Abstract:

Studies conducted in Lesotho have shown that children who are in multigrade classrooms tend to perform worse in the Primary School Leaving Exam as compared to those in conventional single grade classrooms. The population in rural communities is dispersed, and as a result school enrolments in mountainous areas are generally smaller than schools in urban areas. Multigrade teaching is therefore an answer for the children to access education in rural areas. While research on rurality and multigrade teaching worldwide including Lesotho is abundant, research on classroom practices and teaching strategies employed in multigrade science teaching is limited research. In this quantitative study, 150 questionnaires were distributed to purposefully selected primary school teachers out of which 107 were returned. The study set out to investigate the classroom practices of multigrade science teachers, strategies they employed while teaching science and the challenges associated with the teaching of science in multigrade classrooms. The findings revealed that while teachers taught one group, the other group was left to do its own work, learners did peer teaching and teachers could teach a theme to all groups at the same time. Teachers were facilitators who created opportunities for individual learners to construct their own knowledge through the inquiry approach. The challenges experienced in multigrade science teaching were less teaching time, lesson preparation, teaching diverse topics and carrying out investigations. It is recommended that teacher training on effective tiering and staggering of subjects, developments of activity sheets with self-assessing key combined with proper training in grouping different grades, utilisation of classroom space for effective teaching and monitoring of progress of learners in different grades could help in developing skills that would make content delivery much easier in multigrade classrooms.

Keywords:

Multigrade classroom, multigrade teaching, pedagogical practices, teaching science, teaching strategies.