Information and communication technology (ICT) has infiltrated society to the point of becoming essential to much of its everyday functioning. People rely on ICT to communicate, access information, and stay connected in an increasing globalised community. In many developed countries, ICT is now strongly featured in education for teaching and learning. In South Africa, as in other developing or partly developed countries, ICT use in education remains limited. This research was conducted to explore and understand how those South African science teachers who have access to ICT use it when they teach science. It was done to explain some of the reasons those teachers use ICT in the ways that they do, and to gain a better insight into the value that using ICT adds to both teaching and learning science. The research was designed as a mixed methods study, using both quantitative data collected from 267 Grade 8 science teachers in South Africa through the SITES 2006 teacher questionnaire, and qualitative data collected from three science teachers, all of whom taught science in a context of limited resources typical of a developing country. The data collected and analysed in this study showed that when science teachers have access to ICT for teaching and learning in classrooms typical of developing country contexts, they are able to use that ICT effectively to add value to teaching and learning. The greatest value is added when the teacher has a high technological pedagogical content knowledge. Secondly, at the level of the teacher, personal entrepreneurship is a key factor in a teacher’s ability to use ICT to add value to teaching and learning and to support the educational objectives based on 21st century learning objectives. Thirdly, teachers use the available ICT resources in a variety of ways but it seems that access to a personal computer, either laptop or desktop, in the classroom is a minimum requirement for ICT use in subject teaching. And lastly, the gap between ICT policy intentions as outlined in the South African e-Education White Paper (DoE, 2004b) and ICT practice remains large. There was no evidence from this study to suggest that the ICT policy intentions influenced practice at classroom level. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Jacqueline D. Spears / There is a growing concern that the number of students graduating with a STEM major in the U.S. is insufficient to fill the growing demand in STEM careers.  In order to fulfill that demand, it is important to increase student retention in STEM majors and also to attract more students to pursue careers in those areas.  Previous research has indicated that children start losing interest in science at the elementary level because science is taught with a focus on learning vocabulary and ideas rather than learning through inquiry-based techniques.  A factor that affects the quality of science education at the elementary level is the preparation of elementary teachers. Many elementary teachers feel unprepared to teach science because they lack adequate content knowledge as well as the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the subject.  Previous studies of teacher preparation in science identified some areas with which pre-service teachers need assistance.  One of these areas is understanding children’s ideas of science. To address that issue, this dissertation investigates whether the use of an instructional approach that teaches physics phenomena along with an understanding of how children think about the physical phenomena promotes changes in students’ knowledge of children’s ideas and use of those ideas in instructional and assessment strategies.  Results indicated that students who were explicitly exposed to knowledge of children’s ideas more often incorporated those ideas into their own microteaching and demonstrated higher levels of sophistication of knowledge of children’s ideas, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies that incorporated those ideas.  This research explores an instructional model for blending physics content and pedagogical content knowledge.

