Exploring the possibility of integrating traditional music and dance into the design and delivery of lessons on the concepts of echo and waves in the grade 10 Physical Science sound topic
- Authors: Liveve, Angelius Kanyanga
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Student-centered learning Namibia , Culturally relevant pedagogy Namibia , Science Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia , Dance in education Namibia , Music in education Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/13356 , vital:21826
- Description: Before Namibian independence in 1990, teaching was mostly characterized by teacher-centred pedagogies in which teachers were perceived as the main sources of knowledge. This resulted in learners being passive recipients of such unquestioned knowledge. After independence and to address this, a new educational system was introduced which promoted learner-centred education (LCE) pedagogy. Despite these grand ideals, educational changes in sub-Saharan Africa form a complex issue involving tensions between policy formulation and implementation. This presents Namibian teachers with some challenges in enacting LCE pedagogies. One of these challenges is to find ways to motivate learners and to assist their learning by finding relevant and interesting connections between subject topics and their own experiences and everyday culture outside the classroom. An inability to enact the new curriculum results in learners performing poorly in subjects such as Physical Science. Against this backdrop, this study sought to explore whether or not the integration of traditional music and dance into the design and delivery of lessons on the concepts of echo and waves could influence grade 10 Physical Science learners’ sense making and dispositions towards science. This study was underpinned by an interpretive paradigm. It was informed and guided by the socio-cultural theory as my theoretical framework. The study was carried out with a grade 10 Physical Science class consisting of 30 learners at Lyambombla Combined School (pseudonym) in the Kavango West Region in the northern part of Namibia. Data were generated through diagnostic and summative tests, interviews and lesson observations incorporating traditional music and dance. The findings of the study showed that learners’ sense making and dispositions toward science were positively influenced through traditional music and dance. The study thus recommends the incorporation of indigenous ways of knowing in order to enhance meaning making in science classrooms.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Liveve, Angelius Kanyanga
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Student-centered learning Namibia , Culturally relevant pedagogy Namibia , Science Study and teaching (Secondary) Namibia , Dance in education Namibia , Music in education Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/13356 , vital:21826
- Description: Before Namibian independence in 1990, teaching was mostly characterized by teacher-centred pedagogies in which teachers were perceived as the main sources of knowledge. This resulted in learners being passive recipients of such unquestioned knowledge. After independence and to address this, a new educational system was introduced which promoted learner-centred education (LCE) pedagogy. Despite these grand ideals, educational changes in sub-Saharan Africa form a complex issue involving tensions between policy formulation and implementation. This presents Namibian teachers with some challenges in enacting LCE pedagogies. One of these challenges is to find ways to motivate learners and to assist their learning by finding relevant and interesting connections between subject topics and their own experiences and everyday culture outside the classroom. An inability to enact the new curriculum results in learners performing poorly in subjects such as Physical Science. Against this backdrop, this study sought to explore whether or not the integration of traditional music and dance into the design and delivery of lessons on the concepts of echo and waves could influence grade 10 Physical Science learners’ sense making and dispositions towards science. This study was underpinned by an interpretive paradigm. It was informed and guided by the socio-cultural theory as my theoretical framework. The study was carried out with a grade 10 Physical Science class consisting of 30 learners at Lyambombla Combined School (pseudonym) in the Kavango West Region in the northern part of Namibia. Data were generated through diagnostic and summative tests, interviews and lesson observations incorporating traditional music and dance. The findings of the study showed that learners’ sense making and dispositions toward science were positively influenced through traditional music and dance. The study thus recommends the incorporation of indigenous ways of knowing in order to enhance meaning making in science classrooms.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Exploring the relationship between course pedagogy and learning in workplaces: the case of the National Diploma in Environmental Education Training and Development Practice
- Authors: Misser, Shanu
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: National Diploma in Environmental Education Training and Development Practice , Environmental education -- South Africa , Occupational training -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8104 , vital:21354
- Description: This case study research provides insights on course pedagogy in the National Diploma in Environmental Education Training and Development Practice as registered with the South African Qualifications Authority. The study draws its findings from interviews, observations, and document analysis of course materials and workshop processes. The two case studies of employees working in a municipal and a provincial context in South Africa provide rich insights into workplace practices and its implications for pedagogical approaches in work-integrated courses. The role of scaffolding, reflexivity and situated learning in creating learning experiences that learners have a reason to value emerge as significant approaches to be considered in pedagogy for work-integrated courses. Critical open-ended questions supported by course material design, dialogue, participation in cooperative learning situation underpinned by reading and the use of case studies and real situated experiences emerge as important pedagogical approaches enabling scaffolding and reflexivity to support a “critical mode of being”. The significant role of pedagogical approaches in maintaining relevance to workplace practices are seen as important in developing capabilities of participants to value what they do on courses. Linked to the insights gained from this study three important recommendations are made. The first recommendation suggests that a pedagogical approach, which involves learner-practitioners and workplace representatives in the curriculum design, would help to maintain relevance of the assignments to the workplace. The second recommendation suggests creative and innovative pedagogical approaches to capture workplace practices in real authentic and meaningful situations for assessment. The third recommendation suggests that pedagogies used in workplace courses need to consider social-ecological sustainability competencies that transgress job tasks across occupations which foster appreciation and imagination of new possibilities in the work learner-practitioners engage in.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Misser, Shanu
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: National Diploma in Environmental Education Training and Development Practice , Environmental education -- South Africa , Occupational training -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8104 , vital:21354
- Description: This case study research provides insights on course pedagogy in the National Diploma in Environmental Education Training and Development Practice as registered with the South African Qualifications Authority. The study draws its findings from interviews, observations, and document analysis of course materials and workshop processes. The two case studies of employees working in a municipal and a provincial context in South Africa provide rich insights into workplace practices and its implications for pedagogical approaches in work-integrated courses. The role of scaffolding, reflexivity and situated learning in creating learning experiences that learners have a reason to value emerge as significant approaches to be considered in pedagogy for work-integrated courses. Critical open-ended questions supported by course material design, dialogue, participation in cooperative learning situation underpinned by reading and the use of case studies and real situated experiences emerge as important pedagogical approaches enabling scaffolding and reflexivity to support a “critical mode of being”. The significant role of pedagogical approaches in maintaining relevance to workplace practices are seen as important in developing capabilities of participants to value what they do on courses. Linked to the insights gained from this study three important recommendations are made. The first recommendation suggests that a pedagogical approach, which involves learner-practitioners and workplace representatives in the curriculum design, would help to maintain relevance of the assignments to the workplace. The second recommendation suggests creative and innovative pedagogical approaches to capture workplace practices in real authentic and meaningful situations for assessment. The third recommendation suggests that pedagogies used in workplace courses need to consider social-ecological sustainability competencies that transgress job tasks across occupations which foster appreciation and imagination of new possibilities in the work learner-practitioners engage in.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Exploring transformative social learning and sustainability in community based irrigation scheme contexts in Mozambique
- Authors: Baloi, Aristides
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Social learning -- Mozambique , Irrigation -- Social aspects -- Mozambique , Water resources development -- Mozambique , Sustainable agriculture -- Mozambique , Community development -- Mozambique
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50154 , vital:25963
- Description: This study set out to examine transformative social learning and sustainability in the context of community-based irrigation systems in Mozambique. These irrigation systems are socio-ecological in nature. The history of irrigation systems in Mozambique can be described in two periods: pre-Independence period (mainly the colonial period) and the post-Independence period from 1975 onwards. Most recently, the Mozambique Government has introduced a policy which supports community-based irrigation system implementation and management via irrigation associations in a move to support a shift from rain-fed farming practices to irrigation-supported farming practices amongst smallholder farmers. It is this shift in the object of activity that this study focusses on. It does this by studying learning process in the constituted irrigation associations, examining whether such learning is transformative and sustainability oriented or not, and how such learning can be further expanded and supported. Learning may occur in socio-ecological systems, but whether that learning enables transformation and sustainability of irrigation systems and the constituted associations is as yet under-explored in the Mozambique context and in the context of Education for Sustainable Development in southern Africa. The aim of this research was therefore to understand transformative social learning within the development of sustainable irrigation practices in the context of irrigation associations and new agrarian policy development in Mozambique. To examine transformative social learning in sustainable irrigation system practices (including management practices), the study worked with three research goals, which also formed phases of the study’s design: GOAL 1: Examine how and what transformative social learning has (or has not) emerged in existing activity systems to date (Phase 1: Activity System Analysis). GOAL 2: Examine how transformative social learning could emerge through expansive learning processes (Phase 2: Identification of contradictions and new solution modelling through Developmental Work Research and Change Laboratories). GOAL 3: Identify what opportunities exist for ongoing transformative social learning (Phase 3: Identification of absences and ongoing dialectical transformation possibilities). The study draws on theories of Social Learning, Transformative Learning and Cultural Historical Activity Theory’s (CHAT) expansive learning and formative interventionist research framework to develop insights into the learning processes. It works especially with third generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory which provides a theory of expansive social learning and collective transformative agency formation, which I deemed most appropriate for the need to understand the transformation of farmers’ activities in a collective formation such as an irrigation association. The study involved identification and examination of interacting activity systems, contradictions or dissonances in two case studies of community-based irrigation system development via the respective associations. It involved identifying existing learning, as well as engaging in formative intervention research to expand learning in two case study sites: namely the Macubulane and Massaca Irrigation Associations, located near Maputo, Mozambique in the Inkomati and Umbeluzi river basins. The Macubulane community practices a monocropping system of sugar cane plantations using sprinkler irrigation methods and the Massaca community practices a mixed cropping system growing vegetables using mainly gravity or furrow irrigation methods. The study uses a qualitative research approach and is underlaboured by Dialectical Critical Realism which allowed for a deeper probing of ontology and transformative praxis, and transformative learning. The study used methods which included in-depth interviews, change laboratory workshops, document analysis and focus group interviews with farmers and subjects in associated activity systems. Analysis involved activity system analysis, identification of contradictions, modeling of solutions, transformative agency analysis, as well as analysis of real and nominal absences and generative mechanisms as recommended in dialectical critical realism. I used inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference, relying on the latter to identify further potential for transformative learning. The study demonstrates that within the associations, transformative social learning is taking place as farmers seek to address problems and contradictions. This learning leads to the creation of new agency and capabilities by ensuring good yields and continuous improvement of management practices and social status. Learning operates through formal mediation in the irrigation system of workplace-based operation, maintenance and crop management practices (i.e. through workplace learning). Social learning occurs through collective engagement with the constraints that the association faces while applying new knowledge, introducing new technology, in the process of administration and planning of irrigation activities. Expansive learning is possible when mediated actively through formative interventions in change laboratory workshops. All three types of learning were found to be present and possible in the context of the two irrigation scheme contexts. The main study findings are that transformative social learning is a collective object-driven process in the context of a transforming object (from rain-fed to sustainable community-based irrigation scheme farming in this study), that can be explained from the level of generative mechanisms and associated real absences that shape nominal absences and contradictions within and between activity systems. These induce, and have potential to induce, transformative learning in irrigation systems, including the emergence of transformative agency via learning through workplace-based, wider social learning, and expansive learning interaction processes amongst subjects in interacting activity systems. Absenting absences is also crucial for extending the potential of transformative learning in irrigation associations. The study further shows how critical realism helps to interpret learning processes and how it strengthens the empirical findings obtained from qualitative analysis. A key outcome of the study is a model that frames conceptualisation of transformative social learning in irrigation systems. The model and the insights gained into farmers learning around the transformation of the object of activity explored in this study have implications for wider curriculum and policy development interventions. The study therefore also makes recommendations for curriculum development and policy implementation intervention. The curriculum development recommendations are not at the level of making recommendations for new courses only, but frame how the design of new courses should take into account the wider processes of learning and change associated with the transformation of an object of activity as articulated in the study. It recommends an approach that allows for in-field engagement with contradictions and the absenting of absences (a problem-based type of curriculum) that will also allow for conceptual development and understanding of the changing object of activity (i.e. community-based irrigation scheme practice and management). The main policy recommendation made from the study is to invest more in farmer support and farmers’ learning so that they can transition from rain-fed agriculture to sustainable irrigation scheme development and management via their associations. The research contributes to knowledge production on irrigation practices; considering that substantial understandings were generated through analysis of communal irrigation scheme practice and management and its implications, especially from a transformative learning perspective. As shown in this study, transformative social learning theories are still not well understood in the context of irrigation system development, and this study has contributed knowledge to this field. The study contributes towards understanding of sustainability learning in irrigation associations in terms of concepts and practices. The study offers a model for transformative social learning in irrigation scheme development and suggests an expanded curriculum for community-based irrigation association practice and management. Overall, the study contributes to an understanding of transformative, sustainability oriented learning processes as support for the emergence of community-based irrigation associations. Additionally, the study has added perspectives on how to frame transformative social learning from a CHAT and critical realist perspective in Education for Sustainable Development. The study also contributes to a growing body of scholarship in southern Africa which seeks to develop expansive, transformative social learning approaches in response to concerns experienced by communities who are reliant on natural resources and the environment for their livelihoods and well-being, and who are also seeking to emerge out of poverty.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Baloi, Aristides
