3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
7 results
Search Results
Item Exploring the pedagogic modalities of Siswati and English teachers during teaching and learning in relation to the socio-cultural context of Swaziland(2016-03-08) Mbuli, Lisa JabulileThis study presents an exploration of the pedagogic modalities displayed by SiSwati and English teachers during teaching and learning in two Swaziland government schools. The study further seeks to explore the links between the pedagogic choices teachers make in the classroom and the socio-cultural context of Swaziland. The idea of pedagogic modalities being classified as either learner-centred or teacher-centred is used as a starting point for the study but the dichotomy set up between these two modes is challenged. The study uses a phenomenological qualitative methodology. It uses semi-structured interviews and lesson observations of two teachers who teach both SiSwati and English in two different government high schools located in the Lubombo region of Swaziland. A major finding of the study was that both teachers’ understandings of learner-centred pedagogy only partially engaged with descriptions of learner-centred pedagogy as outlined in the literature reviewed for this research. This finding highlights the possibility that teachers are not empowered to confidently describe their own practice in teacher-centred terms. It was also found that the teachers’ perceptions of knowledge, their view of their own role and the learners’ role in the classroom influenced the pedagogic approaches selected by each teacher during teaching and learning. Additionally, some pedagogic moves could be linked to the socio-cultural context of Swaziland. The study also revealed that learner- and teacher-centred modalities are not mutually exclusive. It was found that despite being predominantly teacher-centred in their practice, teachers were able to draw on techniques classified in both modes. This means teachers displayed variety in their practice, exhibiting what Brodie, Lelliot and Davis (2002) describe as “hybrid practice” (p. 545), as they used a range of approaches that fit with local views about knowledge, learner participation and the teachers’ role in the classroom. Finally the study calls for further empirical research that documents teachers’ practices in order to generate a theory which would describe pedagogy from the perspective of teachers and their context. This would place sub-Saharan African teachers at the centre of the debate, rather than keeping them on the periphery, silenced as their practice is spoken over and interpreted by the dominant and hegemonic culture of those who would promote LCE in developing country contexts. Key words: pedagogy, pedagogic modality, learner-centred, teacher-centred, pedagogic choices, binary, socio-cultural context, Swaziland.Item The role of distance education materials in addressing the professional development needs of high school English teachers in Rwanda.(2015-05-19) Sibomana, EmmanuelDistance education is being used increasingly for both pre and in-service teacher education in both developed and developing countries (Robinson & Latchem, 2003; Kwapong, 2007; Perraton, 2010). In Rwanda, the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) introduced its first distance education programme in 2001 with the aim of upgrading the qualifications of under-qualified high school teachers, including those who teach English, using printed materials as the main teaching/learning resource. This study has aimed to investigate the role of the 2010 version of these materials in addressing the professional needs of high school English teachers. It was centrally informed by theories of the sociologist of education, Basil Bernstein (1996, 1999), about curriculum and of the sociocultural psychologist, Lev Vygotsky (1978), on mediation, by Shulman’s (1986, 1987) work on pedagogic content knowledge and by literature on English language teaching, on language teacher education and on distance education materials design. The investigation involved textual analysis of a selection of KIE’s distance education materials for English teaching and focused on the content selected for these materials and on the mediation of this content on the page. After this analysis, one section of these was re-designed by the researcher. Nine teacher-learners enrolled in the programme for English teaching were interviewed to determine their responses to both the KIE materials and to the redesigned section. The findings suggest that Kigali Institute of Education’s distance education materials for English do not adequately address the academic and professional needs of high school English teachers for four main reasons. Firstly, the content selected for the materials does not respond sufficiently to the interests and needs of foreign language teachers of English. Secondly, it is not externally aligned to the curriculum at the level that these teachers are supposed to teach. Thirdly, the mediation of this content does not adequately support the development of subject and pedagogic content knowledge and skills of teacher-learners and encourages surface rather than deep learning (Biggs, 1987). Lastly, with the exception of sections on some literary genres, the materials list useful ideas and language teaching approaches and methods but consistently fail to explain to the teacher-learners how to teach different aspects of language. These findings suggest that these materials do not adequately assist teacher-learners to develop pedagogic content knowledge (Shulman, 1987) for the teaching of English. The limitations identified may result from a lack of knowledge, skills and experience in distance education materials and graphic design among the KIE materials designing team and from inadequate resource provision (including time) by the institution and suggest that there is a need for changes to the KIE distance education materials designing process.Item Subjectivity and pedagogy in a context of social change.