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The research reported on here is part of a larger study exploring the alignment of the intended, implemented and attained curriculum with regard to practical work in the Zimbabwean A-level Biology curriculum. In this paper we focus on the alignment between the intended and implemented A-Level Biology curriculum through the lens of teachers' interpretation of the curriculum. This interpretive study sought to understand how teachers interpret a particular curriculum design. Participants were five teachers drawn from four High schools in Zimbabwe. The findings show a misalignment between the intended and implemented curriculum caused by teachers' misinterpretation of the intended curriculum. Teachers lacked knowledge of Science Process Skills and could not interpret them from the curriculum documents. They interpreted the curriculum through the examinations and were reluctant to engage with the curriculum in order to understand the objectives for practical work. The poor design of the curriculum contributed to this reluctance. This misalignment has implications for curriculum design and implementation.

Background: Foundation phase teachers are not science specialists; however, they are expected to teach science. It is important that research determines where teachers face challenges in teaching science in order to assist them to bridge the gaps and to improve their competence in teaching science. Aim: The aim of this research was to explore teachers’ implementation of the science curriculum. Setting: The research was conducted in a primary school in a province of South Africa. Four foundation phase teachers participated in the study. Methods: This interpretative, qualitative study used classroom observation, learners’ workbooks and post-observation interviews to develop an understanding of teachers’ science knowledge, their facilitation of hands-on science investigations as well as the nature of their interaction with learners in the science classroom. Results: The findings revealed that teachers were not competent in teaching science and when rated according to their profiles of curriculum implementation all four were allocated low scores. However, in-depth observations revealed that while teachers generally had poor science knowledge, they were competent in engaging learners through questions and activities. This pedagogic knowledge could have translated into pedagogic content knowledge should the teachers have attempted to spend more time preparing their science lessons to ensure that they mastered the necessary science content and science knowledge, as well as appropriate methodologies to teach science. Conclusion: Science education should be in the foreground in the foundation phase curriculum to encourage teachers to teach science as an integral part of the curriculum.

Scientific literacy should be promoted through the teaching of science from Grade R and for this to happen, teachers need to understand what science should be taught and how it should be taught. This interpretive, qualitative study explores the degree to which four foundation phase teachers interpret the life skills programme with regard to the teaching of natural science by using an adapted version of a theory of implementation. Analyses of a questionnaire, documents (Revised National Curriculum Statement and lesson plans) and interviews enabled us to build a picture of how each teacher interpreted the curriculum with regard to a number of constructs. The findings show that foundation phase teachers have great difficulty interpreting the curriculum because the foundation phase curriculum does not give clear guidance with regard to the teaching of science. Their poor content knowledge, the poor understanding of what integration of science in numeracy and literacy entails, as well as their poor understanding of the instructional methods used to teach science exacerbate the problem.

Concerns have been raised in the scientific community that many teachers do not accept evolution as a scientific, testable phenomenon, and this is evident in their teaching. The non-acceptance of evolution theory is often heavily influenced by religious groups that endeavour to eliminate evolution from the curriculum. In South Africa, the inclusion of evolution in the curriculum is a recent event. This study focused on teachers' views of evolution in relation to their religious affiliations. A questionnaire was developed and was validated by the Biohead-Citizen Project, and was then administered to more than 300 South African teachers and student teachers. Equal numbers of pre-service and in-service teachers were sampled. The groups included equal numbers of biology, English, and generalist teachers at primary school level. The results showed differences between teachers from different religions with regard to their views of evolution. Among teachers who identified as agnostic or atheist, 17% held creationist views. Among teachers who identified as Protestant, other Christian, or Muslim, 70% held creationist views. This study also examined, for the first time, the views of teachers belonging to religions not included in previous research. Of these, only 25% of Hindus held creationist views. Fewer adherents of African Independent Churches held creationist views compared with teachers from traditional Protestant denominations; for example, only 30% of Zionist followers and 40% of Shembe followers held creationist views. This study adds important knowledge by including the views of teachers from religions not previously researched. KEYWORDS: biology teaching; comparative study; religious orientation; teachers

