Thesis (M.Ed. (Education)) - Rhodes University, 2007. / "Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education" - T.p.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Iowa, 2009. / Thesis supervisor: Linda G. Fielding. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 228-238).

Primary teachers are constantly required to make changes in their teaching practice. This thesis reports on a year in the professional life of two experienced primary school teachers as they engage in implementing a new science program called Primary Investigations (Australian Academy of Science, 1994). The study examined the issues that arose as the two adapted the strategies and philosophies of the new program into their pre-existing pedagogical frameworks. The study used qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. Over ten months of participant observation several stories or narrative vignettes were created to highlight the major issues faced by the two teachers. These stories were then analysed to identify several propositions about curriculum implementation and primary science. The narrative vignettes provide descriptive accounts around several implementation issues. The two teachers experienced some problems with the supply of equipment to support their teaching and lacked the subject knowledge to identify when the equipment was inadequate. The teachers had high expectations of the teachers' resource book but a lack of science content knowledge hindered their ability to use the document with confidence. While the teachers believed that science is important for children they lacked the confidence and questioning skill to engage the students in 'science talk'. 10 teachers were able to transfer pedagogical knowledge from other disciplines 0 overcome some of the dilemmas they faced in science lessons. Both teachers displayed a strong 'ethic of care’ for the children in their class that covered gaining knowledge, behaviour towards others and safety during science lessons. / There was evidence that the past experience of both teachers in their childhood and educational years had been influential in their beliefs about their interest and ability to teach science. The two teachers' personal and professional lives interacted in complex ways as they adjusted to the demands of the school year and the impact of implementing the new science program. Finally the two teachers lacked certainty in science teaching - they experienced epistemological confusion in their understanding of the nature of science. These issues lead to several implications for primary teachers of science, teacher educators, school leaders and curriculum developers.

No description available.

This study is concerned with understanding the complexities inherent in the mentoring process. It investigates understandings of mentoring primary education student teachers within a school placement context. Further, it explores understandings and perceptions of the use of formative assessment principles and practices to support professional learning within that process. In addition, it aims to identify salient implications for mentoring practices within Initial Teacher Education. Within an instrumental, collective case study, a purposeful sampling strategy was employed in terms of selecting student teachers at a particular stage on a specific programme (an undergraduate primary education degree), their class teacher mentors, and their placement school management level and local authority mentors. Semi-structured interviews were used alongside a constructivist grounded theory approach to data analysis and theory generation (Charmaz, 2006). Current Scottish education policy is used to frame and exemplify points made with a variety of national and international literature employed to analyse findings and suggest recommendations for future mentoring research, policy and practice. Findings indicate that participants understood mentoring as a multidimensional process involving a range of relationships designed to support the mentoring of student teachers within a school placement context. Four relationships, which differ in terms of extent and form/function, are evident: class teacher mentor/mentee; school management mentor/class teacher mentor/mentee; school/university and local authority/school. These relationships appear to range in proximity from close to barely existent. The key relationship is that between class teacher mentor and mentee. Findings further suggest variability in understandings of formative assessment. Most participants were comfortable in describing its forms through examples of classroom practice. However, talking about function (why it is used) was an area of uncertainty. Participants also understood formative and summative assessment as connected processes. Several professional learning sources were cited as the bases of their understandings. With regard to perceptions of the use of formative assessment, findings suggest that it was used within the main mentoring relationship between class teacher mentors and mentees. Responses indicate that it was employed subconsciously in contrast to the structured, explicit way it is used with school pupils. Furthermore, participants viewed it as potentially helpful in the professional learning of mentors and mentees through strategies such as dialogue, self-evaluation and peer assessment. It was noted that support was required to develop the use of formative assessment within the mentoring process. In this respect, participants were able to articulate how it might be implemented with reference to specific professional learning mechanisms, however, were unsure about what its content might be. Based on findings, recommendations for policy and practice in the area of mentor education and partnership within Scottish Initial Teacher Education are suggested to foster a more cohesive, informed approach to mentoring student teachers. Future directions for research emerge in terms of the use of a variety of mentors from within and outwith school placement contexts, investigation of the role of the university tutor within emerging enhanced partnership arrangements, and an exploration of how formative assessment might be more consciously integrated into the mentoring process.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Education, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION in the Department of Educational Planning and Administration at the University of Zululand, 1989. / This dissertation sets out to investigate the relevance and the effectiveness of the Primary Teachers' Diploma (PTD) Music Syllabi. The Main focus is the KwaZulu and Natal Colleges of Education that offer PTD. Chapter 1 outlines the background to the research study, and discusses the role played by Music in both rural and urban Black communities. This chapter also summarises the musical needs of black communities. Chapter 2 reviews the literature that deals with the teaching of Music in schools. This literature is then compared and contrasted with the prescribed Music syllabi of the South African Black schools and colleges. Chapter 3 describes and discusses the interviews, questionnaires and observation (Triangulation) that are used to investigate the relevance and effectiveness of the PTD Music Syllabi. Chapter 4 presented the findings that are concluded in chapter 5. The prescribed PTD Music syllabi are found to be generally relevant but ineffective. The ineffectiveness is attributed to factors such as poor musical background of music students, inadequately trained music teachers, amount of allocated time, and a shortage of music equipment. The researcher recommends that Music teachers should be in-serviced and be helped to improve their music knowledge and qualifications. A balance is to be brought about between the allocated amount of work and time. Secondary schools are to try and offer Music as a subject.

