A Most Honorable, Honest, and Forthright Man Unknown to Many

One of the last honest and forthright men I personally know on this planet is architect Richard Gage, the forceful and persistent impetus behind, and the voice of reason for, the organization known as Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, represented on the Internet as AE911truth.org. This coalition of over two-thousand professional architects, engineers, physicists, and other physical scientists, renown in theirs fields of scientific endeavor, was originally conceived and organized in 2006 mainly through the efforts of Gage. I came to know him in 2007 and began to support the efforts of the organization through my Internet articles and commentary, which have mainly appeared on the website EzineArtices.com. Having never met Gage, I have, however, spoken to him several times by telephone and developed during those moments an appreciation for his conscientious endeavors to state the scientific facts about what really happened on September 11, 2001, a day that will truly live in infamy. His paraphrased personal statements, which he has made public, reveal the astute scientific mind of a human being who, along with many other astute Americans, realized on the morning and afternoon of 9/11 that the federal government’s, and the media’s, explanations for the total and complete collapse of the WTC Twin Towers and of WTC Building 7, the Solomon Building, were totally false and deliberately made to deceive the American public into believing something totally untrue; that fires created by hijacked commercial jet aircraft allegedly flown into the Twin Towers at different times were responsible for the complete and total collapse of both super-structures in a manner identical to remote demolition.

As a veteran architect familiar with the WTC Building designs, Richard Gage had realized on that September morning as he had watched on television the awful events happen that those two super-structure WTC Towers, 1 and 2, had been designed and built to withstand total collapse caused by a large colliding jet aircraft, and that the aluminum fuselages and engines of those two jet aircraft were mere putty in the grasp of those thick steel girded buildings, and that the Towers completely destroyed the aircraft instead of the exact opposite happening. To the many American people without scientific understanding, who saw on television those two jets crash into the Twin Towers, their proper perception of what actually happened was dramatically skewed by the collective voices of the television media pundits following the government script vehemently exclaiming, “those jet airplanes have caused those Towers to collapse!” The duping of most American minds on that fateful day had been carefully plotted and planned several years earlier, and executed with strategic conspiratorial precision. What actually happened during the subsequent bombing of the Pentagon was also extremely skewed in the minds of the American public by a planned federal orchestration of something very different from the federal version of a hijacked Boeing 767 airliner filled with passengers flown into the Pentagon wall by a Muslim hijacker who, according to a certified flight instructor, couldn’t even properly fly a small Cessna aircraft.

The American public remains an extremely diverse and heterogeneous amalgamation of people in terms of literacy, competency to understand current events, and general education. Compared to the population of the fledgling American republic in 1788 (1.5 million new Americans), which had an electorate literacy rate of 90 percent without the benefit of a public education system, the current American electorate literacy rate is staggeringly less than 85 percent. Richard Gage understood the social and political forces that were working against him as he tried diligently to create an Internet means for educating that 40 percent of the electorate, the adults who are working daily on an eighth-to-ninth grade level of reading comprehension competency, about the real scientific facts underscoring the happenings of 9/11. For who among the adults of the 325 million U.S. population would want to believe and admit that their federal government intentionally and deliberately conspired to murder over 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 in order get the Patriot Act (actually written secretly in 1993) passed by Congress and signed by the U.S. President, and a state of war declared against two foreign nation-states, Afghanistan and Iraq, in the name of an elusive fictional adversary, Islamic terror? It’s like trying to convince the family of a man, a husband and a father of four children, that he is a mass murderer. That is a very difficult thing to do unless there are forensic facts to back-up the allegations.

Yet, Gage came to realize that the proverbial smoking-gun of federal duplicity was not what most of the American people had seen, and heard, on television on 9/11, but, rather, what they hadn’t seen, or known about, which happened at around 5:15 on the afternoon of 9/11, when the 47-story Solomon Building, WTC Building 7, collapsed totally and completely into its tracks in a manner identical to remote demolition, just like what had happened to the Twin Towers only hours earlier; but Building 7 had not been affected to any extent by the collapse of the Twin Towers. Amazingly, almost 95 percent of the American electorate had not realized that WTC Building 7 was the third massive building to collapse on 9/11 until Gage and his organization had publicized that relevantly salient fact on the Internet and until prolific writers such as Dr. David R. Griffin had written about it in a series of his books about 9/11. Of course, the federal government had hoped that the collapse of Building 7 would have gone relatively unnoticed; but, truly, when a massive 47-story high-rise building collapsed in downtown New York City for no apparent reason in a manner identical to controlled demolition, questions were surely asked by the public that the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned as the apologist for the collapse of Building 7, was unable answer with candor and veracity.

