and Summary
If a curriculum developer wants to prepare learners for instance for
the 21st century, what should be the knowledge and skills to be
included, for the diverse South African context? These skills are
listed under 1.2.5 in your textbook. Please provide an EXAMPLE
after each of these competencies in your own words.
Skills to consider that would prepare pupils more holistically and assist
Educators in the implementation of the curriculum, include the following.
1. Sense-making: it determines deeper meaning, for example: Learners
can relate concepts to everyday experiences and reality.
2. Social Intelligence: it is the ability to connect to others in a direct way,
in order to sense and stimulate reactions and desired interactions. For
example: learners can work in groups on tasks, or they can do role play.
3. Novel and adaptive thinking: the proficiency at thinking and coming up
with solutions beyond that which is rule-based, for example: Practical
scientific tasks can be done by using own experiences to prove a point.
4. Cross-cultural competency: for example: pupils should/can do a task
where they do research on a specific culture (other than their own) to
ensure that the traditions within the culture are understood by the
learner.
5. Computational thinking: it is the complete ability to translate extensive
amounts of data into abstract concepts and to understand data-based
reasoning, for example: learners can use a questionnaire to accumulate
data on sport preferences and then plot it on a graph in different sport
groups.
6. New media literacy: it is the ability to critically assess and/or develop
content that uses new media forms. For example: students should use
e-mails to exchange ideas on assessments/tasks to be done in online
learning.
, 7. Transdisciplinary: the ability to understand concepts across multiple
disciplines, for example: learners should be able to write an essay on
research done in several subjects - by applying the basic language rules
of writing essay – introduction, body, conclusion.
8. Design mind-set: it is the ability to represent and develop tasks for
desired outcomes, for example: learners can learn how to create and
designing a new recipe to bake a cake.
9. virtual collaboration: it is the ability to work productively. For example:
students can work on a sport science project where they should ask
other people questions on Facebook and Skype.
10. Cognitive management: it is the ability to understand how to
maximize cognitive time management skills. For example: learners
should create and design their own study timetable which will teach
them time management.
It is of utmost importance to give clear instructions regarding what
is expected in assessment. Learners will not be able to complete a
task successfully if they do not understand the question. Identify
ten factors of effective questioning.
Clear and accessible language: Most South African learners are
assessed in a language that is not their mother tongue. When learners’
home language is not English, it is particularly important to phrase
assessment tasks clearly and in language that is easy to understand.
Here are some tips for writing simply and accessibly:
• Keep sentences short and use a vocabulary and terminology at the
level of the learners. Compare the following two questions:
– For a vehicle moving in a straight line, which physical quantities could
be determined by finding the gradient (slope) of its velocity-versus-time
graph at a specific point on the graph?
– A car moves along a straight road. Plot the velocity-versus-time graph
for the motion. Which quantity do we get from the slope of the graph at a
specified time? • Use active voice rather than passive voice. For
example: “add sugar to the cup of tea” is better than “sugar must be
added to the cup of tea”. It is easier for the learners.