Published Article / The Academic Planning Committee of the Central University Of Technology, Free State stated in April 2003 that academic success depends on academic institutions to create a learner-centred educational environment. In a learner-centred approach to the facilitation of learning, curriculum design, instruction and assessment focuses on what the learner should be able to do successfully. The mentioned Learner-centeredness is closely related to the principles of outcomes-based education (OBE). The purpose of this article is, therefore, to explore the feasibility of a learner-centred approach to the facilitation of learning in the context of Financial Accounting I, by considering the possible implementation of the four essential principles of OBE.

This work has as objective the interventions of facilitations study in constructionists learning environments, based on studies of Jean Piaget, Vygotsky and Carl Rogers. Therefore they were categorized, defining itself nature, characteristics, effects and theoretical beddings that give sustentation to them. The research used, as sources of data, observation protocols and videotapes of courses, lessons, encampments and workshops, all realized between the years of 1994 and 2000, in the Núcleo de Informática na Educação Superior (NIES/UFAL) had been used, in schools of the public system and private education attended by the NIES, in the Psicologia da Educação classes of the courses of major of UFAL, in courses of dynamics of Group realized by IMPISA (company directed toward the development of learning environments), as well as situations lived in existential encampments with adolescents, beyond the experience of almost 30 years with education and 25 with formation of professors. From the available materials, we choose the records of 11 activities, which were extracted and analyzed, in a contextualized way, 14 cases of facilitated interventions. The interventions are categorized in six groups: Investigative, Reflexive, Unbalanced, Informative, Orientation Participative and Mediative. All are characterized and exemplified with statement of the nature and the scientific principles behind each one. / Este trabalho tem como objetivo o estudo das intervenções de facilitação em ambientes de aprendizagem construcionistas, à luz das teorias de Jean Piaget, Vygotsky e Carl Rogers. Para tanto elas foram categorizadas, definindo-se sua natureza, características, efeitos e fundamentos teóricos que lhe dão sustentação. Como fontes de dados foram utilizados protocolos de observação e fitas de vídeo de cursos, aulas, acampamentos e oficinas realizados entre os anos de 1994 e 2000, ocorridas no Núcleo de Informática na Educação Superior (NIES) da UFAL, em escolas das redes pública e privada de ensino assistidas pelo NIES, na disciplina Psicologia da Educação dos cursos de licenciatura da UFAL, em cursos de dinâmica de Grupo realizados na IMPISA (empresa voltada para o desenvolvimento de ambientes de aprendizagem), assim como situações partilhadas em acampamentos vivenciais com adolescentes, além da experiência de quase 30 anos com educação e 25 com formação de professores. Do material disponível, escolhemos os registros de 11 atividades, de onde foram extraídos e analisados, de forma contextualizada, 14 casos de intervenções facilitadoras. As intervenções são categorizadas em seis grupos: Exploratória, Reflexiva, Desequilibradora, Informativa, Orientação Participativa e Mediadora. Todas são caracterizadas e exemplificadas, com explicitação da natureza e dos princípios científicos subjacentes a cada uma delas.

This study investigated the implementability of the French La main à la pâte (LAMAP) inquiry-based science education (IBSE) programme in the South African context. An interpretative, qualitative multiple-case study design was utilised to elicit the voices of both young children-as-scientists engaged in scientific inquiry and student teachers who facilitated science education following the LAMAP approach. The conceptual framework integrated contemporary perspectives on childhood, theory theory and constructivist theory concepts and IBSE. Three conveniently sampled schools in an urban setting were purposively selected as cases, with 70 Grade 1 to Grade 3 children and three student teachers as participants. The findings of the study indicate that the children engaged in IBSE as natural scientists, displaying the cognitive capacity to think, act and learn like real scientists in the context of their classrooms. Engaging in science within a community of scientists, and being physically and mentally active in the knowledge construction process furthermore shaped children’s sense of agency and identity as scientists. The findings furthermore indicate that implementing IBSE contributed to shaping student teachers’ professional identity as science teachers for young children. As young scientists-in-waiting children are, however, dependent on researchers, higher education institutions concerned with teacher training, decision-makers and the broader education community to mobilise and sustain their potential for being and becoming scientists. The findings of the study resulted in a framework proposing guidelines on multi-levels for IBSE implementation in the South African Foundation Phase classroom context. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / The National Research Foundation Sabbatical Grant for Doctoral Studies / The University of Pretoria Vice-Chancellor's Academic Grant Programme / Educational Psychology / PhD / Unrestricted