Richard Gage discovered that the issues the federal government’s 9/11 Commission had addressed and answered falsely in their tome “The Report of the 9/11 Commission” about the crashes of the jet aircraft into the WTC Twin Towers, their subsequent collapse, and the Pentagon bombing were 100 percent more than those they had addressed and answered correctly. In other words, the production of the 9/11 Commission was a veritable hoax. The collapse of WTC Building 7 wasn’t even mentioned within the report’s pages, as though the Commission was deliberately attempting to create the perception that it wasn’t in any way connected to the destruction of the Twin Towers.

After 2006, Gage and his AE911Truth associates, as a well-organized team, continued to press the federal government for an explanation of the collapse of WTC Building 7 until the powers-that-be in DC ordered NIST to produce some “plausible” reason to supposedly eliminate the ensuing controversy. So, suddenly the headlines appeared in mainstream newspapers, on television, and the Internet that two controlled fires on two floors of the 47-story building had caused the entire structure to collapse in a manner identical to controlled demolition. No explanation was provided, however, by NIST to explain the residue presence of nano-thermite in the air around the collapsed building, the same military-grade explosive that was found in abundance lingering for several days in the massive amount of debris and dust in the air as far as ten-blocks away from the collapsed remains of the WTC Twin Towers, called Ground-Zero. NIST was also silent about the reason for the mandated evacuation of Building 7 an hour before men with hard-hats were shooing people away from the perimeter of the building on the afternoon of 9/11, saying that the building was going to be “pulled,” a word used to mean “remotely detonated.” The most telling statement from NIST after its official flat denial that “explosives” had been used to bring-down the massive Solomon Building was that “an inspection for the remains of explosives” had not been made in the building’s collapsed debris by NIST scientists.” Several physicists and engineers had independently done extensive testing for explosive residue in the remains of Building 7 and had discovered great amounts of nano-thermite residue in the debris and dust circulating around those remains. Samples of those remains had come into the hands of AE911Truth in 2006 and other more delicate testing had been done by the organization’s scientists to confirm the original findings. Having realized that they, the NIST spokespeople, had been sorely exposed by the work of AE911Truth, NIST and the federal apologists suddenly became very silent about the conclusive findings published by Gage and2 his associates on the Internet.

Several prominent physicists associated with the original 9/11Truth movement, which was formally initiated in 2002, endeavored to expound the scientific findings on television through interviews they had with such media pundits as Bill O’Reilly. Such statements by highly respected physical scientists contradicting the official government version of 9/11 began in 2002, when these numerous professional men and women of science responded to the government’s version of 9/11 with deriding disbelief and utter skepticism. Though I have been conservatively minded most of my life and had some respect for O’Reilly as a voice of conservatism, I was appalled and lost all respect for him when I saw and heard on television the rude and impudent man blindly defending the neoconservative 9/11 position of the federal government by demeaning and ridiculing professional physicists who were trying to explain in simple scientific terms why a great deal of nano-thermite residue was found at, and around, the WTC ground-zero. Bombastic O’Reilly wouldn’t let them get a word in edge-wise as the scientists he interviewed attempted to explain the infamous “secondary explosions (an integral part of controlled demolition)” heard by over 50 firemen and other first-responders before the collapses of the WTC Twin Towers. They also tried to explain the great pools of molten steel discovered by first-responders beneath collapsed girders, beams, and assorted debris of the collapsed towers, but O’Reilly and company didn’t give them an opportunity.

One particularly astute physicist later went on record to assert that “the laws of physics were politically suspended and revoked on 9/11″ if the government version of 9/11 is true.” This was Dr. Stephen E. Jones, a BYU professor of physics. Dr. Jones was so impassioned and provoked by what he saw and heard on television on 9/11 that he immediately left his job in Provo, Utah and traveled to NYC, where he conducted his own experiments confirming conclusively that a great residue of nano-thermite was present in the dust and debris emanating from the collapsed towers. Because Dr. Jones later went on record to claim that the jet aircraft fires in the WTC Twin Towers were not what caused them to collapse, but, rather, controlled demolition using nano-thermite explosive, he lost his professorial physics position at Brigham Young University. In 2006, Dr. Jones was first introduced to Richard Gage and AE911Truth and became one of the organization’s supporting members. It seems that every professional physical scientist, engineer, and architect who meets and associates with Richard becomes enthralled with his candor and veracity, and an instant subscriber to the AE911Truth agenda.

