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This study was aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of teaching practice as a context for the development of student teachers’ competences at Walter Sisulu University. The study was necessitated by the lack of information on whether teaching practice really provides an effective context or not. A literature study focusing on planning of teaching practice, preparation of student teachers for teaching practice, placement of student teachers for teaching practice, mentoring during teaching practice as well as supervision and assessment of teaching practice was conducted. The activity and situated learning theories provided a theoretical framework for studying teaching practice. The mixed-methods approach consisting of quantitative and qualitative approaches was used and data was collected through questionnaires and focus group discussions. The participants in the study were: thirty (30) student teachers in their third year of study; ten (10) host teachers who were hosting student teachers at the time of data collection for this study and ten (10) university supervisors responsible for teaching practice supervision. Data from closed-ended questionnaire items were analysed statistically. Frequencies and percentages were derived. Content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. The results of the study revealed that there was a serious lack of communication between the university and the schools used for teaching practice and as a result student teachers were subjected to a wide range of treatment when they arrived at the schools. The findings also showed that student teachers were inadequately prepared for teaching practice. Student teachers were faced with serious challenges with regard to placement and there was no common programme of mentoring. The schools, as a result, did not provide a sufficiently-appropriate environment for teaching practice to become an effective context for student teachers‘ competence development. The recommendations made include suggestions for the improvement of the general organisation of teaching practice with the university and the schools working as partners in all the activities of teaching practice. The introduction of a formal programme for the preparation of student teachers for teaching practice is suggested and a teaching practice model is also proposed.

Published Article / In South Africa a high premium should be placed on the value of effective education and training to achieve an array of economic and social objectives. The development of a strong and functional education system is closely linked with the quality of teaching and learning taking place at schools. In this regard, the nagging shortage of skilled educators underscores the importance of effective training of student teachers to address the shortages and ultimately contribute to the establishment of a competitive and sustainable education system. The present article examines the effectiveness of mentoring and teaching practice experiences of student teachers at a South African university who completed their practical training at township schools. These schools are typically under-resourced, overcrowded and situated in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. Not only are many of these schools' teachers under-qualified, but the schools also experience acute shortages of teachers in scarce subjects. An empirical study was conducted that targeted all final-year education students who had completed their teaching practice at 34 township schools. The empirical findings provide food for thought as to the success of mentoring in these schools. While 16 aspects of mentoring rendered a positive result ranging from 'positive' to 'strongly positive', seven aspects of mentoring were regarded as 'mildly adequate' and five skills were evaluated as between 'below adequate' to 'inadequate'. Even though the findings of this study cannot be generalised to mentoring at all township schools, some noteworthy trends were identified.

Thesis (M.Ed.) --University of the North, 1994 / Refer to the document

This qualitative study answers the call to include students’ voices in research on learning by listening to students’ perspectives about their learning experiences. Student voice inquiries into learning typically explore students’ perspectives of their learning experiences in school for enhancing teaching practice. The present study explores students’ perspectives of their learning experiences both in and out of school and elicits students’ voices through written narrative, in combination with more common approaches to student voice inquiry. The purpose of which is to inform teaching practice that better supports and facilitates students’ learning. The two research questions that guide this inquiry are: What do senior high school students’ written narratives, focus group discussion, and related written comments about their most memorable learning experiences reveal about their learning? And what do these students’ voices reveal about what they have in common in their learning? The common themes across the 24 student participants are presented as a supportive framework for classroom discussion about most memorable learning experiences. Practical implications are discussed for teaching practice and research with participant co-researchers.

