CONCEPTUAL CHANGE IN LIFE SCIENCES LEARNING: THE IMPACT OF TEACHING TOOLS ON KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION

ABSTRACT


learners?
The assumption with this question was that teaching tools are used to create varied learning opportunities.They potentially contribute to changing certain aspects of learners' knowledge structures and consequently induce conceptual changes.We were not certain of the types of knowledge structures they change, hence this question and part of the study's purpose.The study focuses on [11] three constructs of prior knowledge (i.e., declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge).Different tools will affect particular changes in knowledge structures differently.Thus, tools will be limited to certain knowledge structures and/or their types.(2) How different are learners' knowledge representation and/or structures between TFM-TBB and TFM-IWB at different levels of achievement and within the three prior knowledge constructs/types?As earlier indicated, different teaching tools necessarily affect knowledge structures differently.In addition, the same tools may affect the knowledge structures of the same learner's knowledge differently and/or in the same way.Thus, the change in knowledge structures will be affected differently depending on the tools used with different learners.This question aimed to identify differences in knowledge representation among different learner achievement levels for each method-tool combination.

METODE
This study was conducted at a South African school north of Pretoria's capital.The area is urban and a densely populated township.Townships in South Africa generally refer to apartheid-created, underdeveloped urban areas mostly for 'non-whites' [12].The school is one of the pilot sites the education department uses to upgrade teaching through the introduction of ICT teaching resources.The study adopted a qualitative approach on the basic assumption that knowledge representation varies between different groups of learners and in different social settings.
The co-researcher in this study assessed the learning techniques of Grade 9 learners.This assessment was a precursor of the current study.That is the comparative use of method-tool combinations (i.e., TFM-IWB and TFM-TBB) and their effects on knowledge structures in life sciences teaching and learning.Figure 1 illustrates the two phases of the empirical process.That is the sampling and the testing (Figure 1) processes after using tools in direct teaching.
The population from which this study was conducted was Grade 9 learners whose curriculum included mathematics, natural sciences and English as subjects.The population (n = 1058) was sourced from five township schools (A, B, C, D & E).All five schools in the study (A) were taught mathematics, English, and natural sciences using a combination of TBB-direct teaching methods.The teaching and learning contexts of the schools varied as they used different instructional approaches and methods.A criterion for the selection of the sample for the experiment was to ensure that learners (a) have different experiences/exposures to IWB as a teaching tool, (b) came from a well-resourced school, i.e., a school equipped with technological gadgets for teaching purposes, and (c) their school in the township had a learner population with a fair socio-economic background/standard of living.In a study of this nature, the learner cohort should have particular characteristics and skills to suit the study's purpose [13].In addition, learners had to have attended a Saturday enrichment programme for six full days (8 hours) on Saturdays.In other words, the sample was purposively selected.
The purposive sampling was based on the achievement of learners from the population of five schools on the three curriculum subjects (i.e., mathematics (Math), English (Eng), and natural sciences (NaS).That is learners set for the pencil and paper tests after exposure to the TBB teaching tool on the subjects indicated (see Figure 1).The TBB test used for all learners (n = 1058) was used to rate performance among schools in the three subjects.From the analysis of individual learners' achievement in the five schools for the three subjects, school C emerged as the worst-performing school (see "a").School C's characteristics were appropriate for the study since the researchers wanted to understand the knowledge construction of learners at the lowest achievement level and how this level could be enhanced to promote learners' achievement.Thus, the school was selected for the experiment based on this performance and constituted the sample for the study with 136 learners (B).The flow diagram below (Figure 1) illustrates the empirical process steps from A to D.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
This study mainly compared two method-tool combinations in life sciences teaching.The comparison was about their potential effects on learners' knowledge structures.Consequently, the comparison was of their representation of knowledge at different learning instances.Thus, the discussion would be on knowledge structure and the learners' representations of the knowledge emanating from these changes.The changes in one's knowledge during learning are conceptual [14].This form of learning, they add, "…requires fundamental changes in the content and organization of existing knowledge as well as the development of new learning strategies for deliberate knowledge restructuring and the acquisition of new concepts" (p.1).
