Not available / text

Not available / text

Not available / text

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the dilemmas pre-service science teachers encounter in relation to their participation in a project which sought to establish a constructivist and collaborative model of teaching and learning. I also explored the strategies the pre-service teachers implemented to manage the dilemmas they encountered, as well as how they perceived those dilemmas to have influenced their teaching practice and their personal philosophies of teaching and learning (PPoTaL). Since the construct of voice was an important factor in this study, I used a research method that I refer to as intercontext. This method has three major components: stimulated linkage, reflexivity and the dialectical conversation. To enact this research method, I conducted five interviews with each of the six pre-service teachers over the 12-month period of their professional preparation. In addition, I had many informal conversations with them and observed them several times during their university and school practicum experiences. I argued that social constructivism provides a fruitful theoretical framework to interpret the results of this study, because this orientation to teaching and learning is based on the notion that knowledge is socially constructed and mediated by.cultural, historical and institutional codes. In this light, three broad dilemmas were identified in relation to the students' experiences with the teacher education program's course content and design and six dilemmas were identified in relation to the roles the participants felt they needed to perform during their school practicum. The variety of dilemmas the pre-service teachers encountered and the direct and indirect strategies they implemented to manage those dilemmas could be explained in terms of two overarching issues. The first had to do with the difficulties associated with bridging the theory and practice of learning to teach in two distinct communities of practice (i.e., in the university and the school communities). The second general factor had to do with the type of relationship the pre-service teachers established with their school advisor(s) or/and faculty advisor; that is, from the the students' point of view they wondered to what extent they could trust their advisors to allow them to take the risks associated with asking questions, trying innovative approaches in the classroom, and exploring their own teaching identity without any of these reflecting negatively in their final evaluation reports. Finally, a number of suggestions for practice and further research are provided.

Cooperative learning (CL) research has gone through a series of phases representing different orientations of research. This inquiry uses action-research as a way of implementing cooperative learning in a pre-service science course. Cooperative learning was regarded as an innovation in the context of this inquiry. The evidence of the inquiry was in the form of texts from sources including classroom observation, student reflective notes, the research diary and interviews, among others. The qualitative analysis involved the writing of descriptive-interpretive reports which were used in a process of data reduction to formulate analytic theme reports. Propositions were developed from these reports. Some recommendations emanated from these propositions. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1997.

Studies by different academics (Marsh 1997; Allen 2004; Dunn 2006; Austin, 2010 & Stears & Gopal, 2010) reveal that outcomes and assessment strategies cannot be divorced. Outcomes and assessment strategies are meant for various purposes in education, ranging from establishing the starting point, to monitoring and evaluation of the outputs of what have been planned for the lesson. The study investigates the experiences and practices of Form Three integrated science teachers with regard to the outcomes and assessment strategies. The motivation behind this study is related to the problem that teachers are trained on discipline base while they are expected to teach integrated science in the junior level (form one - form three). Integrated Science plays a major role in the Lesotho education system because it prepares learners at Secondary School level (Form One - Form Three) to study specialised science subjects namely: Biology, Chemistry and Physics at High School level (Form Four – Form Five) and this resulted in learners‟ interest in science at higher education being clearly oriented (Oludipe & Oludipe, 2010). This study was achieved by investigating teachers‟ experiences and practices of outcomes and assessment strategies in the way they do, through the use of the following data gathering instruments: document analysis, observation and semi-structured interviews. This study is mainly qualitative, interpretive case study of two schools and is informed by two theories namely: social constructionist theory and Bloom‟s Taxonomies. Social constructionist underpins social practices and practitioners‟ views on them. On the other side, Bloom‟s taxonomy provides details of construction of assessment tools towards attaining outcomes at the end of the learning period. In terms of analysing the data from the field, the data are presented using the themes and categories generated from the interviews. In addition, in presenting the data, the study would ensure that the voices of the participants were not lost. Therefore, verbatim quotations are infused in the data presentation. The emerging trends and patterns from the presented data are then outlined. According to the findings, the teachers are more interested in their areas of specialisation from the universities and colleges and this resulted in some other parts of the syllabus being sidelined. The study also revealed that teachers still lack knowledge of stating or writing observable and measurable learning outcomes even thought they are aware of theimportance of stating learning outcomes at the beginning of each and every Integrated Science lesson. The research concluded with a set of recommendations to ensure the effectiveness of the teaching of Integrated Science in Lesotho. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Edgewood, 2012.

There exists a consensus about the importance, but little else, of the ongoing professional education of teachers. The professional development of teachers is often seen by teachers to be a purely private matter serving self-improvement and/or career advancement. Equally often it is assumed to be essentially collegial concerned with improved school responses to redefined social expectations. Little is known about how, at the intersection of personal interactions and social necessities, truth is constructed by teachers about the significance of professional development exercises. This ontological research investigated the influence of the community of practice in signifying professional development of teachers' professional identity formation. It is a proximal influence that has been largely neglected in the literature on professional development. The case studies conducted here of science teachers in a rural secondary school initially assumed that certain types of autonomy and collegiality, together with differing workplace conditions have a more positive influence on teachers' professional development than others. The use of teacher portfolios in professional development reporting was investigated as institutional scaffolding for facilitating the sharing of insights from often remote professional development experiences, and as a means of improving communication within the science department.Positioning theory, as a tool in discursive psychology, was used to analyse professional development experiences as narrated by four colleagues in conversations with the author.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-127).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes survey instruments. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 170-184)