Because of the highly complex expectations of new nursing graduates "nursing education needs teachers with a deep nursing knowledge who also know how to teach and conduct research...in order to address the specific educational demands of teaching the complex practice of nursing" (Benner, Sutphen, Leonard, & Day, 2010, p. 6). Currently, the educational requirement for a nurse educator in a university setting is a doctoral degree, preferably a PhD. However, Cronon(2006) emphasized that "many PhD recipients are ill prepared to function effectively in the settings in which they work...particularly those related to teaching" (p. 5). The purpose of this study was to document the perceptions of experienced nurse educators both prepared, and currently preparing at the doctoral (PhD) level, to understand to what extent PhD work prepared them for their role in the delivery of nursing education. A case study approach was selected, using a constructivist paradigm. Data were collected from ten participants at three sites of a university school of nursing using three semi-structured interviews. Primary data were supplemented by institutional foundation documents and a field journal. Four themes emerged from the data as follows: the ambiguities associated with the interpretation of the term nurse educator influenced how a nurse educator described their role; doctoral (PhD) education enhanced approaches to thinking in relation to increased breadth and depth of knowledge base, in addition to research capabilities; the PhD credential was found to be indicative of research credibility both within and across the disciplines and enhanced the potential for funding opportunities; and doctoral (PhD) education did not support the pedagogical aspects, specifically formal teaching preparation, of the nurse educator's role. While this study provided insight in understanding how doctoral (PhD) education supported experienced nurse educators in their roles, it identified issues that impacted on how these nurse educators enacted their roles. These issues included both a disconnection and a perceived inequality between research and teaching, in addition to a marked variation in the interpretation of the scholarship of teaching. Among the implications of this study on theory are its contributions to understanding the experiences of nurse educators in relation to their doctoral (PhD) education as supporting their roles in the delivery of nursing education. Among the implications of this study for research is the need to investigate how doctoral (PhD) education could better support the pedagogical aspect of nurse educators' roles, or whether other doctoral (EdD) education might be more effective in providing this pedagogical foundational knowledge. Additional implications of this study for research are to identify ways in which thinking, research, and practice could function collectively, rather than as separate entities. Among the implications for practice are a greater understanding of the teacher-scholar model in relation to the components of discovery, integration, application, and teaching (Boyer, 1990), and how learning organizations and communities of knowledge could facilitate this deeper understanding.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction / Jacqueline D. Spears / There is a growing concern that the number of students graduating with a STEM major in the U.S. is insufficient to fill the growing demand in STEM careers.  In order to fulfill that demand, it is important to increase student retention in STEM majors and also to attract more students to pursue careers in those areas.  Previous research has indicated that children start losing interest in science at the elementary level because science is taught with a focus on learning vocabulary and ideas rather than learning through inquiry-based techniques.  A factor that affects the quality of science education at the elementary level is the preparation of elementary teachers. Many elementary teachers feel unprepared to teach science because they lack adequate content knowledge as well as the pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for teaching the subject.  Previous studies of teacher preparation in science identified some areas with which pre-service teachers need assistance.  One of these areas is understanding children’s ideas of science. To address that issue, this dissertation investigates whether the use of an instructional approach that teaches physics phenomena along with an understanding of how children think about the physical phenomena promotes changes in students’ knowledge of children’s ideas and use of those ideas in instructional and assessment strategies.  Results indicated that students who were explicitly exposed to knowledge of children’s ideas more often incorporated those ideas into their own microteaching and demonstrated higher levels of sophistication of knowledge of children’s ideas, instructional strategies, and assessment strategies that incorporated those ideas.  This research explores an instructional model for blending physics content and pedagogical content knowledge.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in partial fulfilment of the award of Master of Science (M.Sc) in Science Education. 6 November 2017. / The gap between theory and practice in education remains a persistent problem identified by some researchers as today’s “Achilles heel of teacher education”. The experience in science education is no different. Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as a theoretical construct that offers science education practitioners a framework to bridge the theory-practice divide because of its ability to transform content knowledge. However, little is known about how the complexity of classroom practice influences PCK acquired by pre-service teachers from structured courses. The purpose of this study was to illuminate pre-service teachers’ PCK as it develops from a point of reasoning about teaching a specific topic into classroom delivery. This study was performed as a qualitative case study of 23 final year pre-service science teachers. It was located in a methodology class that had a specific objective to develop PCK in core topics of science. The students were exposed to an explict intervention on developing PCK in teaching stochiometry then placed in various High Schools around Johannesburg during teaching experience. Data collected was largely during their placement in schools. It consisted of qualitative data such as lesson plans, audio recordings of classroom teaching and self - analysis reports submitted after the teaching experience. Analysis was based on a qualitative in-depth method for identification of evidence of teaching segments illustrating pedagogical transformation. These are segments where there is evidence of two or more topic specific components of PCK defined as Topic Specific Content Knowledge (TSPCK). These were called TSPCK episodes. The TSPCK episodes identified in lessons plans and in recorded lessons were analysed for identificaton of components present and the nature of interactions. These were turned into pictorial TSPCK MAPS. The analysis of pre-service teachers’ views on TSPCK were analysed through a combination of open statements and a science teacher belief tool. The findings indicated that TSPCK episodes identified in lessons plans experience an authentic expansion, blossoming into a cluster of episodes which still carried out the original intention. In some cases the intention could be seen through a similar TSPCK episode in some cases the component sequence and identity had changed. Furthermore, pre-service teachers showed positive awareness of their own level of teacher development and credited their development to the TSPCK framework. Recommendations in this report include promotion of the implementation of the TSPCK framework in Initial Teacher Education, particularly in the methodology courses with reference to classroom complexity. / LG2018

Malawian physical science teachers (PSTs) perceive nuclear physics to be the most difficult physics topic. This study investigated: reasons PSTs would give for this perception, teaching strategies that some PSTs would use to address learning difficulties in nuclear physics, reasons the teachers would give for using certain strategies and nature of the PSTs’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in nuclear physics. Assumptions of the interpretivist paradigm and the theoretical framework of PCK guided the data collection, organisation and analysis processes. Thirty teachers completed a questionnaire, which enabled me to identify PSTs who chose nuclear physics as the most difficult, difficult aspects of nuclear physics and reasons those aspects are difficult. Stratified purposive sampling was then used to choose four case teachers. I observed two lessons on nuclear physics for each case teacher by video recording them. I interviewed each case teacher before and after both lessons. I also interviewed a group of students after each lesson. Video recordings were discussed with the respective teachers. Some documents were collected. All interviews and video recordings were transcribed into text, coded using Atlas.ti 5.2 and analysed inductively. Content analysis was used with documents. Some learning difficulties surface during lessons and they mainly related to student conceptions, nature of concepts and mathematical manipulations. The case teachers could not anticipate most of them, irrespective of qualification. It would seem the teachers were hardly aware of lesson-specific difficulties. The case teachers used combinations of strategies that focused on transmission of information. The teachers hardly probed student thinking. Reasons given for strategies adopted revealed that qualified teachers emphasised only content while the under-qualified ones also emphasised pedagogy. iv Also qualified case teachers ascertained student understanding more frequently than the less qualified ones. Also one of the qualified teachers was able to articulate main ideas of the lessons, while the other three could hardly do so. I conclude that teachers with similar characteristics as those studied here need assistance to develop the following aspects of PCK in nuclear physics: awareness of learning difficulties, use of strategies that are based on student thinking and ability to articulate main ideas.

No description available.

Este trabalho é voltado para o estudo do desenvolvimento do Conhecimento Pedagógico do Conteúdo (PCK) de duas professoras no ensino de Ciências para crianças do 3º ano do Ensino Fundamental a partir de uma intervenção formativa sobre argumentação. Olhamos para a gravação de duas sequências de aulas realizadas em uma escola privada situada na cidade de São Caetano do Sul, região metropolitana de São Paulo. As professoras receberam o nome fictício de Ana e Sara e participaram, no ano de 2012, na unidade de trabalho, de um curso sobre argumentação. No início dessa formação, uma sequência de aulas com seus alunos sobre o tópico ciclo da água foi registrada em áudio e vídeo. No ano de 2015 uma segunda sequência de aulas foi gravada com alunos do mesmo ano escolar ensinando o mesmo tópico. Nossos objetivos foram, conhecer a formação inicial e a trajetória docente das professoras, analisar se a formação a que foram submetidas agregou elementos que pudessem subsidiá-las na implementação da argumentação em suas aulas e acessar o PCK das professoras para o tópico ciclo da água. Para analisar o desenvolvimento do PCK das professoras nos pautamos no Modelo