Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, November, 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

In this work, an interdisciplinary approach has been adopted for the study of: • teaching strategies of an Intelligent Tutoring System, in the paradigm of multiple teaching strategies, and • the use of Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) in teaching problem solving in university mathematics. As a result, the SIMTA (Styles Implemented by Methods Tactics Actions) theoretical framework has been developed to support and sustain teaching strategies in the paradigm of multiple teaching strategies. TeLoDe (TEaching Linear Ordinary Differential Equations), is a prototype Intelligent Tutoring System, teaching the solution of linear second order differential equations with constant coefficients in a novel way. This novel way, which has been empirically tested, has been achieved by augmenting Maple and represents an alternative use of CASs where the human lecturer and Maple are interlocked in a symbiotic and interdependent manner. In SIMTA, the contemporary concept of teaching strategy is rethought and proposed to be viewed at two fundamental levels: • the organisational level • and the operational level. The organisational level deals with the structure of the teaching strategy whereas the operational level deals with the manifestation of that structure. In SIMTA the organisational level is represented by a triple generic structure, method, tactic(s), action(s). A method is a mechanism for structuring the subject matter (e.g. analogy, examples, generalisation, specialisation). Likewise, a tactic is a mechanism for facilitating the interaction (e.g. explicit interaction, implicit interaction). An action is a low level activity such as display this message, ask this question. In SIMTA, the exact manifestation of the above generic structures (analogies, examples, implicit interaction, explicit interaction) depends on the concept of style: different styles result in different manifestations of the same generic structures. Thus, in SIMTA the concept of multiple teaching strategies is seen as merely a collection of teaching strategies manifested under the same style. These strategies operate with the aim of offering alternative representations of the same task at hand and ensuring that the lea~er is active by activating, directing and maintaining exploration. To help demonstrate the feasibility of SIMTA, two styles, the expository style and the , guided discovery style have been formed. The expository style draws on Ausubel's theory of meaningfulleaming, whereas, the guided discovery style draws on Bruner's work. These styles have been implemented in TeLoDe. TeLoDe, incorporates a teaching strategy module, based on a style, and declarative knowledge. Its purpose is threefold: (i) to serve as a research tool for the SIMTA framework, (ii) to serve as a prototype, demonstrating clearly how a 'second generation' CAS which undertakes the procedural aspect of mathematics allowing the human tutor to concentrate on its conceptual aspect, could be developed, (iii) to demonstrate how Maple and human lecturers are given clear roles which are, nevertheless, interdependent in carrying out the teaching of university mathematics. Two small-scale empirical studies were carried out in order to test SIMTA and TeLoDe respectively. The first study involved lecturers whereas the second study was carried out in a classroom environment. The results found from these studies demonstrate that TeLoDe has a potential as a teaching tool for problem solving in university mathematics in a novel way.

abstract: Peer learning is one of the longest established and most intensively researched forms of learning. As a form of peer learning, peer tutoring is characterized by specific role-taking as tutor or tutee with high focus on curriculum content. In the late 18th century, Andrew Bell undoubtedly became the first person in the world to use peer tutoring in a systematic fashion within a school setting. Due to its miraculous success, Bell affirmed that peer tutoring was the new method of practical education and was essential to every academic institution. Early in American education, teachers relied on certain students to teach others (i.e., peer tutoring) but this occurred on an informal, impromptu, as needed basis. This type of peer tutoring lasted well into the 20th century. A recent change in the traditional face of peer tutoring arrangements for U.S. schools has occurred due to more than 30 years of research at four major tutoring centers. Peer tutoring has moved away from an informal and casual approach to a more formal and robust method of teaching and learning. However, at the researcher's high school, peer tutoring was still very casual, informal, and practically non-existent. Consequently, the researcher created a peer tutoring club, and developed, and implemented a peer tutoring program. The researcher conducted a mixed-methods study with design-based research (DBR) as the preferred research design in order to discover what constitutes an ideal peer tutor and an ideal peer tutoring session. The researcher utilized qualitative means to analyze the following data: 1) field notes, 2) impromptu interviews, 3) questionnaires, 4) focus group interviews, and 5) a semi-structured interview. The researcher utilized quantitative means to analyze the following data: 1) sessions tutored survey and 2) archival data (e.g., daily attendance, school records). Analysis of qualitative and quantitative data suggested that the ideal peer tutor was qualified (e.g., desire, character traits, content mastery), trained (e.g., responsibilities, methodologies, procedures), and experienced. Likewise, in addition to having an ideal peer tutor, an ideal peer tutoring session took place in an environment conducive to learning and tutees were prepared and actively participated. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Leadership and Innovation 2014

