title: Multiple case study research into teachers' pedagogical enactment of the 2009 Samoa primary schools' outcomes-based curriculum

authors: Amituanai Semel, Felila Saufo'i

abstract: Outcomes-based curriculum was developed in the United States with a focus on students achieving the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to succeed in everyday life through learner-centred teaching approaches. It was this focus that encouraged the Samoan government and Ministry of Education, Sports & Culture to adopt an outcomes-based curriculum into its primary school system in 2009, with implementation in 2013. To date however there has only been limited research into teacher classroom enactment of an outcomes-based curriculum, and the challenges and supports teachers and schools have encountered. This study addressed this gap.
The study investigated how teachers in three primary schools were enacting the outcomes-based curriculum six years after its formal implementation. The research used a multiple case study approach with one week of lesson observations of each of the three teachers and Talanoa with three school principals and the teachers, and semi-Talanoa with some students and parents from each school. Talanoa is a word used across the Pacific to describe a process of inclusive, participatory, and transparent dialogue. It is used as a Pacific-specific qualitative research approach for data collection and in this study. Talanoa was used to provide participants with an opportunity to talk about their experience with OBC.
The study found that the teachers employed different but appropriate pedagogical approaches in their lessons for the benefit of students’ understanding and achievement of lesson learning outcomes. The findings highlight the benefit of teachers developing curriculum experiences that relate to students’ interests, needs and everyday real-life experiences to engage them effectively in their learning. Teachers emphasised and applied learner-centred approaches to promote collaboration, teamwork and empower students to participate effectively in the learning process. The study witnessed the teachers used formative assessment to assess, monitor and identify students’ deficiencies and strengths and teachers to modify their teaching and target areas in need of improvement.
The findings showed the students’ views about OBC lesson teaching in classroom. They reported that they liked the group work activities because they were able to share and gain new knowledge, ideas and experiences which helped them understand the lesson and achieve the learning outcomes. Evidence that students were excited about what they learned in class came from their reporting that they shared their experiences and new knowledge with their family members at home and their parents were pleased to gain new knowledge and ideas from them.
The findings revealed that the OBC principles of clarity of focus and expanded opportunities established a clear framework to guide the planning, instruction, assessment, and implementation of lessons for students to demonstrate performance and competencies to achieve lesson learning outcomes. The designing down and high expectation principles were used during lessons where teachers explained thoroughly to students the lesson tasks and learning outcomes that students would achieve and demonstrate at the end of the lesson. During activities, the teachers increased the level of challenges from easy to more complex (learned past tense verbs then gradually produced sentences using past tenses) to expose students to high standard performance that students must reach to demonstrate their competencies in learning.
Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that Faasāmoa had a substantial impact on the enactment of OBC. Faamatai a leadership aspect, tulafale an orator, faaaloalo or respect and aiga as family relationships were demonstrated in the lesson teaching. The teacher led and explained lesson learning outcomes to the class while students and teacher as a family respected each other in teaching and learning. The Faasāmoa cultural norms were important to smooth and coordinate lessons and harness teacher and student behaviours, performances, and determinations in enacting OBC. These local cultural norms contributed substantially to the progress and effectiveness of the outcomes-based curriculum enactment between teachers and students to make OBC learning more understandable and achievable in the lesson teaching.
The research identified that parents participated in school outside activities and events more than the academic areas of curriculum development and enactment. Their participation contributed to the students’ learning environment. Findings were also that teachers had continued to learn and develop their classroom practice through different training and their own school in-service sessions where teachers shared ideas. This professional development helped teachers to facilitate classroom instruction, management and coordination and produce local resources for students to progress in their learning. Finally, the findings revealed the varied role of the church in supporting OBC enactment.
This study’s findings contribute to the body of knowledge on outcomes-based curriculum through the analysis and documentation of how the primary schools and teachers in Samoa enact outcomes-based curriculum. They indicate Faasāmoa can support outcomes-based curriculum and indicate further research could be done in other primary schools to see how teachers and students are using Samoa cultural norms in outcomes-based curriculum teaching and learning.

