This study focused on peer teaching and learning in preschool children's peer collaborative interactions. The research took place in the naturalistic setting of a preschool classroom at the Virginia Tech Child Development Laboratory, which is a university-based preschool in Blacksburg, Virginia. The children were videotaped in their collaborative interactions and the interactions were analyzed for moments of teaching and learning between the children. The study found that children use a variety of verbal and non-verbal teaching strategies when collaborating with each other. Children's learning from the interactions was exhibited through many forms of modeling, reciprocation, and exchange of ideas. / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to examine special needs teachers´ knowledge about visual scaffolding and their opportunities for supporting teachers in creating an accessible learning environment. Special needs teachers were given questions formulated and connected to how they experience their own professional qualifications when they support other teachers in using visual scaffolding, in what way they think visual scaffolding can be used in order to create an accessible learning enviroment and what sort of visual scaffolding they find recommendable in different learning environments and school subjects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten special needs teachers in Swedish compulsory school. The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed in relation to the research questions. The results showed that special needs teachers recommend that visual scaffolding ought to be used in order to make learning environments accessible by visualizing what pupils are asked to do, how they are supposed to perfom different tasks as well as making words and expressions clear. Using pictures was pointed out as the best support, followed by using symbols, drawings and tangible concrete materials. Further education in visual scaffolding, time for collegial learning, discussions and competent guidance also emerged as critical factors for special needs teachers in their support and guidance to class tecahers.

This study investigated the impact expectancy beliefs had on third through fifth-grade teachers’ instructional teaching practices. These instructional teaching practices included how teachers used their pedagogical content knowledge, specifically their content knowledge for teaching mathematics and formative assessment, to make scaffolding decisions while supporting students in mathematics intervention. The investigation included the analysis of stratified sampling procedures, expectancy beliefs, observations, and self-reported scaffolding ratings. A multiple case study was conducted to understand how four participants, the teachers in the study, expected students to perform in mathematics intervention along with the participants’ pedagogical content knowledge and the impact those beliefs and knowledge had on scaffolding practices. Scaffolding practices highlighted in this study were the teachers’ use of cognitive activation, mathematical discourse, and handling errors productively. Findings suggested that even though teachers demonstrated having content knowledge for teaching mathematics and effective use of formative assessment the teachers still scaffolded just-in-case students might need it during mathematics intervention. The results also suggested that teachers relied upon their expectancy beliefs of students to make scaffolding decisions more than the teachers relied upon their own pedagogical content knowledge. Additionally, this study found that a scaffolding workshop focused on teacher actions may impact the teachers’ self-reported ratings and in turn the teachers’ scaffolding practices. Discussion of the findings in relation to the current literature and their implications was provided. Continued research was suggested to examine how teachers self-rate their scaffolding practices pre- and post-scaffolding workshops and the impact that may have on teachers’ scaffolding practices. These findings add to the research in the field of mathematics education in equitable teaching practices, mathematics intervention, and scaffolding practices.