(2014-01-16) Ferreira, Ana CristinaThis study is an exploration of the relationship between subjectivity and pedagogy in the secondary school English classroom in South Africa during a time that can be characterised as one of considerable social change. It examines the subject positions students take up in relation to a teaching intervention that invites them to historicise their identities. In so doing, it seeks to contribute to the growing body of education research on how to meaningfully engage young people in post-conflict societies with their recent past and their shifting present, with the primary aim being to understand how these students are positioning themselves in relation to the changing sociopolitical context. The research was conducted in two Grade 11 English classrooms, one a de(re)segregated former Model C school and the other an elite private school. The research design is a two-case case study, employing ethnographic tools to generate a multi-layered and multifaceted understanding of the students’ engagement in all its forms. Poststructuralist theories on discourse and subjectivity form the theoretical framework for this study, informing both the methodology and the data analysis. At the heart of this lies Foucault’s notion of the discursively constructed subject, extended through the work of Stuart Hall, Chris Weedon, Bronwyn Davies and others in ways that facilitate their application to individual subjectivity, particularly in relation to the classroom as a pedagogically structured discursive space. The data is subjected to poststructuralist discourse analysis, adjusted to suit the mode and type of data which includes, inter alia, the analysis of a multimodal artefact, analysis of performative classroom talk and moment-by-moment analysis of classroom interaction. The analysis shows that students’ subjectivities are not fixed but shift in ways that are contingent on the pedagogic context. Such shifts are particularly noticeable when there is a shift in the interactional situation; when students move between different semiotic modes; or when they are provided with the opportunity for extended conversational interaction around an issue. In addition, students’ participation in the section of work on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) shows that engaging with the past in post-apartheid South African classrooms can have unpredictable results. Students’ resistance to engaging with recent history seems to be related to discomfort with the ways in which the grand narrative of the past works to position them in racialised ways. While there is evidence of students seeking to ‘unfix’ racialised subject positions, it is also clear that past discourses linger. Despite their desire to be rid of the past, students’ subject positions are frequently tied to their historically constructed locations in the sociopolitical and economic landscape of South Africa. These ambiguities and contradictions are viewed in part as a function of the complexity of the relationship between subjectivity and pedagogy, where what students are able to say and who they are able to be is shaped by the discursive structure of the classroom space. Ultimately it would seem that more serious consideration needs to be given to ways of developing a pedagogy that is able to tolerate contingency and heterogeneity and that would have relevance not only in post-conflict contexts but also beyond. Keywords: subjectivity, pedagogy, poststructuralist discourse analysis, positioning, identity, English classroom, TRC, multimodal artefact, classroom talk, South AfricaItem Fostering creativity in engineering undergraduates.(2012-02-27) Pitso, TebohoSince their establishment in the 1960s, Universities of Technology in South Africa have been taking pride in providing career-focused qualifications that match the intermediate needs of the economy. In order to provide these career-focused qualifications, these institutions have been focusing on enacting a curriculum framework that emphasizes replication of industrial processes which tended to accentuate routinized, conventional problem-solving. The shift in economic paradigm in the 21st Century and the general dissatisfaction with graduate readiness in the workplace as evident in both local and international literature, framed as employability skills or generic skills, suggest a new impetus being placed on creativity, especially in engineering education. This study attempted to develop final-year undergraduates’ creativity through making visible the key features of a pedagogic practice, by analyzing the existing engineering undergraduate pedagogic practices, and reconceptualizing and testing a pedagogy that could potentially develop undergraduates’ creativity. The reconceptualized pedagogy, enacted as “learnshops”, accentuated teamwork, collaborative inquiry, guided creative problem-solving and the use of case studies to encourage students to seek the higher designs of water, paper and energy technologies within their institution. Design-Based Research (DBR) frames the methodology and methods of data collection and analysis. The research results show that existing engineering undergraduate pedagogic practices remain trapped in the skills training discourse that emphasizes conventional problemsolving in curriculum enactment. Students’ meanings of creativity remain generally eclectic prior and post involvement in the learnshops, although students’ creativity conceptions become more focused on imagination and resourcefulness postlearnshops. The Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT) scores show that students’ creativity increased as a result of exposure to learnshops. Students working in teams of intermediate size to creatively solve given open-ended tasks related to sustainable development were able to achieve cooperation and generate useful ideas with the help of pedagogic interventions implemented during the learnshops. Itinerant membership as an aspect of team formation has little effect on teams’ generation of ideas.Item Mediating knowledge and constituting subjectivities in distance education materials for language teachers in South Africa.