THE National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT) CEO Godwin Khosa said about 750 Eastern Cape (EC) teachers had been trained to teach blended learning lessons, which are the combination of the paper-based and computer-based way of teaching to prepare teachers for the future.
He said this while speaking at the NECT launch held at JJ Serfontein High School. “We are targeting foundation phase teachers in the province who received laptops. We hope once we have tested these methods, those blended learning lessons will be made available to all teachers with laptops and they will be trained to use electronic lesson plans in classrooms. 700 more teachers will go for training next month to see how well the teachers adapt to these methodologies.”
The blended learning lessons will be piloted in the EC first, before they are spread across the country. The electronic lesson plans and the blended learning will first be implemented at foundation phase before it extends to FET level.
Subject advisor Thembisa Jompolo said teachers were teaching topics they were comfortable with. They did not understand some of the content in textbooks because the new curriculum had different concepts from those they were used to.
“This has compromised the curriculum coverage in classrooms, so the NECT has come up with strategies and provided teachers with pedagogical skills on how to teach those concepts.”
Department of basic education director for teacher support material and innovation, Kulula Manona, said pupils were already leading the way to using technology effectively. Therefore it was high time the education department came up with ways of teaching that would be enjoyable to pupils.
Khosa said the aim of this programme was to ensure that in every classroom pupils were taught what was expected in all the grades, at the right level, following the right sequence and complete the curriculum.
A pledge was signed by the department of education officials and NECT to collaborate on the implementation of a multi-year education improvement programme.