What happened on that awful day, September 11, 2001, boils-down to a very simple conclusion as a matter of relevant material and scientific facts. You see, physical science is a collection of noble universal truths that can’t be altered in any way by political conjecture, conspiracy, or delusion. Just like forensics and DNA have turned crime-solving from a process of mere deduction and elimination to a hard-and-fast science, both physical and biochemical, every aspect of what really occurred on 9/11 may be explained scientifically. If the collision of those jet aircraft into the WTC Twin Towers, and their ensuing fires, burning at just under 800 degrees, could “not” have scientifically caused the super-steel WTC Twin Towers to collapse, and if loud secondary explosions were clearly heard emanating from Towers 1 and 2 before their collapse, and if great pools of molten steel were found beneath the rubble of the collapsed towers, it is scientifically obvious that something, besides kerosene jet fuel, with the chemical capacity of creating temperatures above 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, was used as an explosive to cause those huge steel-lattice beams and girders, designed and engineered to withstand the direct impact of a Boeing 747, to melt and collapse. And since an abundant residue of nano-thermite was found in the dust and debris at, and around, the area within ten blocks of ground-zero, a scientific forensic conclusion can be drawn that the Twin Towers were made to collapse through the contrived use of the military-grade nano-thermite planted in the two Towers over a period-of-time.

Furthermore, by simple deduction, if the WTC Twin Towers were made to collapse through a federally contrived controlled demolition, killing over 3,000 human beings, then the Pentagon bombing was also contrived by those same conspirators. For, surely, ten tons of steel-titanium jet engine components of a Boeing 767 commercial airliner cannot be vaporized in a crash of the huge jet, traveling at 450 mph into that Pentagon wall. Most assuredly, a great deal of jet aircraft wreckage would be left in the wake such a crash; but no such crash remains were found on the undisturbed Pentagon lawns bordering the bombed wall. In fact, the first CNN news crew that reported from the Pentagon site broadcasted the news that “it appears that a Boeing 767 did not crash into the Pentagon wall as reported, because, as you can now see, there are no aircraft remains here at the Pentagon.” That report lasted all of 48 seconds before it was suddenly cut by the network and
never again replayed. I wonder why? Perhaps the federal conspirators hadn’t planned this unexpected exposure. Great appreciation is certainly in order for the audio/video DVRs in the homes of average Americans who recorded the startling 48 second CNN broadcast, and for those concerned and alarmed Americans who preserved those broadcasted facts by loading that video segment into YouTube format on the Internet. I have elaborated on the real scientific facts surrounding the 9/11 Pentagon bombing in the Ezine Article entitled “The Burlingame End-Game Murders.”

In the mathematical science of physics, algorithms have been created by physicists and mathematicians to explain what did and did not occur on 9/11 according to existing scientific fact, and one can say with total assurance, after examining the results of those algorithms, that it was impossible for the WTC Twin Towers and WTC Building 7 to have collapsed by any other means than controlled demolition. I don’t know if it is exactly true, but I’ve been told by others closely associated with Richard Gage and AE911Truth that Gage and others closely associated with AE911Truth have received death threats anonymously by telephone and in letters written anonymously, warning them to stop their 9/11 investigations; but the old expression, “the truth will prevail” is one of the truisms of forensic mathematics, and Richard, like a tenacious and bodacious bulldog will keep on pursuing the truth despite the risks. That was why the 9/11 crime scene was so deliberately tainted by the federal government in the weeks following the debacle by the removal of all of the primary evidentiary remains from the collapsed Twin Towers. Instead of allowing the NYPD and New York State crime scene investigators to do their jobs of determining scientifically how and why the Twin Towers collapsed, the feds swarmed over the crime scene closing it off to city and state investigators. Then many lies were told to the American public, via the media, by federal spokespeople denying the sworn statements of the first-responders about the secondary explosions they heard, the deep pools of molten steel they encountered, and the other evidences of controlled demolition. Much of this vital information has since been carefully accumulated, correlated, and filed on the AE911Truth website for public perusal, and nearly all of the curious people around the USA who visit that website come away convinced that 9/11 was a complex federal conspiracy. All it takes, as Richard Gage has repeatedly said, is a willingness to look at the prevailing scientific and forensic facts and the common sense to accept the conclusive findings.