Challenges in the South African education system arise from inter alia inadequate training, social and environmental problems, parental inefficiency, insufficient professionalism among teachers, as well as negative attitudes of learners. An urgent need exists to establish “a moral underground, an army of volunteers” (Jansen, 2012) who would be willing to provide another chance to “abandoned children” in poorer schools to develop their full potential for a brighter future. To assist learners to achieve a better future, this study focused on teacher-students and to enhance their learning experiences and consequently their teaching performance. By motivating the teacher-students to develop their potential in order to achieve better, they could, in turn, break the barriers of mediocrity in the learners they taught. The aim of this study was to uncover how a social network service (SNS) like Facebook could be used as an academic tool to support and enhance the affective learning experience of open distance teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape. The main research question which guided this study was: How can the affective learning of open distance learning teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape be supported through academic Facebook? The research intervention which elicited data, comprised coaching and scaffolding of the learning content relating to research methodology, as well as guiding the participants to engage with an SNS as a learning technology in an academic environment. The researcher created a support group on Facebook where participants could, at any time, interact with peers and the facilitator. Non-probability purposive sampling selected the participants according to the following criteria: isiXhosa home language speaking teacher-students from the rural areas around Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, enrolled with NWU for a BEd Honours degree, and who owned cellular phones which could connect to the Internet. While 74 teacher-students were invited to participate in the research, only 34 attended some of the coaching and scaffolding sessions, and 22 joined the FaceFunda group page. This qualitative bounded case study was conducted from a postmodern pragmatic view. Data were collected through individual interviews, a focus group interview, text from the FaceFunda group page and the researcher’s reflective diary. The data were analysed with Atlas. ti™. Three patterns emerged which described participants’ affective experiences: (i) emotions while learning with technology, (ii) experiences with technology, and (iii) need for support. In each case, the patterns related to emotions of competence (codes that captured positive and enabling experiences), and emotions of incompetence (codes that captured negative and incapacitating experiences). A secondary analysis of the findings uncovered the guidelines for the academic use of Facebook for rural distance teacher-students. Four themes emerged as guidelines: i) coaching and scaffolding support, (ii) technological support, (iii) peer support, and (iv) communication with the higher education institution. The guidelines highlighted that the affective learning of open distance learning of rural teacher-students in the Eastern Cape can be supported through the academic use of Facebook. ODL teacher-students require support coaching and scaffolding in order to adopt the use of SNSs for academic purposes. Adult learners should be supported to overcome technophobia to enable engagement with learning content. With adequate supportive measures, SNSs can contribute towards positive learning experiences of rural students. / MEd (Learner support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Challenges in the South African education system arise from inter alia inadequate training, social and environmental problems, parental inefficiency, insufficient professionalism among teachers, as well as negative attitudes of learners. An urgent need exists to establish “a moral underground, an army of volunteers” (Jansen, 2012) who would be willing to provide another chance to “abandoned children” in poorer schools to develop their full potential for a brighter future. To assist learners to achieve a better future, this study focused on teacher-students and to enhance their learning experiences and consequently their teaching performance. By motivating the teacher-students to develop their potential in order to achieve better, they could, in turn, break the barriers of mediocrity in the learners they taught. The aim of this study was to uncover how a social network service (SNS) like Facebook could be used as an academic tool to support and enhance the affective learning experience of open distance teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape. The main research question which guided this study was: How can the affective learning of open distance learning teacher-students in the rural Eastern Cape be supported through academic Facebook? The research intervention which elicited data, comprised coaching and scaffolding of the learning content relating to research methodology, as well as guiding the participants to engage with an SNS as a learning technology in an academic environment. The researcher created a support group on Facebook where participants could, at any time, interact with peers and the facilitator. Non-probability purposive sampling selected the participants according to the following criteria: isiXhosa home language speaking teacher-students from the rural areas around Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, enrolled with NWU for a BEd Honours degree, and who owned cellular phones which could connect to the Internet. While 74 teacher-students were invited to participate in the research, only 34 attended some of the coaching and scaffolding sessions, and 22 joined the FaceFunda group page. This qualitative bounded case study was conducted from a postmodern pragmatic view. Data were collected through individual interviews, a focus group interview, text from the FaceFunda group page and the researcher’s reflective diary. The data were analysed with Atlas. ti™. Three patterns emerged which described participants’ affective experiences: (i) emotions while learning with technology, (ii) experiences with technology, and (iii) need for support. In each case, the patterns related to emotions of competence (codes that captured positive and enabling experiences), and emotions of incompetence (codes that captured negative and incapacitating experiences). A secondary analysis of the findings uncovered the guidelines for the academic use of Facebook for rural distance teacher-students. Four themes emerged as guidelines: i) coaching and scaffolding support, (ii) technological support, (iii) peer support, and (iv) communication with the higher education institution. The guidelines highlighted that the affective learning of open distance learning of rural teacher-students in the Eastern Cape can be supported through the academic use of Facebook. ODL teacher-students require support coaching and scaffolding in order to adopt the use of SNSs for academic purposes. Adult learners should be supported to overcome technophobia to enable engagement with learning content. With adequate supportive measures, SNSs can contribute towards positive learning experiences of rural students. / MEd (Learner support), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

The purpose of the research was to determine how educators could be motivated to implement internet technology in education. The literature study highlighted the need for e-learning while suggesting that educator support would not be achieved easily. The empirical study, however, revealed that at the international school examined, educators accept internet learning and demonstrate a willingness to introduce it into their pedagogy, were a blended approach to be adopted. Technological and psychological barriers had already been breached, as e-learning was taking place in a non-threatening environment. Educators were being empowered to experiment with e-learning in their subject areas. The study revealed that, having already embraced e-learning methodology educators would continue to do so if they could clearly perceive the benefits to be achieved. The study also showed that given a technologically nurturing environment, it would not be difficult to motivate educators to introduce internet technology into their pedagogy. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Adult Education)

This thesis investigates how various text-talks, i.e. text-focused classroom discussions, may scaffold students’ reading of specialised texts in upper secondary school. The study consists of qualitative case studies based on classroom observations of two teachers’ History instruction, focusing on parts defined as text-talks. An intervention study was conducted where one teacher worked with two text-talk approaches. The research questions regard how students move in relation to the text in the text-talks and how text content is incorporated, what scaffolding structures emerge, and whether and how the text-talks differ. A secondary aim is to generate theories concerning the potentials and limitations of text-talk as a reading scaffold. Analyses were done in terms of text movability to show reading positions, intertextual cohesion to show relations between source text and text-talk, and scaffolding which includes peer scaffolding, teacher scaffolding and the text-talks as a scaffold per se. A methodological contribution is the development of a model for content-based analyses of authentic text-talks. The results show that in text-talks that work as a scaffold, students take the expected positions toward the text, and the talks are clearly related to the source text, by means of lexical and conjunctive cohesion that is often varied and built-out. For more demanding texts, the students show dynamic text movability and move between exploring contents, subject field and context. Other characteristics are either peer scaffolding showing dialogicity and negotiation of meaning, or teacher scaffolding enabling students to progress and develop tools for text reception. The intervention approaches seem to scaffold reading to a greater extent than text-talks within ordinary instruction where the framing is weak. In conclusion, the results suggest that both student- and teacher-led text-talks may scaffold reading, but they need to be well planned and prepared with a structured framing.

