teachers, where teachers admit that they do not like to read (Palmer Development Group, 1999: vi). A small survey from another B.Ed course shows that teachers seldom do any writing beyond filling in bank forms, writing grocery lists, or writing flash cards for their learners (C. Thomson, 12/7/99, pers. comm.). Thus any writing or reading that teachers have to do as students is more than they normally do. The irony is that distance education places a strong emphasis on students learning through print-based material.

Students’ performance

Does student performance correlate with their perceptions of the difficulty of the course and the lack of time they had to study?

Since most academic writing tasks are by definition ambiguous and open to multiple interpretations (Shay et al, 1994: 21), we try to structure assignment tasks which require responses in genres other than the academic essay, and which have clear guidelines. The major assignment for School Organisation and Change module was an integrated assignment requiring students to do a small scale audit of their school (using provided questionnaires) and from this audit to choose two priorities for the school. They then had to describe a school improvement plan which showed how these priorities would be addressed. A key criterion was that their plan had to demonstrate an understanding and application of the concepts of the course, such as the structure/culture dialectic, systemic change, the complexity of change and the barriers to change.

The assignments of just over one third of students seemed to indicate that they had not understood the task and did not (were not able to?) demonstrate any understanding of the key concepts which underpin school change. Although as the Course co-ordinator, I felt that the assignment guidelines and assessment criteria were clear, this was obviously not so for a number of students. It is difficult to know where the problem lay: some tutors might have been unable to explain the details of the assignment to students, the instructions might have been ambiguous, or perhaps some students were simply unable to meet the demands of the task.

Clear assessment criteria are vital, because they open access and provide more accountability. However, there seems to be an assumption that simply by making criteria explicit, these will be understood. But those who are not competent will not become competent by simply seeing the criteria they are expected to meet (Shalem and Slonimsky, 1998). Reflecting on the use of clear criteria and performance indicators (such as "separates opinions/perceptions/suspicions from fact") in marking the first assignments of students doing the Diploma in Tertiary Education, van der Vywer (1998: 57) admits that learners’ performance in the second assignment did not improve. Seemingly making the criteria explicit did not assist students in achieving those criteria.

The material writers hoped that students would develop the necessary competences to meet the course criteria by working actively through the in-text activities and engaging thoroughly with the text. Although 86% of School Organisation and Change students indicate that they always or almost always did the in-text activities in preparation for their tutorial sessions, tutor perceptions were somewhat different. All tutors felt that definitely less than 80% of students were well prepared for the sessions. They often commented that small group tasks, which were designed to deepen understanding, did not work that well as students had not done the initial reading and activities required. This is particularly frustrating for students who are well prepared. It is obvious that if a student is pressed for time, he or she will simply read the Learning Guide, ignore the Reader and will not take the time required for the in-text activities. This mitigates against them acquiring the skills and understanding which the course aims to develop.

If after working through the learning material and attending tutorials the student does not understand how to meet the criteria, what can a distance course do? I am not convinced that a model answer which does demonstrate the criteria will necessarily develop a student’s competence. The question is, what will? In order to answer this question, we need to spend time with those students, trying to understand the process they went through in interpreting and writing the assignment. We need to better understand the personal, social and linguistic dimensions that students bring to the interpretation and process of a writing task (Shay et al., 1994).

What can be done?

This is only a review of the first semester. Hopefully students will be more familiar with the delivery method and expectations of the course in the second semester, and will acknowledge the importance of being fully prepared for tutorial sessions. This paper has focussed on students who have struggled with the course, which is not to say that a vast number have coped admirably with the demands of the course.

All quality assurance processes and evaluation should hopefully lead to some positive action. We hope to extend the number of tutorial sessions to four per module, to increase the amount of support offered to students. We also need to look at offering some lecture time during the tutorial session. There are plans for a face-to-face academic development workshop for teachers who feel that they would benefit from this. Perhaps an intensive workshop where students actually practice the skills of reading, summarising, writing etc. would be helpful.

There needs to be a stronger emphasis on providing students both academic and counselling support. This will probably need to happen through tutors, who will require additional development themselves.

We need to recognise that the educational goals we are trying to achieve (learners who are independent, able to synthesise material, apply concepts, think critically and solve problems) are not always the same goals that students have! Here is a quote which clearly articulates what one student would like from her learning experience:

"When we come to the tut session we expect the tutors to tell us how to go about doing the assignments and activities, because we are parents and working mothers and we don't have time to do all the listening and looking for the information that is scattered in your books, it really wasted one's time. Try to put your information together, that will make things much easier for us."

There is always a need for more research, to try to find answers to questions like: What is the process that students go through when interpreting an assignment task? What is the reality of their time constraints? What support do students ideally need to assist them to meet module outcomes; to shift from memorising to applying concepts? How can we best use the tutorial contact time? How do we best select and train tutors, with the ever-present constraints of time and money? How do we monitor what tutors are doing in learning centres across the country?

If we keep asking, and hopefully find some answers to these questions, we are in process of quality assuring our B.Ed.

 References

Criteria for Quality Distance Education in South Africa: Draft Policy Guidelines www.saide.org.za

EduSource Data News, No. 4, December 1993, Johannesburg: The Education Foundation

EduSource Data News, No. 23, December 1998, Johannesburg: The Education Foundation

Gultig, J. (1999) Series introduction In Ndhlovu, T., Bertram, C., Mthiyane, N and Avery, N. Creating People Centred Schools : School Organisation and Change in South Africa, Learning Guide. SAIDE and Oxford University Press: Cape Town

National Department of Education (1998) COTEP Norms and Standards for Educators

Ndhlovu, T., Bertram, C., Mthiyane, N and Avery, N. Creating People Centred Schools : School Organisation and Change in South Africa, Learning Guide. SAIDE and Oxford University Press: Cape Town

Palmer Development Group (1999) Impact Assessment and Perception Audit of National Communication Directorate Materials: Final Report, 4 May 1999

Shay, S., Bond, D., and Hughes, T. (1994) Mysterious demands and disappointing responses: Exploring students’ difficulties with academic writing tasks in S. Angelil -Carter, D. Bond, M. Paxton and L. Thesen (eds) Language in Academic Development at UCT. UCT Press: Cape Town.

Taylor, N. and Vinjevold, P. "Teaching and Learning in South African Schools" in N. Taylor and P. Vinjevold (eds) 1999 Getting Learning Right : Report of the President’s Education Initiative Research Project. Johannesburg: Joint Education Trust

SAIDE (1995) Teacher Education offered at a distance in South Africa: Report for the National Audit. April - November 1995

School of Education, Training and Development (1998) The Real and the Ideal: Field analysis of roles and competences of educators. Unpublished report. University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg.

Shalem, Y. and Slonimsky, L. (1998) Can we close the gap? Criteria and obligation in teacher education. Paper delivered at KEA/SASE conference, Kei River Mouth, October 1998.

Van der Vywer (1998) The democratisation of assessment in a pluralistic, problem-oriented module in Philosophy of Education at post-graduate level. Paper delivered at KEA/SASE conference, Kei River Mouth, October 1998.

Webbstock, D. (1998) A proposed framework for a University Response to External Quality Monitoring in South Africa. Unpublished paper. Quality Promotion Unit, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg

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