What does Richard Gage and his associates hope to accomplish through the investigatory efforts of AE911Truth? They are faithfully hoping that the States will soon collectively initiate their own criminal murder investigation into 9/11 and the murders of over 3,000 innocent human beings, much like a constitutional convention of the States is allowed and sanctioned by the U.S. Constitution to propose and submit new constitutional amendments to the States for ratification. Seeking another federal investigation of 9/11, tantamount to the austere mockery of justice that occurred with the politically orchestrated 9/11 Commission, would be like an investigation of who ate cock-robin in the henhouse conducted by a tribunal of hungry guilty federal foxes. Instead of politicians running the show during such an investigation, chief law enforcement officers such the Texas Rangers and other imminent State criminal investigators should be in charge of determining the suspects and the relevant and material evidence, and which of it should be presented to a grand jury, presided over by a selected State supreme court chief justice, for indictment, trial, and sentencing of those federal officers who were involved in the 9/11 conspiracy. Oh, there would be an assortment of federal hurtles and impediments to the formation and operation of such an State investigation, perhaps even a federal court denial of such a State action; but, according to the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights, the States have much more power than the federal government, and it is about time that they, again, assert that constitutional power in order to the set the record straight and convict and punish the guilty.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off

Arousing Interests of Science Subjects in Secondary Schools in Tanzania

BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
Motivating young people to become more interested in science subjects in Tanzania raised the debate since the government decided to exercise authority in education sector at take-off independence. The driving un-implemented strategies are restructuring instruction into learner-centered approach, improving curricular materials and ensuring teaching and instructional personnel. There is no way to a single theory to govern this paper rather than eclectic approach being employed to help to draw-in important philosophical concept to the intended perspective.

The theories adopted in guiding this paper therefore are observed in how motivation can be employed in arousing learners’ interest in science subjects. The theories include motivation as propounded by prominent behaviorist Abraham Maslow, learning theory by prominent constructivist paradigm including Piaget and Vygotsky and the theory of social cognition by its prominent proponent Albert Bandura.

As Maslow (1954) says, “If we are interested in what actually motivates us and not what has or will, or might motivate us, then a satisfied need is not a motivator.” According to him and to other various theories, motivation may be rooted in the basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and resting, or a desired object, hobby, goal, state of being, ideal, or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, morality, or avoiding mortality. Motivation is of particular interest to Educational psychologists because of the crucial role it plays in student learning. However, the specific kind of motivation that is studied in the specialized setting of education differs qualitatively from the more general forms of motivation studied by psychologists in other fields. Motivation in education can have several effects on how students learn and how they behave towards subject matter as for science subjects in our case. It can direct behavior toward particular goals; Lead to increased effort and energy; Increase initiation of, and persistence in, activities; Enhance cognitive processing; Determine what consequences are reinforcing and; Lead to improved performance. Because students are not always internally motivated, they sometimes need situated motivation, which is found in environmental conditions that the teacher creates.

There are two kinds of motivation: firstly, intrinsic motivation which occurs when people are internally motivated to do something because it either brings them pleasure, they think it is important, or they feel that what they are learning is significant, and secondly extrinsic motivation which comes into play when a student is compelled to do something or act a certain way because of factors external to him or her like money or good grades (Wikipedia, 2008). Young people can be motivated to perform science subjects as pleasure when they are supplied with quality, enough materials and sufficient facilitating situation through competition, science clubs, and any other situations where awards and prizes are provided for best achievers. Externally successfully scientists and best students in science subjects can be invited in science celebrations and exhibitions to demonstrate their achievements.

There are cognitive views of motivation by constructivists which stress that human behavior is influenced by the way people think about themselves and their environment. The direction that behavior takes can be explained by four influences which include; the inherent need to construct an organized and logically consistent knowledge base; one’s expectations for successfully completing a task; the factors that one believes account for success and failure; and one’s beliefs about the nature of cognitive ability (Biehler/Snowman, 1997). The impact of cognitive development view is based on Jean Piaget’s principles of equilibration, assimilation, accommodation, and schema formation. Piaget proposes that children possess an inherent desire to maintain a sense of organization and balance in their conception of the world (equilibration). A sense of equilibration may be experienced if a child assimilates a new experience by relating it to an existing scheme, or the child may accommodate by modifying an existing scheme if the new experience is too different. In our case then love of science can be build to young people since their childhood through directing and provision of simpler experiments and observations on various matters and organisms.