text: Multiple case study research into teachers' pedagogical enactment of the 2009 Samoa primary schools' outcomes-based curriculum Outcomes-based curriculum was developed in the United States with a focus on students achieving the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to succeed in everyday life through learner-centred teaching approaches. It was this focus that encouraged the Samoan government and Ministry of Education, Sports & Culture to adopt an outcomes-based curriculum into its primary school system in 2009, with implementation in 2013. To date however there has only been limited research into teacher classroom enactment of an outcomes-based curriculum, and the challenges and supports teachers and schools have encountered. This study addressed this gap.
The study investigated how teachers in three primary schools were enacting the outcomes-based curriculum six years after its formal implementation. The research used a multiple case study approach with one week of lesson observations of each of the three teachers and Talanoa with three school principals and the teachers, and semi-Talanoa with some students and parents from each school. Talanoa is a word used across the Pacific to describe a process of inclusive, participatory, and transparent dialogue. It is used as a Pacific-specific qualitative research approach for data collection and in this study. Talanoa was used to provide participants with an opportunity to talk about their experience with OBC.
The study found that the teachers employed different but appropriate pedagogical approaches in their lessons for the benefit of students’ understanding and achievement of lesson learning outcomes. The findings highlight the benefit of teachers developing curriculum experiences that relate to students’ interests, needs and everyday real-life experiences to engage them effectively in their learning. Teachers emphasised and applied learner-centred approaches to promote collaboration, teamwork and empower students to participate effectively in the learning process. The study witnessed the teachers used formative assessment to assess, monitor and identify students’ deficiencies and strengths and teachers to modify their teaching and target areas in need of improvement.
The findings showed the students’ views about OBC lesson teaching in classroom. They reported that they liked the group work activities because they were able to share and gain new knowledge, ideas and experiences which helped them understand the lesson and achieve the learning outcomes. Evidence that students were excited about what they learned in class came from their reporting that they shared their experiences and new knowledge with their family members at home and their parents were pleased to gain new knowledge and ideas from them.
The findings revealed that the OBC principles of clarity of focus and expanded opportunities established a clear framework to guide the planning, instruction, assessment, and implementation of lessons for students to demonstrate performance and competencies to achieve lesson learning outcomes. The designing down and high expectation principles were used during lessons where teachers explained thoroughly to students the lesson tasks and learning outcomes that students would achieve and demonstrate at the end of the lesson. During activities, the teachers increased the level of challenges from easy to more complex (learned past tense verbs then gradually produced sentences using past tenses) to expose students to high standard performance that students must reach to demonstrate their competencies in learning.
Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that Faasāmoa had a substantial impact on the enactment of OBC. Faamatai a leadership aspect, tulafale an orator, faaaloalo or respect and aiga as family relationships were demonstrated in the lesson teaching. The teacher led and explained lesson learning outcomes to the class while students and teacher as a family respected each other in teaching and learning. The Faasāmoa cultural norms were important to smooth and coordinate lessons and harness teacher and student behaviours, performances, and determinations in enacting OBC. These local cultural norms contributed substantially to the progress and effectiveness of the outcomes-based curriculum enactment between teachers and students to make OBC learning more understandable and achievable in the lesson teaching.
The research identified that parents participated in school outside activities and events more than the academic areas of curriculum development and enactment. Their participation contributed to the students’ learning environment. Findings were also that teachers had continued to learn and develop their classroom practice through different training and their own school in-service sessions where teachers shared ideas. This professional development helped teachers to facilitate classroom instruction, management and coordination and produce local resources for students to progress in their learning. Finally, the findings revealed the varied role of the church in supporting OBC enactment.
This study’s findings contribute to the body of knowledge on outcomes-based curriculum through the analysis and documentation of how the primary schools and teachers in Samoa enact outcomes-based curriculum. They indicate Faasāmoa can support outcomes-based curriculum and indicate further research could be done in other primary schools to see how teachers and students are using Samoa cultural norms in outcomes-based curriculum teaching and learning.

year: 2024-08-06

title: The 'dominant effect' of games: Content vs. medium

authors: Schott, Gareth R.