Concerns have been raised in the scientific community that many teachers do not accept evolution as a scientific, testable phenomenon, and this is evident in their teaching. The non-acceptance of evolution theory is often heavily influenced by religious groups that endeavour to eliminate evolution from the curriculum. In South Africa, the inclusion of evolution in the curriculum is a recent event. This study focused on teachers' views of evolution in relation to their religious affiliations. A questionnaire was developed and was validated by the Biohead-Citizen Project, and was then administered to more than 300 South African teachers and student teachers. Equal numbers of pre-service and in-service teachers were sampled. The groups included equal numbers of biology, English, and generalist teachers at primary school level. The results showed differences between teachers from different religions with regard to their views of evolution. Among teachers who identified as agnostic or atheist, 17% held creationist views. Among teachers who identified as Protestant, other Christian, or Muslim, 70% held creationist views. This study also examined, for the first time, the views of teachers belonging to religions not included in previous research. Of these, only 25% of Hindus held creationist views. Fewer adherents of African Independent Churches held creationist views compared with teachers from traditional Protestant denominations; for example, only 30% of Zionist followers and 40% of Shembe followers held creationist views. This study adds important knowledge by including the views of teachers from religions not previously researched.

This study explores foundation phase teachers' understanding of the natural science curriculum within the life skills learning programme. The theoretical framework for this study is entrenched in the relationship between the intended and the implemented curriculum. The Zone of Feasible Innovation (ZFI) is the proposed theory of implementation and states that implementation of the intended curriculum is very difficult if teachers do not have the capacity to implement it. The study seeks to determine where teachers are operating within their ZFI. Data was collected through questionnaires, interviews as well as a rating scale for teachers. The findings show that teachers are confident to teach content that they have been teaching for a long time, but are reluctant to introduce new science topics or new methods of instruction. This reluctance impacts on their ability to implement new innovations in science teaching. However, there are signs that their ZFI has progressed to include certain new practices.

Currently many children in early childhood education cannot be accommodated in provincial department schools. Consequently, different non-governmental institutions offer Grade R programmes in an attempt to support the DBE. Pre-primary schools that traditionally took responsibility for early childhood education also offer Grade R education. The recent policy decision to include Grade R in the primary school is an innovation, which is still in its infancy. It is against this background that the national South African Curriculum (NCS) has to be implemented. This paper focuses on the teaching of natural science in Grade R and attempts to determine if the teaching and learning of natural science has different outcomes in the different contexts described above. An oral questionnaire was administered to capture children's understanding of natural science phenomena, while interviews provided data with regard to teachers' understanding of natural science in the foundation phase. The results show that there are differences in children's understanding of natural phenomena in the different contexts and these differences are related to teachers' understanding of the curriculum, as well as their views of the nature of science.

Currently many children in early childhood education cannot be accommodated in provincial department schools. Consequently, different non-governmental institutions offer Grade R programmes in an attempt to support the DBE. Pre-primary schools that traditionally took responsibility for early childhood education also offer Grade R education. The recent policy decision to include Grade R in the primary school is an innovation, which is still in its infancy. It is against this background that the national South African Curriculum (NCS) has to be implemented. This paper focuses on the teaching of natural science in Grade R and attempts to determine if the teaching and learning of natural science has different outcomes in the different contexts described above. An oral questionnaire was administered to capture children's understanding of natural science phenomena, while interviews provided data with regard to teachers' understanding of natural science in the foundation phase. The results show that there are differences in children's understanding of natural phenomena in the different contexts and these differences are related to teachers' understanding of the curriculum, as well as their views of the nature of science.

This study explores foundation phase teachers' understanding of the natural science curriculum within the life skills learning programme. The theoretical framework for this study is entrenched in the relationship between the intended and the implemented curriculum. The Zone of Feasible Innovation (ZFI) is the proposed theory of implementation and states that implementation of the intended curriculum is very difficult if teachers do not have the capacity to implement it. The study seeks to determine where teachers are operating within their ZFI. Data was collected through questionnaires, interviews as well as a rating scale for teachers. The findings show that teachers are confident to teach content that they have been teaching for a long time, but are reluctant to introduce new science topics or new methods of instruction. This reluctance impacts on their ability to implement new innovations in science teaching. However, there are signs that their ZFI has progressed to include certain new practices.

Effective teaching in science requires insight into students’ personal understanding of natural phenomena (Bennett, 2003). Students come to school with numerous personal experiences and beliefs as well as personal knowledge about how the world works. Such personal knowledge may be regarded as their own scientific ideas (Colburn, 2000). Children’s own ideas tend to persist after formal instruction because they are based on their everyday experience of these natural phenomena.