In addition, individuals will repeatedly use new schemes because of an inherent desire to master their environment. This explains why young children can, with no loss of enthusiasm, sing the same song, tell the same story, and play the same game over and over and why they repeatedly open and shut doors to rooms and cupboards with no seeming purpose. It also explains why older children take great delight in collecting and organizing almost everything they can get their hands on and why adolescents who have begun to attain formal operational thinking will argue incessantly about all the unfairness in the world and how it can be eliminated (Stipek, 1993). This allows the room for these habits to be turned into science learning and observation interests.

Social cognition theory proposes reciprocal determination as a primary factor in both learning and motivation. In this view, the environment, an individual’s behavior, and the individual’s characteristics (e.g., knowledge, emotions, and cognitive development) both influence and are influenced by each other two components. Bandura (1986, 1997) highlights self-efficacy (the belief that a particular action say for science [as our case goals], is possible and that the individual can accomplish it) and self-regulation (the establishment of goals, the development of a plan to attain those goals, the commitment to implement that plan, the actual implementation of the plan, and subsequent actions of reflection and modification or redirection.

EDUCATION POLICY IMPLEMENTATION
The first strategy is to deal with the policy effective implementation. Tanzania education policy (Education and Training Policy – ETP) highlights on: Access that encompass participation, gender and equity issues; Quality in internal efficiency, relevance and external effectiveness; and Management includes governance, decentralization and resource management. It is one of the best policies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as pointed by World Bank (2005); with well established strategic plans but had not yet been able to be implemented effectively.

Woods (2007) pointed out that the education system of Tanzania has made commendable progress in the period since 2000, especially in the introduction of free primary education, in steps taken to broaden access to secondary, and in the introduction of competence based curricula at primary and secondary levels. However, there are still challenges to improve system performance in terms of inclusion, repetition and completion at primary level, and to expand opportunity at secondary from the previously very low base. Pre-service and in-service training have lacked the necessary coherence with each other and with the demands of changes in the system, especially of curriculum and pedagogy in enhancing science and technology. Particular attention needs to be paid to equity and strengthening of financial management and mainstreaming of ongoing project and programs. These need to be pursued vigorously and implemented fully. A prioritized strategy for capacity building is required for these and all other major dimensions (World Bank, 2005). In this case there is no problem with the policy; the problem is in the implementation.

MOTIVATING TEACHING PERSONNEL
In enabling the Ministry to meet the goals the question of teachers concern should be addressed as the second strategy as the foremost activities to motivate teaching resource. Teaching resource elsewhere plays the big role in ensuring maximum success in education arena. Recognizing the unique motivational styles can also help to identify the types of educational products and problems that will satisfy respective needs (Tough, 1979). So, teachers’ in-service training, teaching environment nourishment, reasonable payments and retain/recognition are important factors.

Learners are motivated by teachers so teachers should be motivated in order to transmit it to learners. Apart from sufficient pre-service and in-service training, capacity building and refresher courses provision; the availability of required teaching and learning materials in one hand build teachers’ morale and motivate them. Struggle in finding teaching-learning for themselves, shortage of books and other supportive materials de-motivate teachers and encourage insufficient teaching and rote learning. Ibid (1979) remarked that someone can get easily distracted from the task at hand and become more motivated to do something else perhaps not on task.

Teachers need laboratory with recommended equipments to prepare and demonstrate practical and laboratory technician an assistant. In the past when schools were few, a science teacher needed to have a laboratory to work in and there were also a laboratory technician to work together (Guardian, 2009). Laboratory is compulsory for science subjects; there is no way, without their availability. But these days in some schools even science teachers do not have laboratories to conduct experiments and there is no laboratory technician to help the teacher.

Teaching environment improvements include housing water and sanitation. Research has shown that many teachers do not have houses, and those who do live in houses that are often in serious need of repair and most schools are in very poor physical environment. The challenges of school improvement in rural areas are associated with the presence of teachers, but many rural schools in Tanzania like other countries “serve disadvantaged populations, have great difficulty attracting and retaining qualified teachers and have management systems poorly adapted to their small size”(ADEA, 2006)

Pay reform to adequate salary in the other hand settle psychological and physical unrest of teachers and motivate them concentrate in their work accordingly. Teachers’ low payment is a burning issue and recently caused periodic strikes. In most of developing countries including Tanzania, teachers’ wages were considerably below the level necessary to ensure their adequate motivation (Fry, 2003). The government should revise teachers’ pay reform and come up with solution otherwise academic fraud might emerge or persist. When teachers sell grades or require students to pay for private tutoring, most observers recognize it as corruption. But it is tolerated because everyone understands that it is necessary to survive (Fontana, 2008). Their practices may be interpreted by some as a reasonable adaptive response to a difficult situation. In some instances it is even tolerated by government, which sees it as the only way to maintain the number of teachers and the quality of teaching.

