Classroom Practicesand the Validity of Teaching Mathematics in Botswana Senior Secondary Schools
Abstract
Poor teaching short-chains learning in terms of under-equipping the learners with the knowledge and skills as intended by society through the curriculum. Curriculum is the ultimate criterion when it comes to any attempt at validating the syllabus, teaching, learning, and even testing. Teaching owes its validity to how well it is designed and carried out to reflect all the objectives and contents of the syllabus which operationalizes the curriculum. A situation which performance on a test demands, to a significant level, abilities other than that which the test item was design to measure calls to question the validity of the teaching as well as that of the testing. Testing is valid to the extent that it takes care of the demands of the curriculum via the syllabus, Poor teaching deflects the validity of testing because it stands on the way of performance on test items reflecting the demands of the syllabus. Both the learner and the society are cheated by ineffective coverage,through poor teaching,of the syllabus in terms of its objectives and contents. Through content analyses, the study determines and compares the different validities as implied in the syllabus-teaching-testing continuum. The findingsare discussed and relevant recommendations are made.
Key words: Curriculum, syllabus, validity of teaching and testing; content analysis;
Nenty, H. Johnson &2Fetogang, B. Ernest (2015)
Classroom Practicesand the Validity of Teaching Mathematics in Botswana Senior Secondary Schools
Abstract Poor teaching short-chains learning in terms of under-equipping the learners with the knowledge and skills as intended by society through the curriculum. Curriculum is the ultimate criterion when it comes to any attempt at validating the syllabus, teaching, learning, and even testing. Teaching owes its validity to how well it is designed and carried out to reflect all the objectives and contents of the syllabus which operationalizes the curriculum. A situation which performance on a test demands, to a significant level, abilities other than that which the test item was design to measure calls to question the validity of the teaching as well as that of the testing. Testing is valid to the extent that it takes care of the demands of the curriculum via the syllabus, Poor teaching deflects the validity of testing because it stands on the way of performance on test items reflecting the demands of the syllabus. Both the learner and the society are cheated by ineffective coverage,through poor teaching,of the syllabus in terms of its objectives and contents. Through content analyses, the study determines and compares the different validities as implied in the syllabus-teaching-testing continuum. The findingsare discussed and relevant recommendations are made. Key words: Curriculum, syllabus, validity of teaching and testing; content analysis;