M.Ed. / A personal tutoring established by the ancient universities and adopted subsequently by both old and new universities has implicitly acknowledged that High Education students derive both academic and personal benefits from one-on-one academic guidance and group collaborative work (Mattis & Dewart, 2007). In the Department of Mathematics, Science, Technology and Computer Education at the University of Johannesburg both the individual and group tutoring models are employed to assist students in their academic programmes. The research question that this study is addressing is: “What are the students’ expectations of the tutors in a postgraduate Computer- Based Education programme?” This research study describes a case study method based on the students’ expectations of the tutors in a post-graduate Computer-Based Education programme. For some reasons students have a misconception (about the roles of the tutors) that a tutoring session is a place where they will, with very little effort on their part, acquire and develop the computer skills needed for competency in the course. Either they view the tutor as an assistant lecturer, or someone who can give all the answers to their problems. The case is to elucidate the students’ perceptions and experiences towards the role of tutors in the Development of Web-Based Instruction in a Computer- Based Education course. Through qualitative data analysis the study revealed that the students in this study needed to know where to draw the line between the role of tutors and that of lecturers. The students acknowledged the kind of help that they received from the tutors during the tutoring sessions. Peer tutoring was portrayed by the students as having particular significance for them as they were faced with challenges of inadequate mastery of the necessary computer skills. It is also acknowledged that peer tutoring has the benefit to contribute to the improvement of their academic performance.

The dissertation conducts a survey of the different school and family approaches and their mutual cooperation. The theoretical part deals with defining the concept of partnership and client approach of different schools and families. It describes the different types of cooperation between families, schools and the public. One chapter is focused on specific cooperation - tutorial system. The second part is devoted to the practical research. The research is focused on specific cooperation between schools and families in the first grade of primary school, the tutorial system. The research is conducted through interviews. KEYWORDS Collaboration, partnership, tutoring, family,

D.Phil. (Education) / Transformation policies in South Africa have seen higher education come under increasing pressure to broaden participation of historically under-represented groups. Recently, student enrolments have become increasingly diverse in terms of cultural, socio-economic and linguistic backgrounds, as well as the levels of preparedness that students have for traditional higher education programmes. This places new and challenging teaching demands on lecturers and peer tutors. Whilst peer tutors may find themselves in an ever increasing teaching role, so might those who are responsible for guiding and developing them. This research focuses on offering holistic support to junior lecturers, via mentorship, who have the responsibility of developing and advising student tutors, so that they are able to engage in sound pedagogical practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate the responses to a mentorship programme designed to assist junior lecturers to develop tutors at The University of Johannesburg. These junior lecturers are referred to as tutor coordinators. The research aims to identity what kind of identity shifts, if any, the tutor coordinators experienced as a result of the mentorship programme. It also aims to understand how tutor coordinators engaged with collaborative mentorship and to what extent the mentorship programme influences pedagogy. Several theoretical perspectives have informed the research. These include ideas on collaborative mentorship and interdependence as well as reflective practice, as a tool for professional development in combination with insights from post structuralist theory on discourse, social organisation, power and in particular, identity. The study is framed by the understanding that the research participants construct multiple identities rather than report on an existing identity, and that identity is linked to power relations in a particular context. Broadly this research is a qualitative study. More specifically, it uses emancipatory action research as the research design. This is because the participants were provided with an opportunity to critically engage with their own practice via self-reflection and the recursive relationship offered by the mentorship programme. Questionnaires, observations and interviewing were used to collect the data. Interviews gave in-depth insight into participant subject positions and responses to the mentorship programme. Initially, the data was analysed thematically, using global analysis. Once the themes had been extracted, CDA (critical discourse analysis) was used to allow for a social analysis of language. The findings suggest that the research participants’ experiences in the role of tutor coordinator, shaped their identities in different ways and that in several cases they experienced considerable fragmentation of identity. This fragmentation is evident in the multifaceted and differentiated responses to various features of the mentorship programme. In addition, in some cases notable pedagogical shifts were made and personal sites of development were positively facilitated. This research brings to the fore issues that could determine professional staff development programmes as it considers South African academic identities framed by their current professional and educational challenges.

