Wits School of Education (ETDs)

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    Integration of Education for Sustainable Development in teacher education, Life Sciences classroom practices, during the Covid pandemic
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Ndelu, Sethabile; Mabenge, P.
    Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been identified as a key vehicle for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and teachers have a critical role to play in promoting ESD. This study investigates the integration of ESD in teacher education, specifically in the Life Sciences classroom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The study utilised qualitative research methods, including interviews with two Life Sciences teacher educators and open-ended questionnaires sent to ten prospective teachers. Data was also obtained from the teacher educators’ course outlines and the Life Sciences Curriculum Assessment Policy (CAPS). The findings suggest that ESD integration is largely dependent on the teacher educator’s agency, as the teacher training institution did not provide adequate institutional and pedagogical guidance for integrating ESD into teacher practices. The Covid-19 pandemic led to online learning, which restricted the practical application of ESD competencies in real-life change projects.
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    Examining Lecturers’ Use of ICT in an Introductory Economics Course During the Covid-19 Pandemic
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Pratt, Juanita Renee; Makda, Fatima
    This study investigated how lecturers in the economics department at an urban university in South Africa used information communication technology to teach an introductory economics course during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many lecturers who teach introductory economics do not integrate ICT in their teaching and this can impact the quality of teaching and learning. It has become more critical to examine this challenge because most higher education institutions now integrate some form of online learning and teaching in their courses. Therefore, it is important to examine lecturers’ response to online teaching during emergency remote teaching in order to learn from their experience and identify the competencies needed to teach introductory economics. The purpose of the study was to examine lecturers’ use of ICT in an introductory economics course and to consider the competencies that support teaching with ICT in the subject. The main research question was How do lecturers use ICT to teach introductory economics during the Covid-19 pandemic? To better understand lecturers’ ICT practices, this qualitative study adopted an interpretivist approach and used content analysis to examine participant interviews and learning materials embedded in the learning management system for the introductory economics course. In addition to content analysis, the data were analysed and interpreted through the theoretical framework of the Teacher Response Model and Teaching Quality Framework. Several themes emerged about the nature of economics lecturers’ pedagogy namely: (a) they adapted their teaching practice by deploying all assessments through the learning management system and developing video lectures for students to download; (4) they developed new practices to encourage formative assessment and they acquired technical skills to manage the transition to emergency remote teaching; and (c) they used existing technologies in new ways to manage the change in teaching mode. Despite their inexperience with online teaching, lecturers were motivated to integrate ICT into their economics teaching practice in order to (d@) maintain the continuity of the course and to ensure academic standards were upheld. Furthermore, they (e) acknowledged the fact that the majority of economics students had limited resources and they accommodated for this inequity by responding to students’ academic, social and emotional needs. Although many lecturers lacked the experience of teaching online, they displayed flexibility, innovation and commitment to the academic project by utilising ICT to facilitate learning and teaching to the best of their ability during the challenging conditions of emergency remote teaching.