Mainly this discussion focused on two main features of the findings.First, we discuss the changes that each method-tool combination generated and their types in learners' knowledge structures.Secondly, we compared and discussed the differences in the types of changes each method-tool combination generated.As the findings were within the realm of the three constructs of prior knowledge, so were the comparisons.
Learners who went through the TFM-TBB teaching combination represented a relatively better summary of knowledge in their responses to questions.The summary description indicates a learner's ability to recall information about what was taught.This is associated directly with the method-tool combination used to produce this finding.Similarly, it is associated with teachers' and learners' familiarity with the combination.Although this study was undertaken in the 21 st century, many teachers still use didactic pedagogy in their science classrooms.The CHAT explains this phenomenon as an indication of culture and the clinging to historical teaching methods because of familiarity for both teachers and learners.
On the contrary, learners struggled to represent their knowledge using informal descriptions.Informal descriptions demand learners to connect concepts for meaning construction.The TFM-TBB combination was limited as a teaching tool for this type of learning.It is teacher-focused, and learners are limited in constructing understanding on their own.This is another legacy of didactic pedagogy.
Procedural knowledge requires learners to construct understanding with the knowledge they already possess.This is the basis of constructivism, which is inherent in the CHAT.As the TFM-TBB combination is more aligned with the dated didactic pedagogy, its positive effect on logical knowledge representation is inhibited.The learner's ability to make sense of the concepts/terms through their association according to valid scientific rules is hindered by the limitations of method-tool combinations.Teacherfocused methods such as the TFM-TBB limit learners' access to reflective thinking as the teacher is dominant and/or limited in the tools to engage learners.Thus, learners do not have opportunities for reflection and/or prevent errors in their learning (Reif, 1985).The TFM-TBB combination limits constructivist teaching and/or activity learning.
Where responses to questions require recall, there cannot be much restructuring, irrespective of the method-tool combinations used in teaching.Therefore, in this case, there was little difference in the effect of TFM-IWB and TFM-TBB combinations in teaching summary descriptions of knowledge.On the contrary, there was a marked change and improvement among learners' responses using the TFM-IWB combination for questions requiring the relational linking of concepts to construct new meanings, that is, informal descriptions.Although the method was teacher-focused, there was a heightened interaction and activity.This interactivity creates more accessible paths for learners and their teachers to construct meanings and understanding.The activity aspect of the CHAT explains the purpose of interactivity well in terms of the opportunity to construct new knowledge through conceptual change.
Knowledge application is one of the important goals of constructivist learning through activity.Using the TFM-IWB provided a much-improved knowledge instantiation.This was evident when learners were more specific in using concepts and terms.They could move from the general representation of knowledge to clear and detailed interpretation and representation of concepts.In addition, learners were reflective of their knowledge.Generally, the use of the TFM-IWB combination affected many and various parts of knowledge representation differently.This was necessitated by the ability of the TFM-IWB combination to access and expose concepts and phenomena from different angles through activity as advocated by the notion of interaction in learning.
The differences in the effect of the TFM-TBB and TFM-IWB tools on knowledge structures can be explained by the learning contexts they create.Teaching methods or the tools embedded in them, irrespective of their type, cannot solely affect the same knowledge structures and/or change learners' conceptions the same way.Different teaching methods or tools create particular social and learning contexts differently.Thus, the conceptual changes can be explained mainly by the contexts of learning.Different learning environments (different designs, methods, tools, etc.) will yield different conceptions of scientific concepts [14].These outcome differences between the tools may be better understood through Bandura's [15] notion of learner-interpersonal interaction.That is, the notion that tools have the attraction and capability to advance learners' mental coding of visual and audio.In this study, the TFM-IWB tool possesses these characteristics.The impact of such traits in the study has enhanced both procedural and conditional knowledge restructuring.