The broad goal of this investigation was to examine the effectiveness of the practical components in teacher education courses. In order to achieve this goal, it was necessary to find possible solutions to the major problem around which inquiries of this nature tend to revolve, viz. What would be the features of a relevant, practical, democratically - designed curriculum for Teaching Practice? To reduce the complexity of the problem, it seemed realistic to link the research to a particular case. Consequently, an in-depth analysis was made of the Teaching Practice curriculum in use at the University of Durban-Westville. The research consisted of seven phases 1. A literary study of trends in Teaching Practice, Didactics, and Curriculum Development. 2. An examination of historical and current developments of the Teaching Practice course offered at the University of Durban-Westville. 3. A survey of Teaching Practice curricula currently in use at 52 teacher training institutions inside South Africa and abroad. 4. A survey of the views of 65 school authorities regarding Teaching Practice curricula. 5. A survey of the views of 170 final-year student teachers regarding Teaching Practice curricula. 6. A survey of the views of 35 lecturers involved in teacher education regarding Teaching Practice curricula. 7. The design of an effective Teaching Practice curriculum based on a fusion of the data obtained. The preliminary findings of the investigation centred upon the identification of deep conflicts that exist among various groups involved in teacher education. During the institutional survey, for instance, it was found that marked differences exist between the practical components of curricula offered at different institutions. Whereas some institutions lay heavy emphasis on the development of practical teaching skills on campus, most of them apparently concentrate only on theoretical aspects in their campus-based courses. Teaching Practice is mostly seen as that part of the course that takes place at schools. This could obviously cause serious discrepancies between what students are taught on campus and at schools. In similar vein divergent trends were identified in the expressed needs of school authorities, students, and teacher educators. Each group seems to have a different set of expectations regarding teacher education in general, and Teaching Practice in particular. These findings led to the realization that the most important characteristic of an effective Teaching Practice curriculum is that it should be based on a scientific model theory of teaching which both tutors and students should put into practice. The persistent propagation of inconsistent, contradictory theories of teaching was identified as a crippling weakness in many Teaching Practice courses. The study culminated in the presentation of a proposed Teaching Practice curriculum. This curriculum rests on the claim that it is relevant to modern trends in Didactics as well as in teacher education. The expressed views of school authorities, students, and tutors have been incorporated. It promises to have a strong theoretical foundation and seems to be rooted in real classroom practices. The proposals are accompanied by general guidelines for implementation. One might conclude, therefore, that viable solutions to the research problem have been found. And what of the future? The present crisis in education in South Africa must be considered when embarking on the development, and changing of such a curriculum. Are planners really aware of the impact that pupil unrest will be bound to have on school curricula and thus necessarily upon teacher education? I hope so. / Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

This qualitative study answers the call to include students’ voices in research on learning by listening to students’ perspectives about their learning experiences. Student voice inquiries into learning typically explore students’ perspectives of their learning experiences in school for enhancing teaching practice. The present study explores students’ perspectives of their learning experiences both in and out of school and elicits students’ voices through written narrative, in combination with more common approaches to student voice inquiry. The purpose of which is to inform teaching practice that better supports and facilitates students’ learning. The two research questions that guide this inquiry are: What do senior high school students’ written narratives, focus group discussion, and related written comments about their most memorable learning experiences reveal about their learning? And what do these students’ voices reveal about what they have in common in their learning? The common themes across the 24 student participants are presented as a supportive framework for classroom discussion about most memorable learning experiences. Practical implications are discussed for teaching practice and research with participant co-researchers.