The aim of the research was to develop a training course that inculcated infonnation literacy that could be implemented by staff at the University of Dar es Salaam library (Tanzania), in order to provide students with appropriate infonnation literacy skills to meet their educational goals. The course was developed from an integration of knowledge from infonnation behaviour research and educational theory with current perspectives of infonnation literacy from Infonnation and Library Science (ILS). The ultimate goal of the research was to create a framework that would be used by public university libraries in Tanzania to teach infonnation literacy courses. The study was carried out in two parts. In the first implementation "pilot" programme, the course was tested by involving librarians who took the entire course, in order to see whether the same course structure could be used to implement to the Masters of Education students. Following adaptations made on the first course, a second course programme was implemented to Masters of Education students by two librarians who attended the first implementation "pilot" programme. Therefore, the success of the course was partly judged on whether it effectively enabled knowledge transfer from the librarians to students. Data collection methods were predominantly qualitative, although quantitative methods in tenns of diagnostic tests were also used. The tests were used to evaluate trainees' knowledge ofinfonnation literacy before and after the course to provide an indication of changes in knowledge. Qualitative methods used included semistructured interviews with librarians and academic staff at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in order to make sure that assumptions made about students' knowledge of infonnation literacy and the kind of problems experienced by students were correct. Other methods included quizzes, exercises, group reflection and presentations that related to each stage in the course. These methods served to indicate trainees' understanding of what was taught, reflections on the leaming process and provided feedback for improvements on the course. The major findings showed that there was a recognized need for infonnation literacy and that problems such as unfamiliarity with categories of infonnation sources, analysis, synthesis, evaluation and use, were experienced in Tanzania as was the case in other "Western" countries. In addition, librarians were able to transfer skills learned to students, who in turn used the same course materials to teach fellow students who did not participate in the course. Furthermore, the design of the course was facilitated by the integration of Information and library science (ILS) approaches to information literacy with the knowledge of information behaviour and pedagogic theory. The thesis provides recommendations for the library and information curricula to introduce information literacy, teaching information literacy in a holistic way and with librarians participating in teaching and research. In addition, the study recommended that librarians should facilitate the development of information literacy in primary and secondary schools.

“Doing gives birth to ideas”. From ideas to composition: a study of composition processes in higher music education. Recent technological developments have challenged the historical methods of composing music for acoustical instruments using traditional scores. However, composers in the Western art music traditionstill continue to use them when they explore the realm of sounds intraditional instruments and possible ways to communicate their intentions. The aim of the present study is to describe the development process in the composition of score-based music intended to be performed by a mixed ensemble of wind, string and percussion instruments. Three composer students from an undergraduate program in Western art music composition each participated during two semesters in the data collection. The data consists of a series of composition sketches, qualitative interviews, voice logs, music recordings and observations of rehearsals and concerts. The analysis focused on shedding light on the participants’ ways of developing the content as the processes of composition unfold. The main methods of analysis were to compare different versions of the same composition and, on the basis of this comparison, to ask analytical questions of the participants. A result common to the three participants, is the conclusion that they start with rudimentary structures and gradually elaborate them so that they become more detailed and sophisticated, for example, more varied in instrumentation. This elaboration is supported by the use of written notes – scaffolds – that guide the development of the structure in different directions. Seven types of scaffolds, that represent different strategies to formulate and solve compositional problems, were found in the empirical data. The study contributes to wider understanding of the importance of making handwritten sketches throughout the process of developing musical ideas. Despite recent technological developments, there is evidence that hand-sketching still serves as an intuitive tool for meaningmaking, in combination with other tools such as acoustical instruments and new music technology.

International students are often under considerable pressure from language barriers, culture shock, social isolation and lack of social support in American universities. Those stressors often discourage international students as ESL learners from practicing English with native students on campus. Based on Krashen & Terrell’s subconscious acquisition and conscious learning hypothesis, Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development , Cummins’ Basic Interpersonal Communication System (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), Horwitz’s language anxiety and Oxford’s indirect learning strategies , this study explores how international students and American students, respectively, perceive English Corner and whether English Corner could be an applicable out-of-class learning environment for international students to practice English and socialize with American students on American campuses. English Corner refers to regular meetings that English learners in Mainland China voluntarily organize in public places to practice spoken English. A survey was conducted on language learning strategies, socialization, acculturation, autonomy and English Corner among international students and native students at the University of North Texas. The questionnaires were adapted from Oxford and Nyikos’ study as to what variables affect choice of language learning strategies, Iheanacho’s study as to how international students use the Morris Library at the University of Delaware and their perception of library services and programs, and Battle’s study as to how information literacy instruction affects library anxiety among international students. The findings of this study may help American universities realize the importance of English Corner as one optimal intervention program for international students and American students. The support for English Corner may help international students improve their English learning, alleviate their language anxiety and create more opportunities for international students and native students to socialize with each other.