Following the above results, we have the potential to precisely predict the type of knowledge changes that are likely to be accommodated by different tools in particular contexts, especially when teachers are to teach concepts similar to that of the photosynthesis and respiration phenomena.For example, we can prescribe TFM-IWB for procedural knowledge and conditional knowledge.We can also discourage the use of TFM-TBB as a tool for the same knowledge as TFM-IWB.The study used the same assessment methods in both TFM-TBB and TFM-IWB to carefully measure the impact of the tools on learners' knowledge restructuring.Cultural and historical activity theory accounts for the culture that developed over the years through direct teaching methods.Many teachers and learners are used to direct teaching and may be affected negatively by new methods or tools of teaching, such as the use of IWBs.
Cultural and historical activity theory also accounted for the external variable that could not be controlled in the study.Learners gain insight and understanding in the manner and the nature in which the teaching method is carried out.Generally, teachers should be able to use different methods in different contexts to accommodate the majority of their learners.In addition, teachers should be able to adapt methods to their learners, the subject matter content, and the prescribed curriculum learning outcomes.In other words, both the use of the TFM-IWB and the TFM-TBB method-tool combinations should be accommodated in all teaching and learning contexts.• No growth in error prevention.
The student-centred learning process with the guidance of a teacher is the current expectation in science education to effect conceptual change [16].The teacher remains a facilitator of learning by asking questions and guiding learners to use effective resources to construct knowledge [17].The study used the teacher focus method (TFM) for the teachers to effectively introduce technology (IWB) for learners to learn concepts meaningfully and implement these concepts in their lives [18].The study then used TFM to trace knowledge construction when TBB and IWB were used.Photosynthesis and respiration were adopted as the topics of the study because of the multiple biochemical steps that occur simultaneously within plant cells.Learners often consider the definitions of these two processes without considering the relationship and the significance of the processes in the global ecosystem [19].Photosynthesis and plant cellular respiration are considered complex dynamic processes [20], this notion allowed researchers to use the topics concerning TFM to trace learners' knowledge construction.That is, both the tools and the method used in the study have the potential to create a context that influences learners' knowledge construction.
The study's processes and findings provide researchers, teachers and science teachers in particular, a new approach to assessing learning.It also introduces assessment that may diagnose knowledge structure changes in learning particular concepts and/or phenomena.With this approach, teaching specific concepts and/or phenomena may be appropriated to particular methods or tools.This is because we can now specify the knowledge structures we want to reorganize or the conceptual change we intend to affect.However, other researchers have reported contradictory results from similar studies [21], [22].This may be because of different contextual factors.Both studies compared the traditional teaching method and the inclusion of technological tools in the educational setting, similar to those in this study.However, the design and the approach of both studies are different.
It was argued that the variation is attributed to the study's design and the teaching environment [23].It is, therefore, important that, as we provide the results of our studies, we also specify and document our designs for the accuracy and reliability of their outcomes.Despite the researchers having been careful with their designs and methods, inherently, there are limitations of pre-test to post-test prior knowledge interferences in this and similar studies.

CONCLUSION
The findings indicate variations in the knowledge structure represented by learners both within and across the combinations of methods and tools.This means that different conceptual changes were observed in knowledge representation for each tool-method combination.For example, the TFM-TBB combination most significantly affected declarative knowledge representation.The TFM-IWB combination was more pronounced in representing procedural and conditional knowledge.This study aimed to compare the use and effectiveness of two tools embedded in the same teaching approach.The objective was to illuminate the specificity of teaching method-tool combinations and their effect on knowledge structures.From the findings, we have somewhat managed to separate the effects of the two combinations.We have highlighted their effects on specific knowledge structures and associated them with particular conceptual changes when teaching photosynthesis concepts or phenomena.

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Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Sampling and the Empirical Process.

Table 1 .
Findings of Learners' Knowledge Representation

Types of Prior Knowledge Constructs Knowledge Structures at Different Stages of Learning TFM-TBB
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