proposto por Padilla. As principais conclusões foram: o conhecimento do conteúdo tem forte influência no PCK e; a formação que as professoras participaram reverberou em suas práticas docentes. Apontamos como contribuições mais importantes em suas aulas, o aumento da voz e da autonomia intelectual dos alunos. Contudo, quando olhamos para as duas sequências de aulas percebemos que a formação não foi condição suficiente para que abandonassem o formato das aulas que estavam habituadas e passassem a propor aos alunos o ensino numa perspectiva da argumentação. / The aim of this work is to study the development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) of two elementary school science teachers at K-3 level from an educational intervention on argumentation. We looked at the recording of two sequences of classes held at a private school located in the city of São Caetano do Sul, metropolitan region of São Paulo. The teachers were given the fictitious name of Ana and Sara and participated of a course on argumentation in the year 2012, in the unit of work. At the beginning of this training, a sequence of classes with their students on the topic water cycle was recorded in audio and video. In the year of 2015 a second sequence of classes teaching the same topic was recorded with students of the same level. Our objectives were to know about initial education and the teaching trajectory of the teachers, to analyze if the training to which they were submitted added elements that could subsidize them in the implementation of the argumentation in their classes and to access the PCK of the teachers for the topic water cycle. In order to analyze the development of the PCK of the teachers we based on the Model proposed by Padilla. The main conclusions were that content knowledge has a strong influence on PCK and the training they participated reverberated in their teaching practices. We point out as the most important contributions in their classes, the increasing of the voice and the intellectual autonomy of students. However, when we looked at the two learning sequences we realized that the training was not enough condition for them to abandon the format of the classes they were using to and to propose to the students the teaching from an argumentative perspective.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Science, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2015. / Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) is a knowledge base for teaching that has been shown to be topic-specific. PCK in a particular science topic enables a teacher to pedagogically transform Content Knowledge (CK) to teach that topic. This ability to transform CK for teaching purposes is a version of PCK recognised as Topic-Specific Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TSPCK). TSPCK, like PCK, is not transferable, thus we cannot assume that good pedagogical transformations observed in one topic can be consequently observed in another. In addition it has been shown that the PCK knowledge base for teaching is tacit in nature. This means that most teachers with such a knowledge base are not aware of it explicitly, or how they develop it. The purpose of the study was to explore the mechanism which pre-service teachers used to apply learnt reasoning to transform CK in a new topic.

This study examined teacher pedagogical content knowledge changes through a Middle School Mathematics Program professional development workshop, development of noticing use of student representations, and teacher changes in hypothetical learning trajectories due to noticed aspects of student representation corresponding to the hypothetical learning trajectory model. Using constant comparatives and repertory grid analysis, data was collected in two phases. Phase one, the teacher pre-test, occurred at the beginning of the summer of the 2003 professional development workshop. Phase two, the teacher post-test, occurred at the end of the workshop. Twenty-four teachers supplied data on pre- and post-tests during phases one and two. Eleven teachers were from Texas and 13 from Delaware. Six Texas and eight Delaware teachers worked with the algebraic expression concepts. Five Texas and five Delaware teachers worked with the equivalent fraction concepts. Four mathematics education researchers from Texas, three from Delaware, and two from the American Association for the Advancement of Science participated in facilitating the professional development. The results show that teacher pedagogical content knowledge changes with the help of a professional development partnership. The differences in knowledge can be measured with a hierarchal cluster analysis of the repertory grid by analyzing relationships between constructs and elements. Teacher hypothetical learning trajectories change depending on student representations of what they do and do not know about concepts. The study encourages teachers to use knowledge of students’ representation about a concept to determine what to teach next and how the concept should be taught. Teachers should use different types of representations including formal, imagistic, and action representations in teaching mathematical ideas. This will promote student development in all process standards including reasoning and proof, communication, problem solving, and connection. The findings suggest that teacher pedagogical content knowledge can be redefined during professional development partnerships. Furthermore, teachers’ knowledge of representation is varied and emphasis on the imagistic representation should be explored further. Finally, professional development models that facilitate how to extract what a student does and does not know based on representation, can be the basis for defining hypothetical learning trajectories.