Magister Curationis - MCur / Teacher identity is regarded as an important disposition when it comes to training would-be teachers, irrespective of the field of study. It is during the teaching practice experience that student nurse-educators transit from their preconceived identity as a student to accepting the teacher identity. It is expected that for student to acquire this identify they require profound knowledge in subject content, pedagogy and didactic knowledge, so as to perform their professions effectively. Although the focus of teaching is the student teachers, attention is sometimes focused more on the nursing facilitators rather than on the nursing student teachers who are becoming teachers. However, good nursing training should also take into consideration the perceptions of nurse student teachers on the teacher identity. This study sought to describe student nurse-educators’ perception of teacher identity with respect to the subject matter, pedagogy, and didactic expertise at a School of Nursing, University of the Western Cape. The quantitative research approach, using the descriptive design was employed to guide the study. Data was collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire using a five point Likert scale. A list of students in master’s education programme was utilised as the sampling frame. The sample included the Masters students in nursing education programme who have completed their theoretical courses and teaching practice. The Statistical Package for Social Science software (SPSS) version 22 was used in the analysis of the survey. The study showed that teacher identity of student nurse-educators is strongly related to their perceived level of knowledge of expertise in subject matter (34%) followed by a grasp in didactics (33.28%). Teacher identity was less perceived in mastering knowledge related to pedagogy (33.12%). While the average median were 3.50 for subject matter, 3.54 in didactics and 3.50 for pedagogy. The relation between knowledge of expertise in subject matter, pedagogy and didactics were established after performing Kendall tau-c test. The link between gender and subject matter, pedagogy and didactics revealed no significant association. No significant difference was found between males and females respondents perceptions with regards to subject matter and didactics; while significant difference was found with didactics. The findings make a contribution to the body of knowledge in the nursing education field, and could contribute to improve the competency and quality in the practice of nursing education. With regards to the speculation on identity formation and development issues, it is hoped these findings will provide greater understanding of the difficulties student nurse-educators experience as they construct individual identities as teacher.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:25:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-04-04Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:06:10Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 araujo_ms_me_prud.pdf: 455627 bytes, checksum: c3fe87e242cf71bd9c9798b9b2d81319 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho apresenta uma pesquisa desenvolvida no Mestrado em Educação – na Faculdade de Ciência e Tecnologia/UNESP da cidade de Presidente Prudente–SP. Este estudo tem como objetivo investigar como o professor que atua na 4ª série do ensino fundamental trabalha em sala de aula a produção de textos de forma a levar os alunos as práticas sociais da língua escrita, bem como, analisar a mediação do uso da leitura e da escrita no âmbito escolar e social. Esta pesquisa surgiu em razão a pesquisas nacionais e internacionais que afirmam que hoje não basta o professor ensinar o aluno a escrever, mas, deve-se ensiná-lo a fazer uso da escrita nos meios sociais. Assim, o presente trabalho investigativo insere-se no campo da pesquisa qualitativa em educação e a estratégia de ação utilizada durante a pesquisa foi o estudo de caso do tipo etnográfico. A pesquisa buscou observar a prática docente de uma professora que atua na 4ª série do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola municipal de Presidente Prudente – SP. Realizamos dois meses de observação diária e uma entrevista, a fim de, analisarmos as atividades de produção de textos realizadas em sala de aula. Desta forma, o estudo bibliográfico feito, as análises da entrevista e das observações realizadas nos apontaram que trazer as vivências culturais da leitura e da escrita para a sala de aula através das atividades de produção de textos são fatores importantes para compreender a forma como os professores desenvolvem o seu papel de mediar e de tornar essas ações significativas para a vida de seus alunos. Pois, os dados obtidos na pesquisa nos fizeram... / This work presents a research developed in a master of education – In UNESP/ university of science and technology in the Presidente Prudente city SP state. This study aims to investigate how the teacher who works in the 4th grade of elementary school work in the classroom the writing of texts in order to bring students the social practices of written language, and to evaluate the mediation of the use of reading and writing in schools and society . This research arose due to national and international studies which say that today is not just the teacher teaching the student to write, but the teacher must teach them to make use of writing in social media. Thus, the present research work is within the field of qualitative research in education and the strategy of action in this research was the study of ethnographic cases. The study sought to observe the teacher’s teaching practice who works in the 4th grade of elementary school in a Presidente Prudent’s public school in SP state. We conducted two months of daily observation and interview, so, we analyzed the activities, text writing, held in the classroom. Thus, the bibliographical study done, the analysis of interviews and observations showed that in bringing the cultural experiences of reading and writing to the classroom activities through the text writing are important to understand ... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

This qualitative study answers the call to include students’ voices in research on learning by listening to students’ perspectives about their learning experiences. Student voice inquiries into learning typically explore students’ perspectives of their learning experiences in school for enhancing teaching practice. The present study explores students’ perspectives of their learning experiences both in and out of school and elicits students’ voices through written narrative, in combination with more common approaches to student voice inquiry. The purpose of which is to inform teaching practice that better supports and facilitates students’ learning. The two research questions that guide this inquiry are: What do senior high school students’ written narratives, focus group discussion, and related written comments about their most memorable learning experiences reveal about their learning? And what do these students’ voices reveal about what they have in common in their learning? The common themes across the 24 student participants are presented as a supportive framework for classroom discussion about most memorable learning experiences. Practical implications are discussed for teaching practice and research with participant co-researchers.