The importance of a collaborative engagement between parents and teachers in order to enhance learning in the classroom is so great that the two parties seem inseparable. In this study the teachers indicated that they need the assistance of the parents of the learners whom they teach for them to do well. On the other hand, the parents are also keen to lend a helping hand, since it is the future of their children which is at stake. The challenge that emerges from this situation is that, more often, there is a breakdown in communication. The teachers and parents blame each other, especially when the learners do not perform well at the end of a year. The teachers will say the parents did not do anything to help their children with their schoolwork, while the parents will insist that the teachers failed to do their work. It is of utmost importance to stop the blame-game, but rather to seek ways in which both groups can help the learners to do well in the classroom. The teachers need to inform the parents how they (the teachers) expect them to play their part in helping their learners with their schoolwork. Informing parents about their roles and how they may play them is very important, because then the parents will be able to meet the teachers’ expectations, whereby teaching and learning will be facilitated. The ultimate beneficiaries will be the learners, because they will receive education which is well-coordinated by both the teachers and the parents. The collaboration between teachers and the parents will be guided because the kind of parental involvement will be an informed one. The engagement between teachers and parents will yield good results, because in the process they will help each other to find strategies that will assist the learners in the classroom. This study intends to ascertain from the teachers how they expect the parents to help their children with their schoolwork. It seeks to establish what the teachers’ perceptions are regarding parental involvement, that is, what they think it is, and how they think it should be. Two teachers from two primary schools in the Mogalakwena District of Limpopo Province were used in order to collect the data. These teachers clearly indicated that, indeed, the parents can be of great help, because they can touch some aspects that the teachers cannot reach in the lives of the learners. x They, however, also suggested ways in which the parents are supposed to help their children with schoolwork. The study also explored ways how the roles that the parents must play are communicated to the parents. The researcher’s aim was to explore the teachers’ expectations of parental involvement, and also possible ways in which it can be communicated to the parents.Recommendations were made to the policymakers to refer to when they draw up policies for the governance of schools. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)

This thesis explores the Predicament of the Learner in an age during which an emergent Participatory Culture supported by networked computers is converging or colliding with a top-down Culture Industry model of education associated with centralised control and traditional learning media. Two case studies explore attempts to use advanced E-learning tools, the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) and Revolution (a multiplayer role-playing game) to mediate learning activities in the digital classroom. Both reveal the shifting locus of agency for managing and regulating learning and identify a need to understand how learners are creatively appropriating a range of digital media to advance self-directed learning agendas. The main study, The Agency of the Learner in the Networked University, develops these insights through a cognitive anthropology, informed by post-Vygotskian theory, focussed on the digitally mediated practices of 16 post-graduate students who enjoyed unrestricted access to the Internet from their study rooms. The findings chapters explore i) learners designing personalised learning environments to support advanced knowledge work; ii) learners creatively appropriating web-based digital tools and resources for course related study and self education; iii) learners cultivating, nurturing and mobilising globally distributed funds of living knowledge; iv) learners breaking away from lifeworld communities and learning with others in online affinity spaces; and v) learners seeking out opportunities to bootstrap themselves towards the actualisation of a projective identity through serious play in virtually figured worlds. In each case, an attempt is made to innovate conceptual tools that can help us to identify and conceptualise the New Media Literacies (conceived of as expert-like digitally mediated practices) required to exploit the full potential of new media as a resource for course related study, independent learning and self-education.