C³TO (Chatter Call Centre/Tutoring Online) is a scalable architecture to support mobile online tutoring using chat protocols over cell phones. It is the scalability of this architecture which is the primary focus of this dissertation. Much has been written lamenting the state of mathematics education in South Africa. It is not a pretty story. In order to help solve this mathematical crisis, the “Dr Math” research project was started in January, 2007. “Dr Math” strove to assist school pupils with their mathematics homework by providing access to tutors from a nearby university to help them. The school pupils used MXit on their cell phones and the tutors used normal computer workstations. The original “Dr Math” research project expected no more than twenty to thirty school pupils to participate. Unexpectedly thousands of school pupils started asking “Dr Math” to assist them with their mathematics homework. The original software could not scale. The original software could not cater for the thousands of pupils needing help. The scalability problems which existed in the original “Dr Math” project included: hardware scalability issues, software scalability problems, lack of physical office space for tutors, and tutor time being wasted by trivial questions. C³TO tackled these scalability concerns using an innovative three level approach by implementing a technological feature level, a tactical feature level, and a strategic feature level in the C³TO architecture. The technological level included specific components, utilities, and platforms which promoted scalability. The technological level provided the basic building blocks with which to construct a scalable architecture. The tactical level arranged the basic building blocks of the technological level into a scalable architecture. The tactical level provided short term solutions to scalability concerns by providing easy configurability and decision making. The strategic level attempted to answer the pupils questions before they actually arrived at the tutor thereby reducing the load on the human tutors. C³TO was extensively tested and evaluated. C³TO supported thousands of school pupils with their mathematics homework over a period of ten months. C³TO was used to support a small conference. C³TO was used to encourage people to volunteer their time in participation of Mandela Day. C³TO was used to support “Winter School” during the winter school holiday. In all these cases, C³TO proved itself to be scalable.

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

As the intensity and magnitude of the social and emotional issues that adolescents face begins to mount, therapists, counsellors and educators are faced with a number of challenges in terms of the provision of the professional service of counselling in schools. In the South African context the provision of support services in education has been divided along racial and class lines, thereby making access to these services the domain of a privileged few. The training of peer-counsellors in schools is a deliberate attempt to broaden the access to support services across communities. This type of training is however intensive, as it involves activities that challenge the adolescent participant on a personal, social and emotional level. This study focuses on the personal experience of 9 learners on a peer-counsellor training course in a school. A qualitative research methodology was used to extract raw data from various sources. The raw data was derived from a document analysis of intake forms, feedback forms and interview transcripts. Categories were identified in the raw data through open coding, and themes then named. The theme of empowerment emerged from the data as the primary positive outcome of the training course along with increased levels of social and emotional awareness, and a desire to provide a service. It is evident from this study that participation in a peer-counsellor training group is a worthwhile experience for adolescents. Training gaps were also identified. Emotional barriers were identified which raised concern over the selection process of participants for the course, the lack of debriefing after the course, as well as the level of emotional maturity of some of the participants for such an intensive training programme. It is recommended that the selection of participants be done with stricter criteria and that the contents and demands of the course be made known to all prospective participants in advance. The expectations of the participants are to be noted and not overlooked through the duration of the course. By documenting the experiences of learners in a peer-counsellor training course, insight has been gained, that will direct future planning with regard to the training, and use of peer-counsellors in the school setting. / Dr. L. Beekman Dr. E. Fritz

The purpose of this study is to enrich understandings of the major issues encountered when tutoring writing with beginner-intermediate level Japanese EFL students in a Japanese university. Specifically, the thesis examines how students and tutors perceive the challenges experienced in EFL tutoring and the various roles tutors adopt during EFL writing tutoring sessions with Japanese beginner-intermediate students. A mixed method approach is employed utilizing different methods that combine qualitative and quantitative data. Four data collection methods were utilized: pre and post-semester interviews with writing tutors: student questionnaires from a sample size of 24: 30 tutorial observations: and two tutor training workshops (quasi-focus group). Symbolic interactionism (SI) provided a framework for analyzing tutors‟ roles and their practices during EFL writing tutorials. This view assumes that roles emerge from, and are significantly shaped by, interactions in specific social settings. It was found that writing tutors adopt the following roles: proofreader, translator, coach, teacher, mediator, and timekeeper based on their interaction with the individual student. Each role was adopted as a reaction to a challenge but also created new problems. Many of the roles the tutors adopted in this study parallel the research on roles tutors adopt in the ESL writing center, however in EFL tutoring these roles are magnified. For example, in this study tutors play both the role of teacher and mediator to a much larger degree. The translator role however is unique to EFL tutoring. The roles put forth encompass a different way for tutors to think about effective tutoring in an EFL setting with beginner-intermediate students. This study contributes a deeper understanding as to how administrators and writing tutors can better conduct writing center tutorials with EFL students.