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Social learning -- Mozambique , Irrigation -- Social aspects -- Mozambique , Water resources development -- Mozambique , Sustainable agriculture -- Mozambique , Community development -- Mozambique
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/50154 , vital:25963
- Description: This study set out to examine transformative social learning and sustainability in the context of community-based irrigation systems in Mozambique. These irrigation systems are socio-ecological in nature. The history of irrigation systems in Mozambique can be described in two periods: pre-Independence period (mainly the colonial period) and the post-Independence period from 1975 onwards. Most recently, the Mozambique Government has introduced a policy which supports community-based irrigation system implementation and management via irrigation associations in a move to support a shift from rain-fed farming practices to irrigation-supported farming practices amongst smallholder farmers. It is this shift in the object of activity that this study focusses on. It does this by studying learning process in the constituted irrigation associations, examining whether such learning is transformative and sustainability oriented or not, and how such learning can be further expanded and supported. Learning may occur in socio-ecological systems, but whether that learning enables transformation and sustainability of irrigation systems and the constituted associations is as yet under-explored in the Mozambique context and in the context of Education for Sustainable Development in southern Africa. The aim of this research was therefore to understand transformative social learning within the development of sustainable irrigation practices in the context of irrigation associations and new agrarian policy development in Mozambique. To examine transformative social learning in sustainable irrigation system practices (including management practices), the study worked with three research goals, which also formed phases of the study’s design: GOAL 1: Examine how and what transformative social learning has (or has not) emerged in existing activity systems to date (Phase 1: Activity System Analysis). GOAL 2: Examine how transformative social learning could emerge through expansive learning processes (Phase 2: Identification of contradictions and new solution modelling through Developmental Work Research and Change Laboratories). GOAL 3: Identify what opportunities exist for ongoing transformative social learning (Phase 3: Identification of absences and ongoing dialectical transformation possibilities). The study draws on theories of Social Learning, Transformative Learning and Cultural Historical Activity Theory’s (CHAT) expansive learning and formative interventionist research framework to develop insights into the learning processes. It works especially with third generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory which provides a theory of expansive social learning and collective transformative agency formation, which I deemed most appropriate for the need to understand the transformation of farmers’ activities in a collective formation such as an irrigation association. The study involved identification and examination of interacting activity systems, contradictions or dissonances in two case studies of community-based irrigation system development via the respective associations. It involved identifying existing learning, as well as engaging in formative intervention research to expand learning in two case study sites: namely the Macubulane and Massaca Irrigation Associations, located near Maputo, Mozambique in the Inkomati and Umbeluzi river basins. The Macubulane community practices a monocropping system of sugar cane plantations using sprinkler irrigation methods and the Massaca community practices a mixed cropping system growing vegetables using mainly gravity or furrow irrigation methods. The study uses a qualitative research approach and is underlaboured by Dialectical Critical Realism which allowed for a deeper probing of ontology and transformative praxis, and transformative learning. The study used methods which included in-depth interviews, change laboratory workshops, document analysis and focus group interviews with farmers and subjects in associated activity systems. Analysis involved activity system analysis, identification of contradictions, modeling of solutions, transformative agency analysis, as well as analysis of real and nominal absences and generative mechanisms as recommended in dialectical critical realism. I used inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference, relying on the latter to identify further potential for transformative learning. The study demonstrates that within the associations, transformative social learning is taking place as farmers seek to address problems and contradictions. This learning leads to the creation of new agency and capabilities by ensuring good yields and continuous improvement of management practices and social status. Learning operates through formal mediation in the irrigation system of workplace-based operation, maintenance and crop management practices (i.e. through workplace learning). Social learning occurs through collective engagement with the constraints that the association faces while applying new knowledge, introducing new technology, in the process of administration and planning of irrigation activities. Expansive learning is possible when mediated actively through formative interventions in change laboratory workshops. All three types of learning were found to be present and possible in the context of the two irrigation scheme contexts. The main study findings are that transformative social learning is a collective object-driven process in the context of a transforming object (from rain-fed to sustainable community-based irrigation scheme farming in this study), that can be explained from the level of generative mechanisms and associated real absences that shape nominal absences and contradictions within and between activity systems. These induce, and have potential to induce, transformative learning in irrigation systems, including the emergence of transformative agency via learning through workplace-based, wider social learning, and expansive learning interaction processes amongst subjects in interacting activity systems. Absenting absences is also crucial for extending the potential of transformative learning in irrigation associations. The study further shows how critical realism helps to interpret learning processes and how it strengthens the empirical findings obtained from qualitative analysis. A key outcome of the study is a model that frames conceptualisation of transformative social learning in irrigation systems. The model and the insights gained into farmers learning around the transformation of the object of activity explored in this study have implications for wider curriculum and policy development interventions. The study therefore also makes recommendations for curriculum development and policy implementation intervention. The curriculum development recommendations are not at the level of making recommendations for new courses only, but frame how the design of new courses should take into account the wider processes of learning and change associated with the transformation of an object of activity as articulated in the study. It recommends an approach that allows for in-field engagement with contradictions and the absenting of absences (a problem-based type of curriculum) that will also allow for conceptual development and understanding of the changing object of activity (i.e. community-based irrigation scheme practice and management). The main policy recommendation made from the study is to invest more in farmer support and farmers’ learning so that they can transition from rain-fed agriculture to sustainable irrigation scheme development and management via their associations. The research contributes to knowledge production on irrigation practices; considering that substantial understandings were generated through analysis of communal irrigation scheme practice and management and its implications, especially from a transformative learning perspective. As shown in this study, transformative social learning theories are still not well understood in the context of irrigation system development, and this study has contributed knowledge to this field. The study contributes towards understanding of sustainability learning in irrigation associations in terms of concepts and practices. The study offers a model for transformative social learning in irrigation scheme development and suggests an expanded curriculum for community-based irrigation association practice and management. Overall, the study contributes to an understanding of transformative, sustainability oriented learning processes as support for the emergence of community-based irrigation associations. Additionally, the study has added perspectives on how to frame transformative social learning from a CHAT and critical realist perspective in Education for Sustainable Development. The study also contributes to a growing body of scholarship in southern Africa which seeks to develop expansive, transformative social learning approaches in response to concerns experienced by communities who are reliant on natural resources and the environment for their livelihoods and well-being, and who are also seeking to emerge out of poverty.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Implementing the annual national assessment at an ordinary public primary school in the Eastern Cape: a case study analysis
- Authors: Lascelles, Philippa Anne
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Elementary -- South Africa , Elementary schools -- South Africa -- Makhanda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7713 , vital:21288
- Description: This empirical study describes in rich detail five teachers’ perceptions of the Annual National Assessment [ANA] at one level of the school system (Grade Three of the Foundation Phase [FP]) at an ordinary public primary school in an urban area of the Eastern Cape. Secondly, the study described the process of preparing for, implementing and assessing the 2014 ANA at the selected school. In order to generate insights for a deep understanding of how teachers perceive, prepare for and implement the ANA, the challenges that arise, and how the ANA is impacting on curriculum and pedagogy, an interpretive qualitative research approach and case study method were adopted. The researcher, a participant observer operating from an insider position, used ethnographic techniques to describe, document and analyse teachers’ perceptions and experiences of implementing the 2014 ANA tests in a specific context (one school) and at one level of the school system (Grade 3). Data gathered through observations, semi-structured interviews and document analysis were coded and analysed in order to identify emerging themes. These are compared to trends and developments in contemporary literature on educational assessment. The findings revealed that while the teachers were compliant and efficient in their implementation and administration of the ANA, they have a narrow perception of the ANA as a summative assessment serving systemic purposes. There was little, if any, evidence of them using the ANA for the formative assessment purposes intended by policy. As a result, opportunities for using the ANA to enhance teaching and learning were lost. The study illuminated the roles and responsibilities of the teachers, the school management team and Eastern Cape [EC] Department of Education [DoE] in the ANA preparation and implementation process, and the need for strengthening the support provided by the EC DoE. Although context specific, the study sheds light on how Grade 3 teachers in an ordinary public school perceive and implement the ANA. The insights afforded and lessons that can be learned from this case study may be relevant to other Foundation Phase school contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Lascelles, Philippa Anne
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa , Educational tests and measurements -- South Africa -- Case studies , Education, Elementary -- South Africa , Elementary schools -- South Africa -- Makhanda
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7713 , vital:21288
- Description: This empirical study describes in rich detail five teachers’ perceptions of the Annual National Assessment [ANA] at one level of the school system (Grade Three of the Foundation Phase [FP]) at an ordinary public primary school in an urban area of the Eastern Cape. Secondly, the study described the process of preparing for, implementing and assessing the 2014 ANA at the selected school. In order to generate insights for a deep understanding of how teachers perceive, prepare for and implement the ANA, the challenges that arise, and how the ANA is impacting on curriculum and pedagogy, an interpretive qualitative research approach and case study method were adopted. The researcher, a participant observer operating from an insider position, used ethnographic techniques to describe, document and analyse teachers’ perceptions and experiences of implementing the 2014 ANA tests in a specific context (one school) and at one level of the school system (Grade 3). Data gathered through observations, semi-structured interviews and document analysis were coded and analysed in order to identify emerging themes. These are compared to trends and developments in contemporary literature on educational assessment. The findings revealed that while the teachers were compliant and efficient in their implementation and administration of the ANA, they have a narrow perception of the ANA as a summative assessment serving systemic purposes. There was little, if any, evidence of them using the ANA for the formative assessment purposes intended by policy. As a result, opportunities for using the ANA to enhance teaching and learning were lost. The study illuminated the roles and responsibilities of the teachers, the school management team and Eastern Cape [EC] Department of Education [DoE] in the ANA preparation and implementation process, and the need for strengthening the support provided by the EC DoE. Although context specific, the study sheds light on how Grade 3 teachers in an ordinary public school perceive and implement the ANA. The insights afforded and lessons that can be learned from this case study may be relevant to other Foundation Phase school contexts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Integrating local indigenous knowledge in the teaching of water conservation by senior primary school Natural Science teachers: a Namibian case study
- Authors: Visagie, Ronald Arnold
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6907 , vital:21199
- Description: The conservation of biodiversity to meet the needs and aspirations of present and future generations is a cornerstone for sustainable development. In response to this, one of the aims of Basic Education in Namibia is to develop an environmentally friendly society which has a concern for the conservation of water. Thus, the National Curriculum of Basic Education [NCBE], 2010, p. 8) expects Grade 6 Natural Science learners to be competent in using simple scientific models, methods and skills to make scientific sense of the natural environment; and most importantly for the learners to relate the implications of this scientific understanding to their personal and social health and the sustainable use of all natural resources for future generations. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to make innovative use of various knowledge systems including indigenous knowledge. However, there is no mention of how teachers should make use of local indigenous knowledge (IK) when teaching the topic on water conservation in particular. It is against this backdrop that in this study I sought to understand how two Grade 6 Natural Science teachers use local indigenous knowledge in their classrooms to teach the topic of water conservation. This interpretive case study was carried out in collaboration with a rural community in the Erongo region. Data were collected in three stages. The first stage was the gathering of information through document analysis to strengthen my context. Documents such as the National Curriculum, Science Curriculum, Syllabi, Grade 6 Natural Science textbooks and SATs results were analysed to gain some insight and understanding of the issue before conducting interviews. In the second phase of this study I conducted semi-structured interviews with the Topnaar community members and two teachers. This was followed by classroom observations. Additionally, I used stimulated recall interviews (SRI) to provide clarity on how teachers use prior knowledge and mediate learning when teaching the topic water conservation using indigenous knowledge. The study is informed by Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory in conjunction with Shulman’s (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Since a classroom is a social unit where interactions occur between teachers and learners, and learners and learners, these theories provided a useful lens for observing lessons and analysing teachers’ content knowledge and how they mediate learning using local indigenous knowledge. A thematic approach to data analysis was adopted and qualitative data were analysed inductively. The findings of the study revealed that the indigenous knowledge amongst the Topnaars are governed by the ideals of Ubuntu. Findings also revealed that proper planning is needed to incorporate IK into science lessons as it may clear up misconceptions that may arise from indigenous knowledge. The study recommends that teachers and curriculum planners should explore different indigenous practices that are linked to the topics in the curriculum or syllabus to enhance learning and teaching in their science classrooms. It also recommends that curriculum developers, with the help of subject advisors, teachers and community members, should start planning on how indigenous knowledge can best be integrated into science textbooks as it has become a hindrance for the teachers to incorporate it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Visagie, Ronald Arnold
