EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF BIOLOGY AT SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL AND CRISES ON ITS CURRICULUM

Abstract

This study sought to investigate effective teaching and learning of biology at senior secondary school educational level and crises on its curriculum. The study was guided by four research questions and it adapted a descriptive survey research design. The sample involved 36 teachers selected through purposive sample technique and 364 students selected through simple random sampling techniques from the population of 1879 (teacher and student) from government owned senior secondary schools in Onitsha North Local Government Area, Anambra State. A 50- item questionnaire developed by the researchers and validated by experts was used to collect data for the study and reliability index of 0.82 was realized using Pearson product movement correlation coefficient. Data obtained were analyzed and reported using mean and standard deviation. The findings indicated among others, that the senior secondary school biology curriculum to an extent has the curriculum content that meet today’s need of the society with some crises in delivery the content. The
crises are not but limited to qualified teachers who are not adequate to the implement of the curriculum and some teachers lack the technicality to handle modern instructional resources for curriculum implementation. Therefore, it was concluded that this frustrates the smooth quality academic activities that are biologically oriented in our senior secondary schools’ level. Certainly, if the curriculum fails, then national interest to science and technology development would be elusive. Thus, curriculum is the process by which knowledge and skills are delivered to learners by the most effective methods that can be devised. Based on the findings, it was recommended that stakeholders in curriculum planning and development needed to meet in order to come up with a policy to ensure curriculum content delivery that is devoid of crises. Also quality and quantity of teachers with strong intellectual
background and professional repute that are ready to demonstrate knowledge of the curriculum; provide instruction in a variety of pedagogies to varied students for their all round development urgently needed to be employed in our senior secondary schools. Only this will resolve the curriculum crises observed in teaching and learning biology at present.