Following the entry of Cyprus into the European Union in 2004 and based on the philosophy which underpins the language policy in Europe, the island has been investing heavily in early foreign language learning. However, despite improvements in English language learning in primary state schools, no significant changes have been evident as regards the preparation of English teachers at this level. In conducting this research, my primary intention was to offer prospective and practising primary teachers a “voice” to express their own views regarding the content and teaching approach of a potential ELT module within teacher education curricula. The research adopted a mixed-method sequential approach carried out in two phases between March and July 2010. Data were initially obtained from 296 in-service primary teachers and 124 student teachers through a questionnaire-based survey. Data obtained in the second phase through individual and focus group interviews with 9 in-service-teachers and 11 student teachers respectively were used to explain, interpret and further examine the findings of the survey. The findings have highlighted the importance of theory and practice, showing evidence that both are necessary in order to avoid fragmented language teaching. The study suggests, therefore, that providing student teachers with meaningful opportunities to form links between the taught theory and its practical application is a fundamental basis for a more holistic teacher approach to teacher education. This study has also provided evidence that participants view learning as a process embedded in a social context, within which knowledge is constructed through collaborative, awareness-raising tasks set by mentors whose mediating roles in the creation of desirable learning contexts is perceived to be crucial. Although the findings of this research directly concern the Cypriot situation, they are likely to have broader applicability beyond Cyprus, especially in countries where early foreign language learning forms part of their educational agenda. Developing primary teachers’ language teaching knowledge and skills while considering the various types of support they receive during their pre-service education form part of a wider endeavour to ensure quality in early foreign language learning, an objective set by the European Union.