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6907 , vital:21199
- Description: The conservation of biodiversity to meet the needs and aspirations of present and future generations is a cornerstone for sustainable development. In response to this, one of the aims of Basic Education in Namibia is to develop an environmentally friendly society which has a concern for the conservation of water. Thus, the National Curriculum of Basic Education [NCBE], 2010, p. 8) expects Grade 6 Natural Science learners to be competent in using simple scientific models, methods and skills to make scientific sense of the natural environment; and most importantly for the learners to relate the implications of this scientific understanding to their personal and social health and the sustainable use of all natural resources for future generations. Additionally, teachers are encouraged to make innovative use of various knowledge systems including indigenous knowledge. However, there is no mention of how teachers should make use of local indigenous knowledge (IK) when teaching the topic on water conservation in particular. It is against this backdrop that in this study I sought to understand how two Grade 6 Natural Science teachers use local indigenous knowledge in their classrooms to teach the topic of water conservation. This interpretive case study was carried out in collaboration with a rural community in the Erongo region. Data were collected in three stages. The first stage was the gathering of information through document analysis to strengthen my context. Documents such as the National Curriculum, Science Curriculum, Syllabi, Grade 6 Natural Science textbooks and SATs results were analysed to gain some insight and understanding of the issue before conducting interviews. In the second phase of this study I conducted semi-structured interviews with the Topnaar community members and two teachers. This was followed by classroom observations. Additionally, I used stimulated recall interviews (SRI) to provide clarity on how teachers use prior knowledge and mediate learning when teaching the topic water conservation using indigenous knowledge. The study is informed by Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory in conjunction with Shulman’s (1986) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Since a classroom is a social unit where interactions occur between teachers and learners, and learners and learners, these theories provided a useful lens for observing lessons and analysing teachers’ content knowledge and how they mediate learning using local indigenous knowledge. A thematic approach to data analysis was adopted and qualitative data were analysed inductively. The findings of the study revealed that the indigenous knowledge amongst the Topnaars are governed by the ideals of Ubuntu. Findings also revealed that proper planning is needed to incorporate IK into science lessons as it may clear up misconceptions that may arise from indigenous knowledge. The study recommends that teachers and curriculum planners should explore different indigenous practices that are linked to the topics in the curriculum or syllabus to enhance learning and teaching in their science classrooms. It also recommends that curriculum developers, with the help of subject advisors, teachers and community members, should start planning on how indigenous knowledge can best be integrated into science textbooks as it has become a hindrance for the teachers to incorporate it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Intergenerational learning and environmental care: a case of a fishing community next to Africa’s first marine protected area
- Authors: Cloete, Cindy-Lee
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area (South Africa) , Covie (South Africa) , Intergenerational relations -- South Africa -- Covie , Intergenerational communication -- South Africa -- Covie , Fishing villages -- South Africa -- Covie , Sustainable fisheries -- South Africa -- Covie , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Covie
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7598 , vital:21277
- Description: This study explored the relationship between intergenerational learning and environmental care in the small fishing community of Covie, located next to the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area (TMPA) on the south-eastern coast of South Africa. Since Covie’s establishment as a woodcutter settlement in 1883, the community has depended on the marine and coastal environment such that their communal identity and basic means of subsistence are closely tied to their traditional fishing practices. Since its proclamation in 1964, the TMPA has undergone numerous policy changes, most notably the complete closure of the TMPA to fishing in 2001. Against this backdrop, the study sought to understand how intergenerational learning about fishing practices are mediated in Covie and the ways in which such learning processes constitute a sense of place and belonging for the Covie fishers, and to develop a sense of care for the natural environment. The study included 12 Covie community members of different generations and genders so as to be representative of the community (approximately 86 members). The research was informed by qualitative data generated through a focus group discussion with eight Covie community members, a mirror workshop with the same eight community members, eight semi-structured interviews, and five naturalistic observations of fishing practices. Data generation and analysis was informed by Etienne Wenger’s theory of Communities of Practice which was complemented by theoretical perspectives on intergenerational learning and attachment to place. This study found that the Covie fishers indeed operate as a community of practice who depend significantly on intergenerational learning processes to transfer knowledge, skills and values about fishing practices to younger generations. The 2001 policy changes that denied the Covie fishers access to their traditional fishing sites were shown to reduce the participation in fishing of a range of community members (in particular children and women), which in turn influenced forms of intergenerational learning about fishing. The youth’s reduced participation especially was linked to more protracted and fragmented processes of learning about fishing and Covie’s code of fishing conduct, including its underpinning sense of environmental care. Finally, this study argues that the affective and socio-material connections to their natural surroundings have shaped the Covie community’s sense of care and responsibility toward the environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Cloete, Cindy-Lee
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area (South Africa) , Covie (South Africa) , Intergenerational relations -- South Africa -- Covie , Intergenerational communication -- South Africa -- Covie , Fishing villages -- South Africa -- Covie , Sustainable fisheries -- South Africa -- Covie , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Covie
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7598 , vital:21277
- Description: This study explored the relationship between intergenerational learning and environmental care in the small fishing community of Covie, located next to the Tsitsikamma Marine Protected Area (TMPA) on the south-eastern coast of South Africa. Since Covie’s establishment as a woodcutter settlement in 1883, the community has depended on the marine and coastal environment such that their communal identity and basic means of subsistence are closely tied to their traditional fishing practices. Since its proclamation in 1964, the TMPA has undergone numerous policy changes, most notably the complete closure of the TMPA to fishing in 2001. Against this backdrop, the study sought to understand how intergenerational learning about fishing practices are mediated in Covie and the ways in which such learning processes constitute a sense of place and belonging for the Covie fishers, and to develop a sense of care for the natural environment. The study included 12 Covie community members of different generations and genders so as to be representative of the community (approximately 86 members). The research was informed by qualitative data generated through a focus group discussion with eight Covie community members, a mirror workshop with the same eight community members, eight semi-structured interviews, and five naturalistic observations of fishing practices. Data generation and analysis was informed by Etienne Wenger’s theory of Communities of Practice which was complemented by theoretical perspectives on intergenerational learning and attachment to place. This study found that the Covie fishers indeed operate as a community of practice who depend significantly on intergenerational learning processes to transfer knowledge, skills and values about fishing practices to younger generations. The 2001 policy changes that denied the Covie fishers access to their traditional fishing sites were shown to reduce the participation in fishing of a range of community members (in particular children and women), which in turn influenced forms of intergenerational learning about fishing. The youth’s reduced participation especially was linked to more protracted and fragmented processes of learning about fishing and Covie’s code of fishing conduct, including its underpinning sense of environmental care. Finally, this study argues that the affective and socio-material connections to their natural surroundings have shaped the Covie community’s sense of care and responsibility toward the environment.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Investigating how Grade 10 Physical Science teachers help learners to make sense of concepts of electromagnetism using easily accessible materials in under-resourced schools
- Authors: Samuel, Paulo
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8143 , vital:21359
- Description: This study sought to explore teachers’ perceptions and experiences of using easily accessible materials and how they might collaboratively develop learning and teaching support materials using easily accessible materials. The study explored three aspects. Firstly, the views, experiences and factors which influence grade 10 Physical Science teachers’ perceptions and experiences of teaching the topic of electromagnetism. Secondly, to find out what teachers can do to improve teaching and learning of electromagnetism in grade 10 Physical Science using easily accessible materials. Thirdly, to look at what enables or constrains grade 10 Physical Science teachers in under-resourced schools when dealing with electromagnetism, from using easily accessible materials. A qualitative method approach was adopted, underpinned by an interpretive paradigm but using some quantitative methods as well. Within the interpretive paradigm a case study approach was used. The study was carried out in Swakopmund and Gobabis education circuits of the Erongo and Omaheke Regions respectively. Data were collected using questionnaires, lesson observations and stimulated-recall interviews. The data obtained were validated in two ways, firstly, by triangulation from different data gathering techniques, and secondly, validation was done by member checking of the transcripts. To make meaning from the data generated, Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory was used as a lens to analyse the data. The quantitative data generated were presented in figures, tables; whereas the qualitative data were coded inductively into descriptive texts to make meaning. It was found that teachers’s perceptions and experiences are that the topic of electromagnetism is quite challenging. Teachers reported that their learners find it difficult to comprehend phenomena associated with electromagnetism, thus making it difficult for their learners to grasp concepts associated with it. Lack of resources to do practical activities in the topic of electromagnetism was found to be a major contributing factor to teaching and learning of this topic. The use of easily accessible materials among teachers was found to be very limited. Easily accessible locally sourced materials were found to have the potential to enable grade 10 Physical Science teachers to help learners to make sense of concepts of electromagnetism in under-resourced schools. In light of the above findings, the study recommends that science teachers should make use of easily accessible materials which can minimise their dependence on standard laboratory equipment which is unaffordable anyway by most schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Samuel, Paulo
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8143 , vital:21359
- Description: This study sought to explore teachers’ perceptions and experiences of using easily accessible materials and how they might collaboratively develop learning and teaching support materials using easily accessible materials. The study explored three aspects. Firstly, the views, experiences and factors which influence grade 10 Physical Science teachers’ perceptions and experiences of teaching the topic of electromagnetism. Secondly, to find out what teachers can do to improve teaching and learning of electromagnetism in grade 10 Physical Science using easily accessible materials. Thirdly, to look at what enables or constrains grade 10 Physical Science teachers in under-resourced schools when dealing with electromagnetism, from using easily accessible materials. A qualitative method approach was adopted, underpinned by an interpretive paradigm but using some quantitative methods as well. Within the interpretive paradigm a case study approach was used. The study was carried out in Swakopmund and Gobabis education circuits of the Erongo and Omaheke Regions respectively. Data were collected using questionnaires, lesson observations and stimulated-recall interviews. The data obtained were validated in two ways, firstly, by triangulation from different data gathering techniques, and secondly, validation was done by member checking of the transcripts. To make meaning from the data generated, Vygotsky’s (1978) socio-cultural theory was used as a lens to analyse the data. The quantitative data generated were presented in figures, tables; whereas the qualitative data were coded inductively into descriptive texts to make meaning. It was found that teachers’s perceptions and experiences are that the topic of electromagnetism is quite challenging. Teachers reported that their learners find it difficult to comprehend phenomena associated with electromagnetism, thus making it difficult for their learners to grasp concepts associated with it. Lack of resources to do practical activities in the topic of electromagnetism was found to be a major contributing factor to teaching and learning of this topic. The use of easily accessible materials among teachers was found to be very limited. Easily accessible locally sourced materials were found to have the potential to enable grade 10 Physical Science teachers to help learners to make sense of concepts of electromagnetism in under-resourced schools. In light of the above findings, the study recommends that science teachers should make use of easily accessible materials which can minimise their dependence on standard laboratory equipment which is unaffordable anyway by most schools.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Investigating teachers’ pedagogic practices of argumentative essay: a qualitative case study of two Grade 11 classrooms in the Oshikoto Region, Namibia
- Authors: Kanyama, Victoria Magano
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Persuasion (Rhetoric) -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , English language -- Rhetoric -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , English language -- Writing -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8132 , vital:21358
- Description: Argumentative writing in Namibian schools has been a challenge over the years as Grade 11-12 English Second Language (ESL) learners perform poorly when compared to other writing that is stipulated in the curriculum. In most instances learners do not satisfy the structural and rhetorical features of this genre. English teachers are, therefore, expected to ensure that argumentative writing is adequately developed in order for the learners’ writing to be up to the required standard. Studies carried out in Namibia by Nghikembua (2013) and Nyathi (2009) indicated that learners perform poorly in writing. The examiners’ reports of 2011-2014 pointed to lack of teachers’ guidance as one of the factors contributing to poor performance. It was for this reason that this study aimed to investigate teachers’ pedagogic approaches when teaching argumentative essay both on Higher and Ordinary Level in Oshikoto region, Namibia. An interpretive qualitative case study was used in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the teachers’ pedagogic approaches and how it affects their learners’ argumentative essay writing. The theoretical framework was informed by the Genre theorist, Gibbons (2002), who focuses on the Curriculum Cycle and Hyland’s (1990) model. Two Grade 11 English teachers were purposefully and conveniently sampled. One of the teachers is from a government school while the other from a private school. Data were collected from interviews, videoed writing lessons (3 per teacher), and learners’ written essays. Data analysis revealed that both teachers have a sound understanding about argumentative writing, but their classroom practices did not sufficiently assist the learners to grasp the argumentative writing conventions. Their classroom practices were not adaptive enough when giving feedback to the learners, and they did not adhere to the four steps of Gibbons’ (2002) Curriculum Cycle. Also, the process to writing (brainstorming, drafting, and revising) was also not incorporated into their teaching. These meant that the Namibian curriculum specifications are not met which deprives the learners of the needed practice scaffolding and explicit teaching into competent independent writers. A recommendation of this study is that there is a need for the teachers to be exposed to a mixed process/genre approach as advocated by the Namibian curriculum.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Kanyama, Victoria Magano