The South African education system has experienced a paradigm shift from content-based education towards an outcomes-based education. The focus of outcomes-based education is a learner-centred approach. The criteria that learners should adhere to at the end of their school career are that they should be productive, successful lifelong learners. To achieve these criteria, learners should be able to maximise their own potential. The world of work requires learners to easily adapt and function effectively in groups and to have the ability to achieve the set criteria. This means that the world of work demands productive, critical, independent learners who are able to express themselves and communicate effectively within social situations. The question that arises is whether learners within the South African context have the ability to create opportunities to claim ownership and take responsibility for their own learning. The focus of this research is therefore on the role of maximising human potential as determined by the need of South African learners to be empowered and well prepared for the demands of the world of work. The literature pertaining to the nature, phenomenon and process of maximising of human potential is briefly examined and the fundamentals are identified. Maximising of human potential is contextualised as a component of the educational phenomenon. An observation study of two classgroups consisting of grade 8 and grade 10 learners respectively from the same school was undertaken in order to identify and determine whether learners within a realistic, diverse school setting are capable of maximising their own potential. Profiles were compiled to underline the socio-economic background of each learner and to serve as a mechanism to indicate and underline diversity in the classroom. Interviews with teachers and learners served as cross-validation of these results. The results revealed that learners from the school were demotivated with regard to maximising their potential. As a qualitative study, the final results indicated trends that may be generalised to similar classrooms. The phenomenon of maximising of human potential is based on the principle of outcomes-based education and should be the focus of learning in every classroom. Guidelines and models for a facilitator training programme in maximising human potential are suggested. The findings of the study indicate that by virtue of the fact that the teaching and learning process is to be approached from a new angle, teachers first need to have a changed perspective or execute a philosophical leap before they are able to maximise the potential of learners in the classroom. Recommendations for the future include, amongst others, that the teacher should be seen as a facilitator of opportunities for learner contributions; that because of the new and exciting demands made on the teacher by this approach, knowledge and expertise regarding maximising of human potential as didactic practice should be made available; that a longitudinal observation study of teachers who received such training, and their pupils, is undertaken as a follow-up study in order to evaluate the results of the training; and that further research is undertaken locally as well as in other countries where the maximising of human potential in language as learning phenomenon is already being practiced. / Dissertation (MEd (Curriculum Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

The importance of a collaborative engagement between parents and teachers in order to enhance learning in the classroom is so great that the two parties seem inseparable. In this study the teachers indicated that they need the assistance of the parents of the learners whom they teach for them to do well. On the other hand, the parents are also keen to lend a helping hand, since it is the future of their children which is at stake. The challenge that emerges from this situation is that, more often, there is a breakdown in communication. The teachers and parents blame each other, especially when the learners do not perform well at the end of a year. The teachers will say the parents did not do anything to help their children with their schoolwork, while the parents will insist that the teachers failed to do their work. It is of utmost importance to stop the blame-game, but rather to seek ways in which both groups can help the learners to do well in the classroom. The teachers need to inform the parents how they (the teachers) expect them to play their part in helping their learners with their schoolwork. Informing parents about their roles and how they may play them is very important, because then the parents will be able to meet the teachers’ expectations, whereby teaching and learning will be facilitated. The ultimate beneficiaries will be the learners, because they will receive education which is well-coordinated by both the teachers and the parents. The collaboration between teachers and the parents will be guided because the kind of parental involvement will be an informed one. The engagement between teachers and parents will yield good results, because in the process they will help each other to find strategies that will assist the learners in the classroom. This study intends to ascertain from the teachers how they expect the parents to help their children with their schoolwork. It seeks to establish what the teachers’ perceptions are regarding parental involvement, that is, what they think it is, and how they think it should be. Two teachers from two primary schools in the Mogalakwena District of Limpopo Province were used in order to collect the data. These teachers clearly indicated that, indeed, the parents can be of great help, because they can touch some aspects that the teachers cannot reach in the lives of the learners. x They, however, also suggested ways in which the parents are supposed to help their children with schoolwork. The study also explored ways how the roles that the parents must play are communicated to the parents. The researcher’s aim was to explore the teachers’ expectations of parental involvement, and also possible ways in which it can be communicated to the parents.Recommendations were made to the policymakers to refer to when they draw up policies for the governance of schools. / Curriculum and Instructional Studies / M. Ed. (Curriculum Studies)