Conference Proceedings

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Browsing Conference Proceedings by Author "Gabrieli, Prosper"

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    Competency based biology curriculum an opportunity to life skills development: is it real?
    (The University of Dodoma, 2019) Mbembe, Flora; Gabrieli, Prosper
    The currently used competency based Biology curriculum focuses on ensuring maximum development of life skills among learners. Life skills guide learners in decision making. It is also a tool used for advising and solving various problems. Despite the recognition of the focus of education, there is a need to assess the level at which learners acquire the expected skills from school learning. This study investigated the life skills acquired by the students through school learning of Biology subject. In doing so, it examined the skills possessed by the ordinary level secondary school students and the ways through which those skills are applied in their day to day life. This study was conducted in two districts of Dodoma region in Tanzania: Dodoma Municipality and Chamwino. It involved 13 ordinary level secondary schools, 9 from Dodoma Municipality and 4 from Chamwino district. It also involved 8 families and 1 health institution. The sample size for the study was 217 which included 199 secondary school students, 8 parents and 10 Biology teachers. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data were collected through interviews, questionnaires, documentary review and observation. Only data from questionnaires were analysed quantitatively using SPSS version 20 while the remaining were analysed qualitatively using content data analysis procedures. The study revealed poor linkage between skills expected to be developed by students and what they demonstrated in actual practices, especially on nutrition, health and reproduction issues. Thus, it is concluded that, the life skills component of the Biology curriculum is not fully attained by learners and not well implemented in their daily life. The study recommends on improving the teaching and learning materials to focus on skills expected to be developed by students; researching the pedagogies essential for ensuring life skills development among learners and improving assessment practices in schools by focusing on expected skills.
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    Improving human settlements for safe, resilient and sustainable life through collaborative efforts in developing Elementary Survey Lesson (ESL) materials for secondary schools in Tanzania
    (2019) Kisanga, Abel; Gabrieli, Prosper
    This study developed Elementary Survey Lesson (ESL) materials to support learning of Geography in secondary schools in Tanzania. The ESL materials include practical learning experiences that are geared to address land use conflicts which are persistently reported in many regions of Tanzania. The study adopted mainly qualitative research approach to capture and analyze the teachers‟ views, students‟ voices and appraisals from various education experts and survey practitioners. Again, the study adopted some quantitative aspects to simplify the collection and analysis of the groups‟ mean scores, standard deviations, and some other descriptive statistics such as graphs and frequencies and tables. The study used a collaborative approach along with quasi-experimental design. A total of 136 Form III students, 2 Land survey practitioners, 3 Geography experts 3 Curriculum experts, and 3 Geography Teachers from Dodoma Region in Tanzania collaborated during the study. The team worked together in prototyping the ESL materials in the classrooms and in actual field through iterative cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. Two schools, one being an intervention school (SA) and the other being control school (SB) were randomly selected from Dodoma Municipal Council. Questionnaire, interview, focus group discussion and classroom observation were used to document the data from the teachers, experts and students learning Geography using the ESL. The findings unveiled that the involvement of various experts, teachers and students contributed to the development of practicable and effective ESL materials. The teachers and students were observed using survey equipments appropriately during field practical activities. Moreover, the pre- and post- test analysis revealed a significant difference in terms of groups‟ mean scores between intervention school (56.96) and control school (37.79) in the post-test. This finding implies that the ESL materials facilitated the development of students‟ knowledge, skills and competences on elementary surveying topics in Geography lessons. The study recommends the use of the developed ESL materials in learning survey topics to ensure safe, resilient and sustainable human settlement in Tanzania