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Persuasion (Rhetoric) -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , English language -- Rhetoric -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , English language -- Writing -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/8132 , vital:21358
- Description: Argumentative writing in Namibian schools has been a challenge over the years as Grade 11-12 English Second Language (ESL) learners perform poorly when compared to other writing that is stipulated in the curriculum. In most instances learners do not satisfy the structural and rhetorical features of this genre. English teachers are, therefore, expected to ensure that argumentative writing is adequately developed in order for the learners’ writing to be up to the required standard. Studies carried out in Namibia by Nghikembua (2013) and Nyathi (2009) indicated that learners perform poorly in writing. The examiners’ reports of 2011-2014 pointed to lack of teachers’ guidance as one of the factors contributing to poor performance. It was for this reason that this study aimed to investigate teachers’ pedagogic approaches when teaching argumentative essay both on Higher and Ordinary Level in Oshikoto region, Namibia. An interpretive qualitative case study was used in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the teachers’ pedagogic approaches and how it affects their learners’ argumentative essay writing. The theoretical framework was informed by the Genre theorist, Gibbons (2002), who focuses on the Curriculum Cycle and Hyland’s (1990) model. Two Grade 11 English teachers were purposefully and conveniently sampled. One of the teachers is from a government school while the other from a private school. Data were collected from interviews, videoed writing lessons (3 per teacher), and learners’ written essays. Data analysis revealed that both teachers have a sound understanding about argumentative writing, but their classroom practices did not sufficiently assist the learners to grasp the argumentative writing conventions. Their classroom practices were not adaptive enough when giving feedback to the learners, and they did not adhere to the four steps of Gibbons’ (2002) Curriculum Cycle. Also, the process to writing (brainstorming, drafting, and revising) was also not incorporated into their teaching. These meant that the Namibian curriculum specifications are not met which deprives the learners of the needed practice scaffolding and explicit teaching into competent independent writers. A recommendation of this study is that there is a need for the teachers to be exposed to a mixed process/genre approach as advocated by the Namibian curriculum.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Investigating the use of models to develop Grade 8 learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions
- Authors: Albin, Simon
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Fractions -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , Mathematics -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , Information visualization , Visual learning -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/36288 , vital:24537
- Description: Both my teaching experience and literature of this research study strongly suggested that fractions are difficult to teach and learn across the globe generally, and Namibia in particular. One of the identified contributing factors was teaching fractions by focusing on procedures and not the conceptual understanding. Therefore, this research project developed and implemented an intervention in order to experiment and suggest an alternative teaching approach of fractions using models. The purpose of this research was to: “Investigate the use of models to develop Grade 8 learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions”. This investigation had three areas of focus. Firstly, the study investigated the nature of learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions before the teaching intervention, by means of administering a pre-test and pre-interview and analysing learners’ responses. Secondly, the study investigated the changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions after the teaching intervention, by means of administering a post-test, post-interviews and recall interviews, and analysing learners’ responses. Thirdly, this study investigated the possible influence of the teaching intervention on the changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions by analysing the lesson videos and learners’ worksheets, and describe their critical interaction. This study was conducted at a multicultural urban secondary school located in the Oshikoto Region, Namibia. The sample consisted of 12 Grade 8 mathematics learners whose age ranged from 13-16 years old. A purposive sampling method was employed to select both the research site and participants. This research is framed as a case study, and is grounded within the interpretive paradigm and qualitative research. This research revealed that these learners displayed conceptual and procedural difficulties in their engagement with fraction models and fraction symbols, before the teaching intervention. Conceptually, the study found that these learners read fractions using inappropriate names; and learners did not identify the whole unit in the models and therefore identified fractions represented by the fraction models using different forms of inappropriate fraction symbols. Procedurally, the study found that these learners compared and ordered fractions inappropriately using the sizes of the numerators and denominators separately; and learners used the lowest common denominator method inappropriately for adding fractions with different denominators. The research also suggested conceptual and procedural changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions and that the intervention seemed to help learners to engage better with fraction models and fraction symbols. Conceptually, the findings suggested that the intervention using area models and number lines, seemed to help these learners to read fractions using appropriate names; to identify the whole unit in the fraction models and to develop a sense of the size of fractions in relation to one whole unit. Procedurally, the learners compared and ordered fractions appropriately using either equal fraction bars, equal number lines, benchmarking or rules for comparing and ordering fractions with the same numerator or denominator; and learners used equal fraction bars to visually represent the lowest common denominator method and to recognise that only equally sized units can be counted together. This research identified four factors as possible influences of the teaching intervention. These factors are namely: identifying both fraction symbols and appropriate fraction names to see fractions as relational numbers; prompting to partition whole units of the fraction models and graphically illustrating fraction symbols to identify the whole unit in the fraction models and to develop a sense of the size of fractions in relation to one whole unit; graphically illustrating fraction symbols using the models to use equal fraction bars and number lines, benchmarking and rules for comparing; and graphically illustrating fraction denominations using equal fraction bars to recognise that only equally sized units can be counted together. This research strongly suggests that the effective use of models has the potential to develop learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions in a number of ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Albin, Simon
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Fractions -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , Mathematics -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- Namibia , Information visualization , Visual learning -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/36288 , vital:24537
- Description: Both my teaching experience and literature of this research study strongly suggested that fractions are difficult to teach and learn across the globe generally, and Namibia in particular. One of the identified contributing factors was teaching fractions by focusing on procedures and not the conceptual understanding. Therefore, this research project developed and implemented an intervention in order to experiment and suggest an alternative teaching approach of fractions using models. The purpose of this research was to: “Investigate the use of models to develop Grade 8 learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions”. This investigation had three areas of focus. Firstly, the study investigated the nature of learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions before the teaching intervention, by means of administering a pre-test and pre-interview and analysing learners’ responses. Secondly, the study investigated the changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions after the teaching intervention, by means of administering a post-test, post-interviews and recall interviews, and analysing learners’ responses. Thirdly, this study investigated the possible influence of the teaching intervention on the changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions by analysing the lesson videos and learners’ worksheets, and describe their critical interaction. This study was conducted at a multicultural urban secondary school located in the Oshikoto Region, Namibia. The sample consisted of 12 Grade 8 mathematics learners whose age ranged from 13-16 years old. A purposive sampling method was employed to select both the research site and participants. This research is framed as a case study, and is grounded within the interpretive paradigm and qualitative research. This research revealed that these learners displayed conceptual and procedural difficulties in their engagement with fraction models and fraction symbols, before the teaching intervention. Conceptually, the study found that these learners read fractions using inappropriate names; and learners did not identify the whole unit in the models and therefore identified fractions represented by the fraction models using different forms of inappropriate fraction symbols. Procedurally, the study found that these learners compared and ordered fractions inappropriately using the sizes of the numerators and denominators separately; and learners used the lowest common denominator method inappropriately for adding fractions with different denominators. The research also suggested conceptual and procedural changes in learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions and that the intervention seemed to help learners to engage better with fraction models and fraction symbols. Conceptually, the findings suggested that the intervention using area models and number lines, seemed to help these learners to read fractions using appropriate names; to identify the whole unit in the fraction models and to develop a sense of the size of fractions in relation to one whole unit. Procedurally, the learners compared and ordered fractions appropriately using either equal fraction bars, equal number lines, benchmarking or rules for comparing and ordering fractions with the same numerator or denominator; and learners used equal fraction bars to visually represent the lowest common denominator method and to recognise that only equally sized units can be counted together. This research identified four factors as possible influences of the teaching intervention. These factors are namely: identifying both fraction symbols and appropriate fraction names to see fractions as relational numbers; prompting to partition whole units of the fraction models and graphically illustrating fraction symbols to identify the whole unit in the fraction models and to develop a sense of the size of fractions in relation to one whole unit; graphically illustrating fraction symbols using the models to use equal fraction bars and number lines, benchmarking and rules for comparing; and graphically illustrating fraction denominations using equal fraction bars to recognise that only equally sized units can be counted together. This research strongly suggests that the effective use of models has the potential to develop learners’ conceptual understanding of and procedural fluency with fractions in a number of ways.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Language and literacy development for a Grade 10 English first additional language classroom: a reading to learn case study
- Authors: Mataka, Tawanda Wallace
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa Reading -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa Literacy -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/249 , vital:19941
- Description: The problem of poor reading skills is a serious one in South Africa, with negative implications for learners’ educational achievement. The failure of learners to read at age- and grade-appropriate levels presents a major challenge to the teaching of reading in South African schools. It is against this background that this study aimed at ascertaining the positive impact of the Reading to Learn methodology in improving the literacy levels of learners in a Grade 10 English First Additional Language classroom in a township school. Reading ability levels were established via a passage extracted from a Grade Platinum English First Additional Learner’s book. Pronunciation and word recognition formed the basis of the reading assessment. Reading translates into writing, so the learners were also assessed in comprehension and creative writing. The results indicated that the learners’ reading abilities were weak, the methodology used to teach reading led to research findings that caused the study to yield findings that suggest that RtL may be the solution to reading problems in the classroom. In addition the study revealed that the ability to read corresponds with cognitive development. The study therefore calls for the adoption of RtL to assist in alleviating reading problems in the classroom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mataka, Tawanda Wallace
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa Reading -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa Literacy -- Study and teching (Secondary) -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/249 , vital:19941
- Description: The problem of poor reading skills is a serious one in South Africa, with negative implications for learners’ educational achievement. The failure of learners to read at age- and grade-appropriate levels presents a major challenge to the teaching of reading in South African schools. It is against this background that this study aimed at ascertaining the positive impact of the Reading to Learn methodology in improving the literacy levels of learners in a Grade 10 English First Additional Language classroom in a township school. Reading ability levels were established via a passage extracted from a Grade Platinum English First Additional Learner’s book. Pronunciation and word recognition formed the basis of the reading assessment. Reading translates into writing, so the learners were also assessed in comprehension and creative writing. The results indicated that the learners’ reading abilities were weak, the methodology used to teach reading led to research findings that caused the study to yield findings that suggest that RtL may be the solution to reading problems in the classroom. In addition the study revealed that the ability to read corresponds with cognitive development. The study therefore calls for the adoption of RtL to assist in alleviating reading problems in the classroom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Leadership development in a Representative Council of Learners (RCL) in a secondary school in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Strydom, Monica Petro
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/43054 , vital:25261
- Description: The purpose of this study was to answer two main research questions: How is leadership promoted on a Representative Council of Learners (RCL) and What leadership roles do learners on the council play in schools? Recent research suggests that although the democratisation of school governance has given all stakeholders a voice in how schools are being governed, it seems that learner voice is still largely silenced. Literature on this issue paints an uninspiring picture of learner under-involvement and marginalisation. In seeking underlying causes for this, this study is informed by notions of leadership for social justice. The study investigated the RCL at a public, fee-paying school in the Makana district of the Eastern Cape. By observing the daily functioning of the council, engaging with the learner leaders as well as teachers, parents and other role players, I developed a better understanding of the challenges the RCL faced as well as factors which promoted their role as learner leaders. This aided in answering the first key research question of how the RCL promotes leadership development. To answer the second key question, I needed to consider the perceptions of stakeholders concerned and how they saw the operation of the RCL. This study is situated in the interpretive research tradition and uses critical realism as its under-labourer. To support this study and to answer some of the aims of this research, Leontiev’s second generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory was used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, questionnaires an observation and document analysis. Data analysis took the form of identifying themes which emerged from the data. These formed the basis of my discussion and I was thus able to address the main research questions. Data revealed that learner leaders in schools are mainly managers and not really leaders; that learners are still very much marginalised as leaders and that they subsequently do not have a lot of say when it comes to how their schools are governed. It further emerged that despite formal legislation and guidelines which are in place to allow for the democratic rights of learners’ opinions to be heard in schools, historical and cultural forces account for parents and other role players’reluctance to allow learners to have too much of a say. I trust that the findings from this research will strengthen learner leadership structures in schools and perhaps provide guidelines on how learner leadership could be developed and managed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Strydom, Monica Petro
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/43054 , vital:25261
- Description: The purpose of this study was to answer two main research questions: How is leadership promoted on a Representative Council of Learners (RCL) and What leadership roles do learners on the council play in schools? Recent research suggests that although the democratisation of school governance has given all stakeholders a voice in how schools are being governed, it seems that learner voice is still largely silenced. Literature on this issue paints an uninspiring picture of learner under-involvement and marginalisation. In seeking underlying causes for this, this study is informed by notions of leadership for social justice. The study investigated the RCL at a public, fee-paying school in the Makana district of the Eastern Cape. By observing the daily functioning of the council, engaging with the learner leaders as well as teachers, parents and other role players, I developed a better understanding of the challenges the RCL faced as well as factors which promoted their role as learner leaders. This aided in answering the first key research question of how the RCL promotes leadership development. To answer the second key question, I needed to consider the perceptions of stakeholders concerned and how they saw the operation of the RCL. This study is situated in the interpretive research tradition and uses critical realism as its under-labourer. To support this study and to answer some of the aims of this research, Leontiev’s second generation Cultural Historical Activity Theory was used. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, questionnaires an observation and document analysis. Data analysis took the form of identifying themes which emerged from the data. These formed the basis of my discussion and I was thus able to address the main research questions. Data revealed that learner leaders in schools are mainly managers and not really leaders; that learners are still very much marginalised as leaders and that they subsequently do not have a lot of say when it comes to how their schools are governed. It further emerged that despite formal legislation and guidelines which are in place to allow for the democratic rights of learners’ opinions to be heard in schools, historical and cultural forces account for parents and other role players’reluctance to allow learners to have too much of a say. I trust that the findings from this research will strengthen learner leadership structures in schools and perhaps provide guidelines on how learner leadership could be developed and managed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Observing and evaluating creative mathematical reasoning through selected VITALmaths video clips and collaborative argumentation
- Authors: Kellen, Matthew Earl
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Grahamstown , Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) Audio-visual aids , Reasoning , Mathematical ability
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6107 , vital:21032
- Description: Creative mathematical reasoning is a definition that the NCS policies allude to when they indicate the necessity for students to, “identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking.”(NCS, 2011: 9). Silver (1997) and Lithner (2008) focus on creativity of reasoning in terms of the flexibility, fluency and novelty in which one approaches a mathematical problem. Learners who can creatively select appropriate strategies that are mathematically founded, and justify their answers use creative mathematical reasoning. This research uses Visual Technology for the Autonomous Learning of Mathematics (VITALmaths) video clips that pose mathematics problems to stimulate articulated reasoning among small multi-age, multi-ability Grade 9 peer groups. Using VITALmaths clips that pose visual and open-ended task, set the stage for collaborative argumentation between peers. This study observes creative mathematical reasoning in two ways: Firstly by observing the interaction between peers in the process of arriving at an answer, and secondly by examining the end product of the peer group’s justification of their solution. (Ball & Bass, 2003) Six grade 8 and 9 learners from no-fee public schools in the township of Grahamstown, South Africa were selected for this case study. Participants were a mixed ability, mixed gendered, sample group from an after-school programme which focused on creating a space for autonomous learning. The six participants were split into two groups and audio and video recorded as they solved selected VITALmaths tasks and presented their evidence and solutions to the tasks. Audio and video recordings and written work were used to translate, transcribe, and code participant interactions according to a framework adapted from Krummheuer (2007) and Lithner (2008) and Silver (1997) and Toulmin (1954). This constituted the analysis of the process of creative mathematical reasoning. Group presentations of evidence and solutions to the VITALmaths tasks, were used in conjunction with an evaluation framework adapted from Lithner (2008) and Campos (2010). This was the product analysis of creative mathematical reasoning. This research found that there was significant evidence of creative mathematical reasoning in the process and product evaluation of group interactions and solutions. Process analysis showed that participants were very active, engaged, and creative in their participation, but struggled to integrate and implement ideas cohesively. Product analysis similarly showed that depth and concentration of strategies implemented are key to correct and exhaustive mathematically grounded solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Kellen, Matthew Earl
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) South Africa Grahamstown , Mathematics Study and teaching (Secondary) Audio-visual aids , Reasoning , Mathematical ability
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6107 , vital:21032
- Description: Creative mathematical reasoning is a definition that the NCS policies allude to when they indicate the necessity for students to, “identify and solve problems and make decisions using critical and creative thinking.”(NCS, 2011: 9). Silver (1997) and Lithner (2008) focus on creativity of reasoning in terms of the flexibility, fluency and novelty in which one approaches a mathematical problem. Learners who can creatively select appropriate strategies that are mathematically founded, and justify their answers use creative mathematical reasoning. This research uses Visual Technology for the Autonomous Learning of Mathematics (VITALmaths) video clips that pose mathematics problems to stimulate articulated reasoning among small multi-age, multi-ability Grade 9 peer groups. Using VITALmaths clips that pose visual and open-ended task, set the stage for collaborative argumentation between peers. This study observes creative mathematical reasoning in two ways: Firstly by observing the interaction between peers in the process of arriving at an answer, and secondly by examining the end product of the peer group’s justification of their solution. (Ball & Bass, 2003) Six grade 8 and 9 learners from no-fee public schools in the township of Grahamstown, South Africa were selected for this case study. Participants were a mixed ability, mixed gendered, sample group from an after-school programme which focused on creating a space for autonomous learning. The six participants were split into two groups and audio and video recorded as they solved selected VITALmaths tasks and presented their evidence and solutions to the tasks. Audio and video recordings and written work were used to translate, transcribe, and code participant interactions according to a framework adapted from Krummheuer (2007) and Lithner (2008) and Silver (1997) and Toulmin (1954). This constituted the analysis of the process of creative mathematical reasoning. Group presentations of evidence and solutions to the VITALmaths tasks, were used in conjunction with an evaluation framework adapted from Lithner (2008) and Campos (2010). This was the product analysis of creative mathematical reasoning. This research found that there was significant evidence of creative mathematical reasoning in the process and product evaluation of group interactions and solutions. Process analysis showed that participants were very active, engaged, and creative in their participation, but struggled to integrate and implement ideas cohesively. Product analysis similarly showed that depth and concentration of strategies implemented are key to correct and exhaustive mathematically grounded solutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Teachers’ use of situated learning approaches to teach environmental topics in Natural Science and Health Education: a multi-case study of two Namibian teachers
- Authors: Mamili, Joy Z
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Namibia , Science -- Study and teaching -- Namibia -- Cast studies , Health education -- Namibia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/40901 , vital:25037
- Description: This study focuses on the use of situated learning approaches in the teaching of environmental topics in Natural Science and Health Education (NSHED) and is the first of its kind in Namibia. Although situated learning approaches, as examples of learner-centred pedagogy, are advocated in national education policies, little empirical research has been conducted in Namibia into how situated learning approaches play out in classroom practice. Therefore, the goal of this study was to find out how NSHED teachers use situated learning approaches when teaching environmental topics. The study reviews the characteristics of situated learning theory and clarifies situated learning approaches as a form of learner-centred pedagogy which is actively promoted in the Namibian schooling system. The study commences with a contextual profile of the communities around the two selected schools. This describes the socio-economic and social-ecological context in which learners are taught about environmental topics. The profile also describes the under-performance of the schools in recent national assessments, especially in relation to environmental topics in NSHED. Drawing on data generated through document analysis, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, the study concluded that: 1. NSHED teachers both knew about and wished to create an authentic context to enhance situated learning approaches. However, their understandings and applications of situated learning tended to be basic. 2. Teachers dominated the scaffolding process and their scaffolding strategies did not enable learners to increase independence in performing. 3. Despite the use of situated learning approaches, learners’ engagement with lesson content was superficial, and the teachers did little to encourage deeper reflections or critical thinking. 4. The teachers appeared to use situated learning approaches to clarify subject content but not to encourage broader environmental understanding, action-taking and change. Based on the research findings, the study recommends that situated learning approaches be integrated into pre- and in-service teacher training with the aim of enhancing teachers’ understanding regarding the use of situated learning approaches in the teaching of environmental topics in NSHED.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mamili, Joy Z
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Environmental education -- Namibia , Science -- Study and teaching -- Namibia -- Cast studies , Health education -- Namibia -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/40901 , vital:25037
- Description: This study focuses on the use of situated learning approaches in the teaching of environmental topics in Natural Science and Health Education (NSHED) and is the first of its kind in Namibia. Although situated learning approaches, as examples of learner-centred pedagogy, are advocated in national education policies, little empirical research has been conducted in Namibia into how situated learning approaches play out in classroom practice. Therefore, the goal of this study was to find out how NSHED teachers use situated learning approaches when teaching environmental topics. The study reviews the characteristics of situated learning theory and clarifies situated learning approaches as a form of learner-centred pedagogy which is actively promoted in the Namibian schooling system. The study commences with a contextual profile of the communities around the two selected schools. This describes the socio-economic and social-ecological context in which learners are taught about environmental topics. The profile also describes the under-performance of the schools in recent national assessments, especially in relation to environmental topics in NSHED. Drawing on data generated through document analysis, semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, the study concluded that: 1. NSHED teachers both knew about and wished to create an authentic context to enhance situated learning approaches. However, their understandings and applications of situated learning tended to be basic. 2. Teachers dominated the scaffolding process and their scaffolding strategies did not enable learners to increase independence in performing. 3. Despite the use of situated learning approaches, learners’ engagement with lesson content was superficial, and the teachers did little to encourage deeper reflections or critical thinking. 4. The teachers appeared to use situated learning approaches to clarify subject content but not to encourage broader environmental understanding, action-taking and change. Based on the research findings, the study recommends that situated learning approaches be integrated into pre- and in-service teacher training with the aim of enhancing teachers’ understanding regarding the use of situated learning approaches in the teaching of environmental topics in NSHED.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The development and institutionalisation of knowledge and knowledge-sharing practices relating to the management of healthcare risk waste in a home-based care setting
- Authors: Masilela, Mapula Priscilla
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Medical wastes -- Management -- South Africa -- West Rand , Medical wastes -- Government policy -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- Administration -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- Government policy -- South Africa -- West Rand
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/13142 , vital:21807
- Description: Improperly managed healthcare risk waste is associated with environmental degradation due to its potential to pollute air, land and water; it also poses a public health threat due to risks to community members (adults and children) who may find themselves exposed to waste that has been disposed of improperly. Despite these obvious environmental health risks, there is little information or legislative guidance on how to effectively manage the healthcare risk waste generated by community health workers who move from house to house and do not operate out of a fixed clinic with formal waste management facilities. This poses a challenge for municipal environmental health practitioners who are mandated to ensure compliance and to monitor the management of healthcare risk waste by community home-based care facilities. This educational study looks at how the knowledge held by environmental health practitioners influences knowledge-sharing practices and management of healthcare risk waste by community health workers, and how these knowledge-sharing practices can be developed and institutionalised. The study takes an interventionist approach within the social constructionist tradition. Cultural- Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and expansive learning provide the theoretical and methodological framework to surface systemic tensions and contradictions affecting knowledgesharing and healthcare risk waste management practices. A series of Change Laboratory Workshops using the Developmental Work Research methodology enabled a twenty-seven month expansive learning process with selected municipal employees and community health workers in a small South African city. The study found that employees (such as environmental health practitioners and waste inspectors) working in municipal activity systems knew very little about the forms and functions of community home-based care facilities in their municipality. As such, their knowledge-sharing practices about the management of healthcare risk waste were restricted and generally unsystematic, which in turn contributed to inappropriate and often haphazard healthcare risk waste management practices by community health workers. As an interventionist project, the study concluded that the participatory, expansive learning process it initiated had built knowledge-sharing networks, enabled professional boundary crossing and potentially institutionalised better knowledge-sharing practices relevant to the effective management of healthcare risk waste.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Masilela, Mapula Priscilla
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Medical wastes -- Management -- South Africa -- West Rand , Medical wastes -- Government policy -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- Administration -- South Africa -- West Rand , Environmental health -- Government policy -- South Africa -- West Rand
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/13142 , vital:21807
- Description: Improperly managed healthcare risk waste is associated with environmental degradation due to its potential to pollute air, land and water; it also poses a public health threat due to risks to community members (adults and children) who may find themselves exposed to waste that has been disposed of improperly. Despite these obvious environmental health risks, there is little information or legislative guidance on how to effectively manage the healthcare risk waste generated by community health workers who move from house to house and do not operate out of a fixed clinic with formal waste management facilities. This poses a challenge for municipal environmental health practitioners who are mandated to ensure compliance and to monitor the management of healthcare risk waste by community home-based care facilities. This educational study looks at how the knowledge held by environmental health practitioners influences knowledge-sharing practices and management of healthcare risk waste by community health workers, and how these knowledge-sharing practices can be developed and institutionalised. The study takes an interventionist approach within the social constructionist tradition. Cultural- Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) and expansive learning provide the theoretical and methodological framework to surface systemic tensions and contradictions affecting knowledgesharing and healthcare risk waste management practices. A series of Change Laboratory Workshops using the Developmental Work Research methodology enabled a twenty-seven month expansive learning process with selected municipal employees and community health workers in a small South African city. The study found that employees (such as environmental health practitioners and waste inspectors) working in municipal activity systems knew very little about the forms and functions of community home-based care facilities in their municipality. As such, their knowledge-sharing practices about the management of healthcare risk waste were restricted and generally unsystematic, which in turn contributed to inappropriate and often haphazard healthcare risk waste management practices by community health workers. As an interventionist project, the study concluded that the participatory, expansive learning process it initiated had built knowledge-sharing networks, enabled professional boundary crossing and potentially institutionalised better knowledge-sharing practices relevant to the effective management of healthcare risk waste.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The emergence and expression of teachers’ identities in teaching foundation phase mathematics
- Authors: Westaway, Lise
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7000 , vital:21208
- Description: The assertion that learner performance in South African schools is in crisis may be cliched but it is certainly true. The majority of learners in the schooling system are not achieving the required outcomes, particularly in language and mathematics. I use the underperformance of learners in mathematics as the impetus for my research which seeks to understand how teachers’ identities emerge and are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. The research contributes to an emerging scholarship that strives to explain underperformance and quality in mathematics classrooms beyond structuralist theorising. Recently research, particularly in South Africa, has begun to look more closely at who the teacher is and how the teacher is key in understanding what happens in the mathematics classroom. This emerging scholarship focuses on teacher identities. Research that foregrounds teacher identities within the field of mathematics education tends to be situated within a social constructionist orientation, which assumes that our knowledge of self and the world comes from our interactions with people and not some ‘objective’ reality (Berger & Luckman, 1966). Such a perspective appears to conflate questions of how we know something with what is. In other words, it elides structure and agency, thereby making research that seeks to examine the interplay between the two in the formation and expression of teachers’ identities, practically impossible. It is for this reason, as well as the need to move beyond the hermeneutic, that my research draws on Margaret Archer’s (1995, 1996, 2000) social realist framework. Social realism posits a relativist epistemology but a realist ontology. It is underpinned by the notion of a stratified reality with structural mechanisms giving rise to events in the world whether we experience them or not. It is only through the (inter)actions of persons that such mechanisms have the tendential power to constrain or enable the projects of persons. As such, my research seeks to identify the structural and agential mechanisms that give rise to teachers’ identities and how these identities are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. In my research, teacher identity refers to the manner in which teachers express their social roles as teachers. In the research I use a case study methodology. I provide rich data on four isiXhosa teachers teaching in low socio-economic status schools. This data is gleaned through interviews and classroom based observations which were recorded as field notes and video transcripts. Analysis of the data occurs through the thought processes of abduction and retroduction (Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002). These thought process enable me to (re)describe and (re)contextualise the object of study. Through the process of asking transfactual questions I identify the structural, cultural and agential mechanisms giving rise to teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. There are three significant findings in my research. Firstly, research that attempts to understand the emergence and expression of teacher identities should consider their broad contextual realities. The historical, economic, social and political contexts in which the teachers are born and live, influences their sense of self, personal identities and social identities (teacher identities) and as such, influences their decision to become teachers and how they express their roles as teachers of Foundation Phase mathematics. Secondly, my research suggests that teachers’ mode of reflexivity is key to understanding the decisions that they make in the classroom and how they deal with the structures that condition the manner in which they express their roles as teachers. Thirdly, collective agency is necessary to bring about change in the way in which teachers express their roles in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. My research produces new knowledge by examining the interplay of structure, culture and agency in the constitution of foundation phase teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. I use a social realist orientation to examine this interplay and provide an understanding of the mechanisms giving rise to the phenomenon under consideration. In this way I contribute to the extensive research on learner underperformance by focusing more explicitly on who the teacher is in the classroom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Westaway, Lise
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7000 , vital:21208
- Description: The assertion that learner performance in South African schools is in crisis may be cliched but it is certainly true. The majority of learners in the schooling system are not achieving the required outcomes, particularly in language and mathematics. I use the underperformance of learners in mathematics as the impetus for my research which seeks to understand how teachers’ identities emerge and are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. The research contributes to an emerging scholarship that strives to explain underperformance and quality in mathematics classrooms beyond structuralist theorising. Recently research, particularly in South Africa, has begun to look more closely at who the teacher is and how the teacher is key in understanding what happens in the mathematics classroom. This emerging scholarship focuses on teacher identities. Research that foregrounds teacher identities within the field of mathematics education tends to be situated within a social constructionist orientation, which assumes that our knowledge of self and the world comes from our interactions with people and not some ‘objective’ reality (Berger & Luckman, 1966). Such a perspective appears to conflate questions of how we know something with what is. In other words, it elides structure and agency, thereby making research that seeks to examine the interplay between the two in the formation and expression of teachers’ identities, practically impossible. It is for this reason, as well as the need to move beyond the hermeneutic, that my research draws on Margaret Archer’s (1995, 1996, 2000) social realist framework. Social realism posits a relativist epistemology but a realist ontology. It is underpinned by the notion of a stratified reality with structural mechanisms giving rise to events in the world whether we experience them or not. It is only through the (inter)actions of persons that such mechanisms have the tendential power to constrain or enable the projects of persons. As such, my research seeks to identify the structural and agential mechanisms that give rise to teachers’ identities and how these identities are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. In my research, teacher identity refers to the manner in which teachers express their social roles as teachers. In the research I use a case study methodology. I provide rich data on four isiXhosa teachers teaching in low socio-economic status schools. This data is gleaned through interviews and classroom based observations which were recorded as field notes and video transcripts. Analysis of the data occurs through the thought processes of abduction and retroduction (Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002). These thought process enable me to (re)describe and (re)contextualise the object of study. Through the process of asking transfactual questions I identify the structural, cultural and agential mechanisms giving rise to teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. There are three significant findings in my research. Firstly, research that attempts to understand the emergence and expression of teacher identities should consider their broad contextual realities. The historical, economic, social and political contexts in which the teachers are born and live, influences their sense of self, personal identities and social identities (teacher identities) and as such, influences their decision to become teachers and how they express their roles as teachers of Foundation Phase mathematics. Secondly, my research suggests that teachers’ mode of reflexivity is key to understanding the decisions that they make in the classroom and how they deal with the structures that condition the manner in which they express their roles as teachers. Thirdly, collective agency is necessary to bring about change in the way in which teachers express their roles in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. My research produces new knowledge by examining the interplay of structure, culture and agency in the constitution of foundation phase teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. I use a social realist orientation to examine this interplay and provide an understanding of the mechanisms giving rise to the phenomenon under consideration. In this way I contribute to the extensive research on learner underperformance by focusing more explicitly on who the teacher is in the classroom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
The use of an analogy in conjunction with a conventional practical activity to mediate Grade 11 learners’ sense making of Ohm’s law
- Authors: Ramasike, Lineo Florence
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Physical sciences -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa Ohm's law Academic achievement
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4558 , vital:20689
- Description: In most South African schools Grade 12 Physical Sciences learners are generally not performing well. As Examiners’ Reports reveal, they are particularly weak on the topic of electrical circuits. Because of this, the Examiners recommended that conventional practical activities and revision should be implemented to improve learners’ performance whilst they are in Grade 11. These factors contributed to the rationale of this study in using the ‘straw electricity’ analogy in conjunction with a conventional practical activity to mediate learners’ sense making of Ohm’s law. The study falls within the interpretive paradigm, whose focus is on the understanding of human world-views. Within the interpretive paradigm a qualitative case study approach was employed. It is a case study because it aimed to investigate a group of learners in a given context. This qualitative case study used purposive sampling to select participants. Various data gathering techniques were employed, namely, documents, observations and stimulated recall interviews. The gathered data was analysed so as to determine the indicators of how learners made sense of Ohm’s law. The findings of this study are that learners were able to construct new knowledge within a social context where the ‘straw electricity’ analogy, using easily accessible resources, was incorporated in tandem with a conventional practical classroom task. Moreover, the ‘straw electricity’ analogy enabled a better understanding of science concepts as it tested and supported different learning skills.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Ramasike, Lineo Florence
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Physical sciences -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- South Africa Ohm's law Academic achievement
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4558 , vital:20689
- Description: In most South African schools Grade 12 Physical Sciences learners are generally not performing well. As Examiners’ Reports reveal, they are particularly weak on the topic of electrical circuits. Because of this, the Examiners recommended that conventional practical activities and revision should be implemented to improve learners’ performance whilst they are in Grade 11. These factors contributed to the rationale of this study in using the ‘straw electricity’ analogy in conjunction with a conventional practical activity to mediate learners’ sense making of Ohm’s law. The study falls within the interpretive paradigm, whose focus is on the understanding of human world-views. Within the interpretive paradigm a qualitative case study approach was employed. It is a case study because it aimed to investigate a group of learners in a given context. This qualitative case study used purposive sampling to select participants. Various data gathering techniques were employed, namely, documents, observations and stimulated recall interviews. The gathered data was analysed so as to determine the indicators of how learners made sense of Ohm’s law. The findings of this study are that learners were able to construct new knowledge within a social context where the ‘straw electricity’ analogy, using easily accessible resources, was incorporated in tandem with a conventional practical classroom task. Moreover, the ‘straw electricity’ analogy enabled a better understanding of science concepts as it tested and supported different learning skills.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Working for ecosystems: an account of how pathways of learning lead to SMME development in a municipal social-ecological programme within a green economy context
- Burger, Margaret Hendrieka Margo
- Authors: Burger, Margaret Hendrieka Margo
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Working for Ecosystems (South Africa) , Small business -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Durban , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Durban
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7735 , vital:21291
- Description: Global climate change alters climatic zones to the extent that species invasion and, in particular, invasive alien plant growth, is regarded as one of the biggest threats to ecosystem functioning. Socio-ecological adaptive management practices have emerged from these threats as opportunities in developing countries where the immediacy of poverty relief acts as a political drawcard and potential for job creation. Local workers in the eThekwini Municipality’s ‘Working for Ecosystems’ biodiversity management programme (WFE) are emerging as micro-enterprise contractors (SMMEs). The transition from worker to entrepreneur has been part of the ethos and long-term planning of the Working for Ecosystems programme at a management level with a view to economic inclusion and realising long-term sustainable livelihoods. Evidence from narratives support claims of transformative outcomes. The findings of this study show that transformation is accessed at various levels: at a management level, at a well-established SMME level and from worker-to- SMME level. These show an “articulation of learning pathways and the connections that are made without a formally structured pathway of learning being in place” (Lotz-Sisitka & Ramsarup, 2013, p. 33). The routes followed to knowledge, practice and sustainability competences by participants in Working for Ecosystems are examined within the complex constellation of material- economic, social-political and cultural-discursive structures and are conceptualised as learning pathways. To fully appreciate the evolving and multidimensional nature of the emergence of SMME practice learning in the Working for Ecosystems programme, relational ontology as a perspective was introduced, with the intention of emphasising the relationship between practice, knowledge and context. Narrative enquiry and extensive data analysis was used as the method to examine workplace learning pathways. These workplace learning pathways can be enriched by more explicitly integrating observation of local and indigenous knowledge of biodiversity in everyday work and practice. However, intermittent contractual work causes disruption in learning pathways formation and results in a lack of stability in conflict with the aims of the programme’s objectives of building capacity and robustness. Findings show that skills development in terms of workplace learning with intersecting, diverse levels of participation and knowledge flow, is particularly important for learning pathways development in the field of invasive alien plant control where divergent values, norms and levels of practice are operational. Prior knowledge, of either indigenous plants or business functioning mechanisms, scaffolds SMME skills through relevance and connected learning in the two fields of practice pertaining to the Working for Ecosystems programme. Clarity of management roles and solidarity within management enhances SMME functioning and learning pathway development for all participants. The Expanded Public Works Programmes (such as Working for Ecosystems) are examined as an opportunity for acquisition of knowledge, competence and new skills development. A prime competence for sustainability understanding is interpersonal skills as these form an essential link with most other competences and as such should be foregrounded in training and learning pathway development. Site selection and time in the programme is a critical factor for expansive learning pathways and environmental stewardship development. Ultimately, in examining and reflecting on the Education for Sustainable Development and green economy potential, it is apparent that learning pathway development needs more support to realise the possibility of entrepreneurship and its political and social significance in terms of sustainable livelihoods. There is a need to recognise diversity, multiple ways of knowing and learning, in learning pathways development “to build joint capacity to cope with complex sustainability challenges” (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Burger, Margaret Hendrieka Margo
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Working for Ecosystems (South Africa) , Small business -- South Africa , Environmental education -- South Africa -- Durban , Sustainable development -- South Africa -- Durban
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7735 , vital:21291
- Description: Global climate change alters climatic zones to the extent that species invasion and, in particular, invasive alien plant growth, is regarded as one of the biggest threats to ecosystem functioning. Socio-ecological adaptive management practices have emerged from these threats as opportunities in developing countries where the immediacy of poverty relief acts as a political drawcard and potential for job creation. Local workers in the eThekwini Municipality’s ‘Working for Ecosystems’ biodiversity management programme (WFE) are emerging as micro-enterprise contractors (SMMEs). The transition from worker to entrepreneur has been part of the ethos and long-term planning of the Working for Ecosystems programme at a management level with a view to economic inclusion and realising long-term sustainable livelihoods. Evidence from narratives support claims of transformative outcomes. The findings of this study show that transformation is accessed at various levels: at a management level, at a well-established SMME level and from worker-to- SMME level. These show an “articulation of learning pathways and the connections that are made without a formally structured pathway of learning being in place” (Lotz-Sisitka & Ramsarup, 2013, p. 33). The routes followed to knowledge, practice and sustainability competences by participants in Working for Ecosystems are examined within the complex constellation of material- economic, social-political and cultural-discursive structures and are conceptualised as learning pathways. To fully appreciate the evolving and multidimensional nature of the emergence of SMME practice learning in the Working for Ecosystems programme, relational ontology as a perspective was introduced, with the intention of emphasising the relationship between practice, knowledge and context. Narrative enquiry and extensive data analysis was used as the method to examine workplace learning pathways. These workplace learning pathways can be enriched by more explicitly integrating observation of local and indigenous knowledge of biodiversity in everyday work and practice. However, intermittent contractual work causes disruption in learning pathways formation and results in a lack of stability in conflict with the aims of the programme’s objectives of building capacity and robustness. Findings show that skills development in terms of workplace learning with intersecting, diverse levels of participation and knowledge flow, is particularly important for learning pathways development in the field of invasive alien plant control where divergent values, norms and levels of practice are operational. Prior knowledge, of either indigenous plants or business functioning mechanisms, scaffolds SMME skills through relevance and connected learning in the two fields of practice pertaining to the Working for Ecosystems programme. Clarity of management roles and solidarity within management enhances SMME functioning and learning pathway development for all participants. The Expanded Public Works Programmes (such as Working for Ecosystems) are examined as an opportunity for acquisition of knowledge, competence and new skills development. A prime competence for sustainability understanding is interpersonal skills as these form an essential link with most other competences and as such should be foregrounded in training and learning pathway development. Site selection and time in the programme is a critical factor for expansive learning pathways and environmental stewardship development. Ultimately, in examining and reflecting on the Education for Sustainable Development and green economy potential, it is apparent that learning pathway development needs more support to realise the possibility of entrepreneurship and its political and social significance in terms of sustainable livelihoods. There is a need to recognise diversity, multiple ways of knowing and learning, in learning pathways development “to build joint capacity to cope with complex sustainability challenges” (Wiek, Withycombe, & Redman, 2011).
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
A Foucauldian analysis of discourses shaping perspectives, responses, and experiences on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in some school communities in Kavango Region
- Authors: Ngalangi, Naftal Sakaria
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984 -- Methodology , Condom use -- Namibia , Sex instruction for teenagers -- Namibia , HIV infections -- Prevention -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Prevention -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Teenage pregnancy -- Namibia , Sexual abstinence -- Moral and ethical aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2061 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019990
- Description: Condom use is promoted as an effective method for prevention and contraception for people who practice or are at risk of practicing high-risk sexual behaviors. According to the UNAIDS (2009) report, condoms are the only resource available to prevent the sexual spread of the HI-Virus; and with regard to family planning, the same report proposes that condoms expand the choices, have no medical side effects, and thus provide dual protection against pregnancy and disease. However, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, condom use has been fiercely debated. The debates on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in schools are not new nor are they uncontested. In Namibia, the HIV and AIDS policy in education does not explain how, when and by whom condoms should be made available to learners. This leaves it to schools to decide on how (and whether) to make condoms available to learners. As a result, individual school‘s choices not only vary, but are mediated by different factors that are not always in the best interest of learners who, as the foregoing discussion suggests, continue to participate in behaviour that, amongst other things, puts them at risk of HIV infection and falling pregnant. Relying on Foucault‘s theory of discourses, this study investigated the dominant discourses that shape learner, teacher, parent religious and traditional leader and traditional healer perspectives, responses, and experiences with regard to the accessibility, availability, and distribution of condoms in school. The study was conducted in nine schools in Kavango Region in Namibia using a mixed methods approach. The study used triangulation in the data collection process through the use of questionnaires where 792 learners participated in this component, and focus group discussions and individual interviews targeting four groups namely, learners, teachers, parents and religious leaders, traditional leaders and traditional healers. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), and findings from the focus group discussions and individual interviews were analyzed identifying themes and patterns and then organizing them into coherent categories with sub-categories. The study revealed that the majority of adult participants opposed the idea of making condoms available in schools; advocating abstinence instead. This was despite evidence on the prevalence of sexual activity amongst youth in the community. Reasons had to do with various competing and hierarchized discourses operating to shape participant beliefs, perspectives, and responses in a highly regulated and surveilled social and cultural context. Put differently, the dominant discourses invoked a particular sexual subject; authorized and legitimated who invoked such a subject; who was and was not allowed to speak on sexual matters; as well as how sexual matters were brought into the public space of schools. Such authorization and legitimation regulated the discursive space in which discussions on sexual health, safe sex, and resources such as condoms were permitted; with negative consequences for the sexual well-being of youth in Kavango Region. The study also highlighted the tension between freedom, choice, and rights, showing how complex in fact is decision to make condoms available in school. On the one hand, teenagers positioned themselves as capable subjects who had the right to exercise choice over their sexual lives. Requesting parent consent was thus viewed as a violation of this right to choose. Such a position displayed authority and agency by learners that was pitted against views amongst adults in this study that positioned youth as having no agency. In their view, youth (a) were still children and thus innocent and pure, (b) ought to abstain, and (c) were difficult to control given the modern context. Adults believed that early sexual involvement by learners did not result from lack of vigilance and control on their part, but rather from exposure to modern social mores. The study concluded that (a) schools remain difficult spaces not only for mediating discussions of sex and sexuality, but also for providing resources to mitigate sexual risk amongst leaners, (b) in highly regulated societies, dominant religious discourses are produced and reproduced in and through existing institutions such as family, church, and schools; highlighting how these serve to normalize beliefs and perspectives, (c) the dominant discourses shaping communities in which schools find themselves remain inconsistent with school discourses that are shaped by modernist conceptions of childhood and youth, and (b) adult choices to sanction and obstruct schools from making condoms available (and in the case of teachers, not accessible and distributable) put the very children at risk that they propose to be protecting.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Ngalangi, Naftal Sakaria
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984 -- Methodology , Condom use -- Namibia , Sex instruction for teenagers -- Namibia , HIV infections -- Prevention -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Prevention -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Teenage pregnancy -- Namibia , Sexual abstinence -- Moral and ethical aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2061 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019990
- Description: Condom use is promoted as an effective method for prevention and contraception for people who practice or are at risk of practicing high-risk sexual behaviors. According to the UNAIDS (2009) report, condoms are the only resource available to prevent the sexual spread of the HI-Virus; and with regard to family planning, the same report proposes that condoms expand the choices, have no medical side effects, and thus provide dual protection against pregnancy and disease. However, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, condom use has been fiercely debated. The debates on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in schools are not new nor are they uncontested. In Namibia, the HIV and AIDS policy in education does not explain how, when and by whom condoms should be made available to learners. This leaves it to schools to decide on how (and whether) to make condoms available to learners. As a result, individual school‘s choices not only vary, but are mediated by different factors that are not always in the best interest of learners who, as the foregoing discussion suggests, continue to participate in behaviour that, amongst other things, puts them at risk of HIV infection and falling pregnant. Relying on Foucault‘s theory of discourses, this study investigated the dominant discourses that shape learner, teacher, parent religious and traditional leader and traditional healer perspectives, responses, and experiences with regard to the accessibility, availability, and distribution of condoms in school. The study was conducted in nine schools in Kavango Region in Namibia using a mixed methods approach. The study used triangulation in the data collection process through the use of questionnaires where 792 learners participated in this component, and focus group discussions and individual interviews targeting four groups namely, learners, teachers, parents and religious leaders, traditional leaders and traditional healers. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), and findings from the focus group discussions and individual interviews were analyzed identifying themes and patterns and then organizing them into coherent categories with sub-categories. The study revealed that the majority of adult participants opposed the idea of making condoms available in schools; advocating abstinence instead. This was despite evidence on the prevalence of sexual activity amongst youth in the community. Reasons had to do with various competing and hierarchized discourses operating to shape participant beliefs, perspectives, and responses in a highly regulated and surveilled social and cultural context. Put differently, the dominant discourses invoked a particular sexual subject; authorized and legitimated who invoked such a subject; who was and was not allowed to speak on sexual matters; as well as how sexual matters were brought into the public space of schools. Such authorization and legitimation regulated the discursive space in which discussions on sexual health, safe sex, and resources such as condoms were permitted; with negative consequences for the sexual well-being of youth in Kavango Region. The study also highlighted the tension between freedom, choice, and rights, showing how complex in fact is decision to make condoms available in school. On the one hand, teenagers positioned themselves as capable subjects who had the right to exercise choice over their sexual lives. Requesting parent consent was thus viewed as a violation of this right to choose. Such a position displayed authority and agency by learners that was pitted against views amongst adults in this study that positioned youth as having no agency. In their view, youth (a) were still children and thus innocent and pure, (b) ought to abstain, and (c) were difficult to control given the modern context. Adults believed that early sexual involvement by learners did not result from lack of vigilance and control on their part, but rather from exposure to modern social mores. The study concluded that (a) schools remain difficult spaces not only for mediating discussions of sex and sexuality, but also for providing resources to mitigate sexual risk amongst leaners, (b) in highly regulated societies, dominant religious discourses are produced and reproduced in and through existing institutions such as family, church, and schools; highlighting how these serve to normalize beliefs and perspectives, (c) the dominant discourses shaping communities in which schools find themselves remain inconsistent with school discourses that are shaped by modernist conceptions of childhood and youth, and (b) adult choices to sanction and obstruct schools from making condoms available (and in the case of teachers, not accessible and distributable) put the very children at risk that they propose to be protecting.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
A morphogenic and laminated system explanation of position-practice systems and professional development training in mainstreaming education for sustainable development in African universities
- Authors: Agbedahin, Adesuwa Vanessa
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/584 , vital:19972
- Description: This research focuses on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), particularly in Africa. It explores the roles and practices of these institutions, especially their professionals, in the Anthropocene era where increasing concern for contemporary environmental and sustainability issues and risks emerge. The study presents a longitudinal case study of institutions and participants of the Swedish/African/Asian International Training Programme (ITP) on ESD in Higher Education (HE), who are mostly university educators. This thesis however focuses on African ITP participants only. At a macro level, the research sought to examine how African university educators have contributed to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) through their participation in the ITP (which is a change oriented professional development training programme on ESD) and the associated ESD ‘change projects’. The change projects are ITP participants’ direct attempts to mainstream environment and sustainability issues, concerns, and concepts into core university functions and practices: teaching, research, community engagement, and management operations and policy engagement. At a meso level the study sought insight into how educators in national institutions were supported by sub-regional and regional initiatives, institutions and organisations, including the Mainstreaming of Environment and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership programme, especially an initiative supported by the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme to provide (limited) seed funding to three southern African universities to establish what are known as ‘MESA Chairs’, with dedicated time and support for MESA activities in their universities . At a micro level, this research sought to investigate how the position-practice systems and the ITP shape (enable or constrain) effective ESD mainstreaming in higher education, and how the morphogenetic approach and laminated system can be used to understand and explain these dynamics and their relations with meso and macro level engagements. The research sought to understand these dynamics through empirical investigations using survey questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and field visits. The research is constituted as theoretical, conceptual, methodological and analytical exploration using a singular and nested case study research approach, underlaboured by a critical realist ontology, and drawing on a social learning epistemology and social realist morphogenetic interpretive lens. In particular, ontological depth was sought via critical realist laminated system explanation. See Chapter Two for details. This study was carried out in three phases. Phase one encapsulates the investigation of all ITP ESD in higher education alumni who were Asian and African participants from the inception of the ITP to its completion, over a six-year period (2008-2013). This included 280 academics from Asia and Africa in 35 countries in Asia and Africa from 106 institutions in Asia and Africa with their 139 change projects. The outcome of phase one of the research is only included in this thesis as an appendix (see Appendix 3; Agbedahin & Lotz-Sisitka, 2015). However, this phase provided and formed the foundational data that was expanded in phases two and three for the purpose of this study. Phase two of this research concentrated on a less broad population of research participants comprising only all African ITP alumni, from all regions in Africa. The overall data collection and analysis included 162 academics in 23 African countries from 66 institutions with their 81 change projects. The aim was to investigate and provide a morphogenetic explanation of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) may influence ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase two investigation is presented in Chapter Four. In phase three, (nested) case studies of Swaziland, Zambia, and Botswana (in the southern Africa region), which included all the ESD ITP HE participants therein and the three corresponding EE/ESD MESA Chairs, were developed. The population sample in this phase three therefore contained 20 academics, from six institutions with their nine change projects. This phase was characterised by field trips to these countries and in-depth data collection and analysis in order to investigate and deepen the morphogenetic explanations of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) have indeed influenced the ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase three research is presented in Chapters Five, Six and Seven. The final Chapter Eight of this thesis focuses on the seven scalar laminated system perspective and reflections on this research and discussion of these perspectives for supporting the mainstreaming of ESD in African higher education institutions and more specifically in the three case countries and respective institutions presented in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven. The seven scalar laminated system is presented in relation to the position-practice system, and draws on morphogenetic social realist and social learning theory to provide perspective on the actual change processes. Chapter Eight also includes a discussion on social learning and its implication for ESD mainstreaming, and provides recommendations for further research. The outcome of the theoretical exploration underpinning this study provided a potential model for understanding ESD learning and change processes that are facilitated by professional development training programmes in the context of ESD in HE. This study also provides a model for appraising educational changes in time and in space, especially in relation to ESD, or the types of changes that can be brought about by professional development interventions such as those provided by the ITP and how they can be tracked, monitored and documented. For the field of professional or academic development in higher education, this research highlights the significance of the relationship between position-practice systems, professional development interventions and institutional transformation. For the field of ESD in higher education, this study shows the need for in-depth consideration of the position-practice system and sphere of influence of change agents and related stakeholders in and around their institutions in the design and development of professional development programmes. It further sheds light on the laminated system of factors that contextually constrain and/or enable effective ESD mainstreaming at individual, collective, institutional, national, regional and global levels.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Agbedahin, Adesuwa Vanessa
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/584 , vital:19972
- Description: This research focuses on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), particularly in Africa. It explores the roles and practices of these institutions, especially their professionals, in the Anthropocene era where increasing concern for contemporary environmental and sustainability issues and risks emerge. The study presents a longitudinal case study of institutions and participants of the Swedish/African/Asian International Training Programme (ITP) on ESD in Higher Education (HE), who are mostly university educators. This thesis however focuses on African ITP participants only. At a macro level, the research sought to examine how African university educators have contributed to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) through their participation in the ITP (which is a change oriented professional development training programme on ESD) and the associated ESD ‘change projects’. The change projects are ITP participants’ direct attempts to mainstream environment and sustainability issues, concerns, and concepts into core university functions and practices: teaching, research, community engagement, and management operations and policy engagement. At a meso level the study sought insight into how educators in national institutions were supported by sub-regional and regional initiatives, institutions and organisations, including the Mainstreaming of Environment and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership programme, especially an initiative supported by the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme to provide (limited) seed funding to three southern African universities to establish what are known as ‘MESA Chairs’, with dedicated time and support for MESA activities in their universities . At a micro level, this research sought to investigate how the position-practice systems and the ITP shape (enable or constrain) effective ESD mainstreaming in higher education, and how the morphogenetic approach and laminated system can be used to understand and explain these dynamics and their relations with meso and macro level engagements. The research sought to understand these dynamics through empirical investigations using survey questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and field visits. The research is constituted as theoretical, conceptual, methodological and analytical exploration using a singular and nested case study research approach, underlaboured by a critical realist ontology, and drawing on a social learning epistemology and social realist morphogenetic interpretive lens. In particular, ontological depth was sought via critical realist laminated system explanation. See Chapter Two for details. This study was carried out in three phases. Phase one encapsulates the investigation of all ITP ESD in higher education alumni who were Asian and African participants from the inception of the ITP to its completion, over a six-year period (2008-2013). This included 280 academics from Asia and Africa in 35 countries in Asia and Africa from 106 institutions in Asia and Africa with their 139 change projects. The outcome of phase one of the research is only included in this thesis as an appendix (see Appendix 3; Agbedahin & Lotz-Sisitka, 2015). However, this phase provided and formed the foundational data that was expanded in phases two and three for the purpose of this study. Phase two of this research concentrated on a less broad population of research participants comprising only all African ITP alumni, from all regions in Africa. The overall data collection and analysis included 162 academics in 23 African countries from 66 institutions with their 81 change projects. The aim was to investigate and provide a morphogenetic explanation of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) may influence ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase two investigation is presented in Chapter Four. In phase three, (nested) case studies of Swaziland, Zambia, and Botswana (in the southern Africa region), which included all the ESD ITP HE participants therein and the three corresponding EE/ESD MESA Chairs, were developed. The population sample in this phase three therefore contained 20 academics, from six institutions with their nine change projects. This phase was characterised by field trips to these countries and in-depth data collection and analysis in order to investigate and deepen the morphogenetic explanations of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) have indeed influenced the ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase three research is presented in Chapters Five, Six and Seven. The final Chapter Eight of this thesis focuses on the seven scalar laminated system perspective and reflections on this research and discussion of these perspectives for supporting the mainstreaming of ESD in African higher education institutions and more specifically in the three case countries and respective institutions presented in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven. The seven scalar laminated system is presented in relation to the position-practice system, and draws on morphogenetic social realist and social learning theory to provide perspective on the actual change processes. Chapter Eight also includes a discussion on social learning and its implication for ESD mainstreaming, and provides recommendations for further research. The outcome of the theoretical exploration underpinning this study provided a potential model for understanding ESD learning and change processes that are facilitated by professional development training programmes in the context of ESD in HE. This study also provides a model for appraising educational changes in time and in space, especially in relation to ESD, or the types of changes that can be brought about by professional development interventions such as those provided by the ITP and how they can be tracked, monitored and documented. For the field of professional or academic development in higher education, this research highlights the significance of the relationship between position-practice systems, professional development interventions and institutional transformation. For the field of ESD in higher education, this study shows the need for in-depth consideration of the position-practice system and sphere of influence of change agents and related stakeholders in and around their institutions in the design and development of professional development programmes. It further sheds light on the laminated system of factors that contextually constrain and/or enable effective ESD mainstreaming at individual, collective, institutional, national, regional and global levels.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
An ethnographic study of beginner mathematics teachers’ classroom practices in the first three years of their employment: Shaping of a Professional Identity
- Narayanan, Ajayagosh Ettappiriparambil
- Authors: Narayanan, Ajayagosh Ettappiriparambil
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2069 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020967
- Description: The main theme in this study examines how beginner mathematics teachers (BTs) shape their professional identity in their first three years of classroom practices in Lesotho. This study, which focuses particularly on BTs’ second and third year of employment, gathers data with an understanding that the notion of professional identity is multi-faceted. Professional identity embraces a host of other identities such as personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. This study is framed by social theories of learning. Learning occurs by active participation and practice. BTs’ peripheral participation assists them in making sense of the activities (situated learning) in which they are engaged, in the classrooms. The sense making processes eventually shape their professional identity. In line with situated meanings that BTs form, the key notion (professional identity) is further categorised into personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. These identities integrate to become the professional identity of a beginner mathematics teacher. Using a narrative ethnographic approach as the research method, I have made use of extensive classroom observations and interviews to gather data. In this study, six volunteer participant BTs were originally selected. These teachers were from two districts, Berea and Maseru in Lesotho. After being observed in the classrooms, these teachers were interviewed. In the third year of the study, one participant withdrew from the study. I used vertical (descriptive) analysis to narrate their classroom practice followed by horizontal analysis to understand how they shape their professional identity. The analytical model enables the researcher to analyse the data in order to establish how the BTs’ actions, their reflexive stories and their journey in becoming a mathematics teacher shape their professional identity. The recurring themes that emerged from the horizontal analysis are the ways BTs approach the classroom practice which is dominated by teacher-centred learning. This involves demonstrating an example and then students following this model to practice more examples. In this sense, their approach is the same though these BTs started understanding how their classroom approaches can bring changes in the learning of mathematics. I analysed the utterances from the BTs’ classroom activities by separating these into mathematizing and subjectifying. The subjectifying utterances were further analysed to understand how these created meaning. These, in my view, are also central features of a teacher’s practice that need interpretation in order to understand the shaping of a professional identity. The key finding is that their narrative helped them to understand how they shape their professional identity. The study highlights the importance of listening to BTs’ stories of how they become mathematics teachers. Their narratives can be the benchmark for stake-holders, policy makers and potential researchers as the study on BTs’ professional identity is relatively new in Lesotho.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Narayanan, Ajayagosh Ettappiriparambil
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2069 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020967
- Description: The main theme in this study examines how beginner mathematics teachers (BTs) shape their professional identity in their first three years of classroom practices in Lesotho. This study, which focuses particularly on BTs’ second and third year of employment, gathers data with an understanding that the notion of professional identity is multi-faceted. Professional identity embraces a host of other identities such as personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. This study is framed by social theories of learning. Learning occurs by active participation and practice. BTs’ peripheral participation assists them in making sense of the activities (situated learning) in which they are engaged, in the classrooms. The sense making processes eventually shape their professional identity. In line with situated meanings that BTs form, the key notion (professional identity) is further categorised into personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. These identities integrate to become the professional identity of a beginner mathematics teacher. Using a narrative ethnographic approach as the research method, I have made use of extensive classroom observations and interviews to gather data. In this study, six volunteer participant BTs were originally selected. These teachers were from two districts, Berea and Maseru in Lesotho. After being observed in the classrooms, these teachers were interviewed. In the third year of the study, one participant withdrew from the study. I used vertical (descriptive) analysis to narrate their classroom practice followed by horizontal analysis to understand how they shape their professional identity. The analytical model enables the researcher to analyse the data in order to establish how the BTs’ actions, their reflexive stories and their journey in becoming a mathematics teacher shape their professional identity. The recurring themes that emerged from the horizontal analysis are the ways BTs approach the classroom practice which is dominated by teacher-centred learning. This involves demonstrating an example and then students following this model to practice more examples. In this sense, their approach is the same though these BTs started understanding how their classroom approaches can bring changes in the learning of mathematics. I analysed the utterances from the BTs’ classroom activities by separating these into mathematizing and subjectifying. The subjectifying utterances were further analysed to understand how these created meaning. These, in my view, are also central features of a teacher’s practice that need interpretation in order to understand the shaping of a professional identity. The key finding is that their narrative helped them to understand how they shape their professional identity. The study highlights the importance of listening to BTs’ stories of how they become mathematics teachers. Their narratives can be the benchmark for stake-holders, policy makers and potential researchers as the study on BTs’ professional identity is relatively new in Lesotho.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016