(2010-08-31) Reed, YvonneInternational and local guidelines for designing distance education materials advise designers to use feedback from students in the redesign of their materials. This study is a response to the researcher’s failed attempt to elicit critical feedback from some of her students. It therefore sets out to devise a framework for a critical pedagogic analysis of distance learning materials designed for South African teacher education programmes. It draws on theorisations of pedagogy, principally from the work of the sociologist of education Basil Bernstein and the applied linguist Suresh Canagarajah, theorisations of mediation, originating in the work of Lev Vygotsky, and theorisations of subjectivity. It also draws on international and local conceptualisations of a knowledge base for teacher education. In the analysis of the selection and organisation of knowledge on the page, the study draws on Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics and the field of social semiotics to uncover the positions constructed for readers as students and as teachers in each multimodal design. A pedagogic analysis of distance education materials for pre-service or in-service teachers responds to a series of questions: What elements of a knowledge base for teacher education do designers foreground and background? What is the orientation of the materials to the relationship between knowledge and practice? How is knowledge mediated through in-text activities, pedagogic episodes and scaffolded readings? What roles do linguistic and visual design choices play in the mediation of knowledge? A critical pedagogic analysis interrogates the subject positions that the multimodal designs constitute for ideal readers as students and as teachers. In the study, all of these questions frame a detailed analysis of three sets of materials designed for South African teacher education programmes and, finally, a critical reflection on materials for which the researcher was the principal designer. The study concludes that a critical pedagogic analysis affords designers and evaluators the critical distance needed for evaluating the mediation of knowledge(s) and the constitution of readers’ subjectivities in teacher education materials. As an alternative (or in some circumstances, as an addition) to reader feedback it has the potential to inform redesigning for the original local context(s) of use or reversioning for use in broader regional or global contexts.Item 'Learning to teach' : developmental teaching patterns of student teachers.(2009-01-06T06:04:18Z) Rusznyak, LeanneThe process of ‘learning to teach’ is still not well understood. In particular, existing research does not fully reflect the complexities of the process; how student teachers’ level of subject matter knowledge influences their teaching, or how their placement affects the process. This study provides an alternative nonlinear, relational model for understanding the process of ‘learning to teach’. I study the ways in which 66 BEd students teach during eight school-based Teaching Experience sessions, conducted over the four year duration of their preservice teaching degree. I primarily draw on evidence obtained from lesson observation reports written by university tutors as they respond to lessons taught by this cohort of student teachers. I cluster their comments into five facets necessary for enabling learning, namely, student teachers’ knowledge and understanding of content; their preparation; their teaching strategies; their classroom management; and the ways in which they monitor learning. These five facets have links to the process of teaching described by Shulman’s (1987b) Model of Pedagogical Reasoning and Action. Within each of these five facets, varying levels of competence were demonstrated by the student teachers in this study. I develop an analytical tool that describes four developmental levels of student teaching over each of the five facets of the teaching process. An in-depth study of the developmental teaching portraits of five student teachers illustrates that they are often more advanced in some facets of their teaching, and less so in others. The portraits highlight the ways in which certain facets affect teaching in other facets. The interactions between these differing levels and facets give rise to particular challenges that student teachers experience as they ‘learn to teach’. Some of these challenges are more significant than others, as certain inter-facet relationships are essential to the development of pedagogically reasoned action, and other relationships are less crucial. My findings suggest that although ‘learning to teach’ is a non-linear process, there nevertheless exists a logical hierarchy within the facets, whereby some facets create conditions of possibility for others. In particular, I find that the way in which student teachers use their knowledge and understanding of the content to inform other facets, establishes the 2 logical conditions necessary for the development of teaching as pedagogically reasoned action.Item Changing minds : Training educators to use drama as an alternative method for life orientation teaching(2008-11-11T12:21:29Z) Diemont, AlixSouth Africa’s education system has undergone substantial changes in the last ten years. The shift to Inclusive Education attempts to provide all learners, regardless of their disability, learning difficulty, or disadvantage with access to education (Department of Education1, 2001). Curriculum 2005, in the context of an Outcomes Based Education (OBE) philosophy was an attempt by the Education Department to address the inadequate ‘Bantu’ education of the past. OBE was intended to replace teacher-centred approaches by encouraging children to become actively involved in the learning process, to gain knowledge as well as skills, and to think independently and creatively (DoE, 1998b). School ‘subjects’ of the past were changed to ‘Learning Areas’ some undergoing dramatic shifts in content and teaching strategies. These new Learning Areas also emerged with alternative assessment practices. Life Orientation (LO) is one such learning area. Many educators were suddenly required to teach these new Learning Areas, despite having little or no training in them. As a result many educators experienced frustration with the demands now placed upon them, and some felt unable to teach effectively. This study used a qualitative actionresearch design to obtain an in-depth understanding of the educators’ capacities to change their teaching practices in their Life Orientation classrooms. Six educators in a public primary school setting participated in a series of workshops aimed to introduce them to drama methods to be used in their Life Orientation teaching. The workshops were highly experiential in nature and were designed with the specific personalities and needs of each educator in mind. The results of the research indicate that educators are highly responsive to training, provided that they feel acknowledged as individuals and provided that the training builds upon their current expertise rather than attempting to change their practices altogether. Another key finding from the training was the opportunity for the educators to engage in the training as human beings with their own difficulties and frustrations being openly acknowledged. Many of the educators experienced the workshops as therapeutic and reported that this made the training both useful and personally fulfilling.