Exploring roles of a subject coordinator in a private secondary school Karachi, Pakistan
Date of Award
8-1-2007
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Master of Education (M. Ed.)
Department
Institute for Educational Development, Karachi
Abstract
The study explored the roles of a subject coordinator in improving teachers' classroom practices in a private secondary school in Karachi, Pakistan. It aimed to further explore the facilitating and hindering factors in the coordinator's role. In order to conduct the study, a qualitative design through a case study approach was undertaken. The purpose of the study was to explore the processes of a subject coordinator, on how she performs her responsibilities and activities. The study was conducted with one subject coordinator, Shakila (pseudonym) and two teachers: Nina (pseudonym) and Saima (pseudonym). The data were gathered through different data collection tools like interviews (unstructured and semi-structured), observations of Shakila's practices, for example, during her classroom teaching, the planning sessions and departmental meetings Conducted on Fridays, as well as document analysis, where teachers' lesson plans, reflective journals, students' homework note books, school timetable and TORS of the coordinator were analyzed. All the interviews with the participants were tape-recorded. The interviews were then transcribed, coded, and themes were accordingly discovered. The findings of the study revealed that Shakila plays a number of roles aimed at improving teachers' classroom practices. The roles were found to be doing classroom observations, giving constructive feedback, facilitating planning and departmental meetings, monitoring students' and teachers' progress, communicating with teachers, mentoring by helping teachers in the lesson planning, helping teachers to enhance their pedagogical content knowledge and helping them in classroom management. The study further illustrates that working as a subject coordinator is not always a smooth and easy task. Rather, it has both facilitating and hindering factors for a subject coordinator in performing his/her roles effectively. The study further unveiled the factors which facilitate or help subject coordinators. The facilitating factors were found to be the subject coordinator's own quest for knowledge, school structure, Friday's sessions, support of the Aga Khan University-Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED), support of South Education Office, and the cooperation of teachers; whereas, the hindering factors were found to be workload on subject coordinator and challenges faced by the teachers.
Recommended Citation
Khan, B. (2007). Exploring roles of a subject coordinator in a private secondary school Karachi, Pakistan (Unpublished master's dissertation). Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan.