The purpose of this study was to explore the Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) educators in teaching Financial Literacy (FL) in Grades 8 and 9. Literature revealed that PCK is used internationally by scholars as a suitable theoretical framework to investigate the knowledge base of educators; hence, it was adopted for this study. Its components were used to develop a conceptual framework which was used in exploring the knowledge base of EMS educators in teaching FL in the grades mentioned. FL is a subject discipline embedded within EMS – it consists of accounting concepts. The study is informed by the interpretivism paradigm; thus, a qualitative methodology and phenomenological design were adopted for data collection. The descriptive and narrative data needed for the study were collected from 16 EMS educators from eight public ordinary secondary schools in Ekurhuleni North District situated in Ekurhuleni Metropolitan through lesson observations, semi-structured individual interviews, and the analysis of educators’ and learners’ records. Purposeful sampling was used to select these educators. A thematic method was used to analyse data. The findings of the study reveal that the PCK of EMS educators in teaching FL is not comprehensive. Educators are not conversant with various types of knowledge dimensions and the framework within which to teach them. The study revealed that educators who do not have an accounting background will have challenges in teaching FL effectively. The teaching of FL learning content is not driven by lesson objectives. This meant that the teaching of knowledge, skills, and values is not aligned to any lesson objectives. Teaching and learning do not occur with the lesson objectives in learners’ mind. Some limitations were noted regarding the application of formative assessment. FL is a practical subject – its teaching requires the promotion of meaningful learner involvement. However, the social interactive methods of teaching were not applied as required by the Curriculum Assessment and Policy Statement which promotes teamwork. PCK was found to be a useful framework to investigate the knowledge base of educators in teaching a subject discipline. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies

This thesis examines the role the media played in shaping Tina Modotti's public image during the 1920s in Mexico and the representation of this image in the novel <U>Tinísima</U> by Elena Poniatowska. In Chapter I, the present study tackles also the issues behind the press attitude in relation to the Mexican political situation and the communist influence during the 1920s. Chapter II provides a review of the existing literature on Modotti's life and her involvement in the Mexican Communist Party. It also includes a brief summary of the Mexican Communist Party's origins and development, since the political environment affected the approach of the press upon Modotti. Chapter III focuses on social research through content analysis of press articles about Tina Modotti, which were published by the Mexican newspaper <U>Excélsior</U> in January 1929. The purpose is to analyze the language employed in these accounts in order to uncover a possible bias behavior on the part of the press when covering Modotti's case. Chapter IV deals with the analysis of Poniatowska's novel <U>Tinísima</U> through a postmodern perspective. The connecting theme between this and the former chapter is based on the insertion of articles from <U>Excélsior</U> that function as latent and manifest intertexts in the novel. The objective is to study these insertions in order to interpret Modotti's public and private images within this literary framework. Postmodernism is a pertinent theory since it examines the transgressions of widely accepted views to uncover or demystify reality. Finally, the conclusion in Chapter V links the use of the media as an image breaker to the Mexican social and political context in the 1920s, and suggests political reasons behind Modotti's mistreatment by the press. In addition, the literary representation of Modotti in <U>Tinísima</U> and the analysis through postmodernism provides strong support to this conclusion and points at the role of this novel as an image maker. / Master of Arts

A research report in partial fulfillment of the award of Master of Science (MSc.) in Science Education submitted to the Faculty of Science, School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017 / Professional learning communities are generally regarded as having a positive impact in improving and developing teacher knowledge. Literature has shown that group planning and professional learning communities have an impact on the quality of teaching and subsequent improvement in learner performance. Practicing teachers, preservice teachers, education authorities, curriculum advisors and teacher educators all thrive to find out about the kind of teaching that brings about effective learning inside classrooms, the most appropriate approach to improve teaching and learning in class, and in particular, science classes, remains vague, though. This study examines how teacher knowledge is developed in the context of a lesson study within a specific concept of the topic stoichiometry: the ‘mole’. The case of three practicing science teachers is considered through the observation of their interactions with teacher educators during the five (5) weeks in which the participant teachers planned, taught and reflected on the mole concept together with science teacher educators and science teacher education specialists. A pretest is administered to the participant teachers at the beginning of the study; this is followed by intervention discussions based on the concept of the mole. Each of the participants then teaches the lesson to 11th grade learners in their school, each lesson is reflected upon and an iterative cycle of teaching and re-teaching the concept describes the lesson study approach used in this study. At the end of the intervention, a post-test is administered to the three participant teachers. The analysis and description of the teachers’ responses to structured test items before and after the topic specific intervention and verbal contributions during meetings are sources of qualitative data in this study. The qualitative data about topic specific pedagogy and the interaction of TSPCK components obtained in this study is used as evidence to show that topic-specific interventions assist teachers in developing pedagogical content knowledge in science education. / MT 2019

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This study focused on the effect of fines (minus 75 microns) content and type (plasticity) on the strength of granular base materials. Four different sources of crushed rock Granular A materials were selected by the MTO for testing. Routine laboratory tests were carried out on the four Granular A materials including sieve analysis, standard Proctor compaction, Atterberg limits, California bearing ratio, resilient modulus and permeability tests. Fines from an additional source, to be plastic, were selected and used as substitute fines for the Granular A natural fines but were found to have a similar index of plasticity (PI). The influence of fines content on CBR varied for each Granular A source as some increased with increasing fines content and others decreased as the fines content increased. With the similarities in the PI of the two fines no clear trend in CBR values between samples with natural and substitute fines was observed. The resilient modulus (MR) values were by and large similar when the natural fines were replaced with substitute fines. The MR decreased as the fines content increased when the water content was below 5 percent but at 7 percent water content some of the tests failed (could not be tested) at higher confining pressures. Energy dissipation was calculated from the resilient modulus tests and it was observed that the energy dissipation decreased as the confining pressure increased, with lower dissipated energies corresponding to higher MR values. Given that definitive trends could not be identified with respect to the influence of fines and plasticity, the influence of the percent paste (sum of moisture and fines content at the time of compaction) was examined. As the paste increased the resilient modulus decreased and the damping ratio increased. Results from permeability tests showed that for specimens with no fines present the permeability was much higher than those with fines. There was no significant change observed in permeability for specimens in which natural fines were replaced by substitute fines or as the hydraulic gradient was varied. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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