This thesis details research on the first phase of curriculum reform (1999–2004) in a government primary school in Western Australia. The purpose of the study was to examine what progress had been made with the implementation of the Curriculum Framework (1998). The research focussed on Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other than English as specialist teachers working with the Curriculum Framework (1998). Teachers and school administrators, as frontline practitioners, considered their experiences and perceptions of daily practice and provided their perspectives on curriculum reform. The hypothesis formulated for the study was that with the introduction of the Curriculum Framework (1998) the delivery of these three subjects could be further improved. This study argues that successful curriculum performance of these three subjects traditionally considered “specialist programs” may be more fully supported by becoming aware of the forces influencing Australian curriculum discourse and delivery. Subject knowledge endorsement in this study refers to the transfer of valued knowledge in Western Australian educational systems. It is proposed that if teaching professionals articulated the substance of their educational beliefs and experiences with regard to subject knowledge meaning, place and value, curriculum delivery in primary schools may progress more effectively. Positive learning experiences for all students can be provided through the encouragement of communication and collegiality together with relevant and accessible professional development. These measures can also be supported by mounting whole-school primary programs that engage with beliefs about Music, Health and Physical Education, and Languages Other Than English through collaborative networks and learning communities. Accordingly, curriculum delivery can come within reach of the seamless curriculum anticipated by reform (Curriculum Framework, 1998:6–7). In this qualitative interview study, the frontline participants included generalist teachers, specialist teachers and school administrators. These educational practitioners were asked to participate in an in-depth, semi-structured discussion that explored their perceptions of specialist teaching and knowledge while employed at Deep Sea Primary School in 2002. They teachers also commented on how these perceptions may be linked to their experiences of socially constructed and established notions of valued knowledge. The findings of this study indicated that the progressive implementation of these three subjects or specialist’s areas were characterised by subtle historical, economic, political and social forces. This thesis suggests that, these largely obscured external forces together with individual yet, taken for granted perceptions of what is perceived as valuable knowledge work together to position curriculum rhetoric and curriculum enactment that reflect established perceptions of the knowledge hierarchy. Teachers and administrators at the school often operated within the structures and meanings of conventional teaching practice of subject knowledge as determined by dominant culture in Australia. The findings indicated that school culture in a time of reform re-traditionalised hierarchical patterns of subject knowledge organisation and evaluation. Accordingly, current subject knowledge endorsement in terms of specialist teaching often worked to the benefit of established power relationships typical of post-industrial market economy in Australia. The findings also indicated that issues pertaining to curriculum prioritisation were influenced by institutional, group and individual experiences of subject specialist knowledge. Poor perceptions of these three subjects could also be generated by experiencing inflexible and inadequate yet established funding and resource patterns in educational systems. Frontline teachers, their school-based roles and responsibilities attached to the teaching and learning of the three specialist areas were typified by rigid school organisation and job structures together with condensed teaching time and community backing. This thesis argues that progressive, outcomes education requires an articulate and supportive school culture, more funding and the genuine maintenance of quality Music, Health and Physical Education and Language Other Than English teachers. In addition, curriculum implementation would benefit from the promotion of constructivist-orientated student activities within specialist programs.

The purpose of this study is to provide a compiled list of Louisiana primary motion pictures and their locations for the Louisiana primary teachers.

Internationally the contribution that teachers’ learning can make in bringing about change in education, by improving outcomes for young people, is a topic of ongoing interest. Influenced by discourses of professionalism, in Scotland education policy has developed over time to support and structure teacher learning throughout the teaching career. However, the lived experience of being a teacher is a socially constructed act located in multiple realities. Policy in action may, or may not, reflect the intentions of policy makers. Within the context of Primary Education, in which 92% of teachers are women, this qualitative study explores women Primary Teachers’ experiences and understandings of professional learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 women Primary Teachers and 12 opinion shapers. Critical analysis of relevant educational policy also took place in order to explore dominant policy discourses. A Grounded Theory approach was adapted for data analysis and theory construction. Sensitised by thinking tools provided by feminist theory and Bourdieu, the findings suggest early schooling plays an important part in shaping experiences and understandings of learning. Moreover, gender matters in understanding women Primary Teachers’ experiences and understandings of learning. Early gendered learning identities seemed to notably influence how learning was negotiated and enacted later as a woman, as a teacher and thus as a professional. The woman teacher participants in this study were theorised as Caring Teachers. However, Caring Teachers is not a homogenous construct as the women performed as Nice women, as Confident women, as Kind women and as Authoritative women. Influenced by early schooling and a desire to be ‘good teachers’, the Nice and the Kind women produced themselves within traditional discourses of femininity, of compliance and subordination. This performance of a teacher was vulnerable to policy demands as, despite the rhetoric of professionalism, education policy constructs Class Teachers as technicians. In contrast, the Confident and Authoritative women, more likely to be Chartered Teachers, produced themselves somewhat differently. Their habitus predisposed them to perform as a learner with some confidence. However, although the Confident women and Authoritative women understood and enacted teacher learning differently, their learning too was constrained by the limitations of policy-sanctioned discourses. Informed by the findings of this small-scale study, I argue that teacher learning is subject to complex, interwoven understandings of woman, of learner and of teacher as professional. Attention, therefore, should be given to the interrelated nature of the aforementioned constructs as Women Primary teachers’ learning and professionalism has played, and will continue to play, an important role in shaping the outcomes available to children.