There is a need to train and retain enough teachers. Learning is a process of interaction between teachers and students as they both participate in the learning process, but with more weight given to teachers to show the way, for recommended number of learners in the class. Learning achievements can mainly “be determined in classroom by motivated teachers who plan for teaching, put into practice what they have learned” (ADEA, 2006). But teachers’ motivation is critically ignored factor in all levels of policy choices including crowded classes (Ndawi, 1997). Motivation of teachers helps to retain them at their work places and it includes “materials and psychological needs” as pay on its own does not increase motivation among teachers; however pecuniary motives are likely to be dominant among teachers in less developed countries. In SSA, teachers’ motivation is low and it has been detrimental to the quality of education” (Fry, 2003).

LEARNERS MOTIVATION
In motivating learners, as the third strategy, emphasis should be applied in approaches such as demonstration, case study and problem based learning. Their introduction or if have been introduced, could aim at increasing the students’ interests in learning science subjects. Also a useful method of concept mapping would be given for assessment, particularly for the development of the students’ self-directed learning skills and lifelong learning skills.

Demonstration as one of the approaches is very useful in arousing interest. According to Lagowski (1990) students retain 10% of what they read, 26% of what they hear, 30% of what they see, 50% of what they see and hear, 70% of what they say, and 90% of something they say as they do something. So if teachers show as many demonstrations as they can to the students as well as letting the students do demonstrations by themselves, students will learn more actively and effectively. Students also need more positive and realistic demonstrations of the scope and limitations of science and scientists.

Science historical stories are one of the methods which can be used elsewhere even in remote areas and is costless. According to Huo (2006) the development of science and technology can not be separated from the contributions of past scientists. The science stories will inspire students to overcome the difficulties and to gain success. So giving the relevant story will spark the students’ inner-motivation. Only with inner-motivation will the students show their initiative and creative abilities in their learning and working processes. For instance ‘Newton becomes a professor at the age of 25 years in Glasgow University and lately he formulated the law of gravitational force’.

Multimedia technology approach can be applied in areas where it allows. Although it is expensive and it requires power availability for schools that can afford is also recommended. With the development of computer technology multimedia methods are been increasingly used in teaching practice. A multimedia course can combine sound and pictures with knowledge. This reinforces the fact that students retain 50% of what they see and hear, as the use of multimedia technology gives students more information than just writing on the blackboard, and increase the chance of active learning (ibid). But on the other hand it can also makes a more boring lecture for the students, if too much useless information is given or if, when using the projector, the light in the classroom is too dim. To avoid these disadvantages the teacher can combine it with other strategies and gives students more opportunity to think and ask questions.

Case study is another interesting teaching-learning approach and also costless. Science is very relevant to our real life. It would be worthwhile to find some real cases before the teacher gives a lecture. When students find that what they will learn is useful to the society, they will be active learners (Lagowski, 1990). Case studies are capable of being delivered with a range of styles, they can be designed to complement (not replace) other teaching approaches, and focus on re-visiting topics rather than attempting to cover an entire syllabus. In addition, the contexts and delivery styles can be selected in order to be stimulating. It is crucial, therefore, to highlight the importance of science and its relevance to students’ lives.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach based on recent advances in cognitive science research on human learning (Barrows, 1985). PBL has been widely used in undergraduate settings in Western countries but there is very little published on the application of PBL in science education in developing countries like Tanzania. A PBL class is organized around collaborative problem solving activities that provide a context for learning and discovery. The responsibility for learning is with the student; not with the facilitator. There are five well-defined stages in the PBL process: introduction, inquiry, self-directed study, revisiting the hypotheses, and self-evaluation (Ram 1999). This approach can be introduced in higher learning institutions although it is expensive, its return to education is more important.

Research shows that students do not like examinations and if their mark is low it may reduce their confidence to continue learning. It also can not reflect all the problems and may not show the abilities that the students have gained (Huo, 2006). It is preferable to find other methods to supplement examinations. Concept mapping is an alternative method: it can show the teacher how much the students knew and how much they didn’t know; and the students can assess their own learning. I don’t suggest examinations to be eliminated completely but they can be reduced in number in levels of education. Elimination of National Standard IV Exam in primary school level and National Form II Exam in O-level is the exact instance. Concept mapping was developed by

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off