School of Education
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Item Theory for teacher practice: A typology of application tasks in teacher education.(2013) Shalem, Y.; Rusznyak, L.Debates about the relation between educational theory and teaching practice are embodied in assessment tasks that prompt student teachers to relate theoretical concepts and simulated or directly experienced practice-based contexts in relation to one another. To establish clarity on the ways in which theory and practice can be positioned in relation to one another in application tasks, we revisit the debate between Paul Hirst and Wilfred Carr (2005) about the role of theory in and for education. We provide examples of assessment tasks and then present a typology showing how such tasks demarcate conceptual and contextual objects of study in ways that are more or less visible to students. We argue that the more visibly the concepts are demarcated, the greater the possibilities are for student teachers to develop systematized bodies of educational knowledge that are able to provide organizing insights into their developing practice. While we concede that there might be valid pedagogical reasons for doing so, we argue that when conceptual objects are less visible to students, the underlying message that is transmitted to students is that educational theory is not specialized knowledge and is not distinctively different from their common-sense perspectives. This approach is less likely to promote their acquisition of systematized knowledge for and of practice.Item Resourcefulness matters: Student patterns for coping with structural and academic challenges(2019) Dison, L.; Shalem, Y.; Taylor, D.There is general agreement that there are many structural constraints beyond students’ control which influence the degree of success that students can attain as they learn to participate in academic practice. Less understood are the patterns of students’ experiences of the socio-economic environment of their schooling and university, their views of the enabling and constraining conditions of learning and their perceptions of their agency in overcoming these conditions. The data for our study were collected through a questionnaire survey of 591 Bachelor of Education students across three years of the degree at a South African University. Several patterns of resourcefulness and levels of articulation emerged which reveal complex sets of experiences and strategies as students reflect on adversities and challenges they encountered at school and at university. We argue for an in depth understanding of the nature of student agency which recognises its role in shaping their engagement with material, social, academic and affective challenges.