subjects: Classification

abstract: Digital games receive an age-restriction rating based on the depiction of harmful content and its possible impact on players. Following on from film, the relationship between media content and its psychological impact on audiences is assumed to be further heightened by the interactive nature of the medium as it makes players responsible for constructing the moving-image on screen. While classification processes continue to serve as an exercise in caution, there remains little evaluation of a particular rating decision’s accuracy via any subsequent examination of the interactions between player and game text. This paper argues for the benefits of researched accounts detailing the interactive experience of games for its capacity to challenge public understanding of the medium. In doing so, the paper will introduce a research design that is currently being employed to achieve an understanding of player experiences. The intention is to produce an empirically validated model of media ‘usage,’ capable of accounting for the ‘actual’ experience of play and the ways game texts are activated under the agency of players once they enter everyday life and culture.

text: The 'dominant effect' of games: Content vs. medium Digital games receive an age-restriction rating based on the depiction of harmful content and its possible impact on players. Following on from film, the relationship between media content and its psychological impact on audiences is assumed to be further heightened by the interactive nature of the medium as it makes players responsible for constructing the moving-image on screen. While classification processes continue to serve as an exercise in caution, there remains little evaluation of a particular rating decision’s accuracy via any subsequent examination of the interactions between player and game text. This paper argues for the benefits of researched accounts detailing the interactive experience of games for its capacity to challenge public understanding of the medium. In doing so, the paper will introduce a research design that is currently being employed to achieve an understanding of player experiences. The intention is to produce an empirically validated model of media ‘usage,’ capable of accounting for the ‘actual’ experience of play and the ways game texts are activated under the agency of players once they enter everyday life and culture.

year: 2013

title: Editorial

authors: Clarkin-Phillips, Jeanette

abstract: As New Zealand contemplates wholesale review of the formal schooling system and the leadership implications thereof, the winds of educational change begin to swirl. Not the persistent, yet gentle flutter of change that evolves the educational landscape in almost imperceptible ways, but tumultuous paradigmatic gales that potentially change it beyond all recognition. Heralded by politicians, economists and capitalists, there is little doubt that the 1989 neoliberal tempest wrought havoc on notions of community and profession. The whirlwind shift from social democracy to market competition, managerialism and performativity saw critical voices silenced and educators disparagingly positioned as self-interested providers. In the rush to legislate Tomorrow’s Schools, 18,000 submissions remained unanalysed and therein lies a crucial lesson: we ignore research at our peril. As educators, we have a moral obligation to generate, disseminate and critique understandings of leadership, policy and practice; to remain open to counter perspectives; and to contribute positively and hopefully to research that empowers and emancipates. Consistent with JELPP’s commitment to honouring diversity in leadership focus, setting, and authorship, articles in this year’s general edition offer fresh insight into topics of interconnected and perennial importance: native knowledge, instructional leadership, indigenous teachers, appraisal, professional values, and safe schools.

text: Editorial As New Zealand contemplates wholesale review of the formal schooling system and the leadership implications thereof, the winds of educational change begin to swirl. Not the persistent, yet gentle flutter of change that evolves the educational landscape in almost imperceptible ways, but tumultuous paradigmatic gales that potentially change it beyond all recognition. Heralded by politicians, economists and capitalists, there is little doubt that the 1989 neoliberal tempest wrought havoc on notions of community and profession. The whirlwind shift from social democracy to market competition, managerialism and performativity saw critical voices silenced and educators disparagingly positioned as self-interested providers. In the rush to legislate Tomorrow’s Schools, 18,000 submissions remained unanalysed and therein lies a crucial lesson: we ignore research at our peril. As educators, we have a moral obligation to generate, disseminate and critique understandings of leadership, policy and practice; to remain open to counter perspectives; and to contribute positively and hopefully to research that empowers and emancipates. Consistent with JELPP’s commitment to honouring diversity in leadership focus, setting, and authorship, articles in this year’s general edition offer fresh insight into topics of interconnected and perennial importance: native knowledge, instructional leadership, indigenous teachers, appraisal, professional values, and safe schools.

year: 2019