Effective instructional practice has a significant impact on student learning. Shared personal practice within a professional learning team (PLT) is one of the key elements in consistently improved instructional practice. However, this PLT characteristic is often the least evident and the hardest to absorb into PLT culture. This study examined the relational characteristics, facilitating factors, or barriers to shared personal practice within a PLT. Two PLTs in core subject areas across two Texas high school campuses were included in this comparative case study. Data from document analysis, PLC observations, focus group interviews, and in-depth individual interviews were examined thematically to answer the research questions guiding this study. The results of this study revealed that building strong relationships and an emphasis on collective creativity were strong predictors of sharing personal practice. Collective clarity on PLT practices and the purpose of sharing personal practice increased the success and occurrence of sharing personal practice. The results also revealed that the copious tasks of teaching and negative perceptions of being observed by colleagues hindered consistent sharing of personal practice. This study describes the current context of shared personal practice as a foundation for future studies to examine how practice can be transformed.

黃晶榕. / Thesis (Ed.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 298-348) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Huang Jingrong.

Thesis (Master in Education) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2014 / It is generally believed that Information Communication Technologies can extend knowledge and education to poor and marginalised people in South Africa. However, African countries still face many challenges in trying to provide appropriate and sustainable solutions for improving education and skills that will support the development of educators in all communities; this can be viewed in light of the millennium developmental goal. Thus the Department of Education put measures in place to bridge the gap in knowledge, skills and understanding of Computer Application Technology (CAT) educators through the provision of in-service training (INSET) programmes. The research study aimed at assessing the impact of in-service training programmes offered to CAT educators in Secondary Schools in the Free State province. The study made use of a survey and an evaluation research design. The target population for this study was all Further Education and Training (FET) Phase educators in all secondary schools in the Free State Province. A self-constructed questionnaire was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. The study revealed that the INSET programme still needs to improve on its content relevance to syllabus and it should provide educators with skills in dealing with the challenge of teaching learners with disabilities. The majority of educators were satisfied with the INSET programme as they indicated that it assisted in enhancing their skills and content knowledge; they further indicated that it gave them motivation to go into classrooms and teach. One educator quoted “I am now able to make some functions that usually gave me headaches. It greatly changed and developed the knowledge I had”. This indicates that the challenges that were experienced in classrooms were also met. It can thus be concluded that the INSET programmes did have a positive impact to the skills and challenges that educators experienced. That the study did achieve its v goal which was to assess the impact of INSET programs for CAT educators in the Motheo District, Free State province.

Thesis (Phd. (Education )) - Central University of Technology, Free State, 2015 / For learners to be effective computer applications users, they need three basic skills – computer literacy, computer fluency and intellectual and reasoning skills to apply computational techniques or computer applications to the problems and projects in a field. Computational thinking as addressed in the first literature chapter is the description and the promotion of new ways of thinking in an increasingly digital age. A computational thinker must constantly engage in technology advancements. Computational thinking is a way of solving problems and is a cognitive or a thinking process. To flourish in the world of work, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way learners think and understand the world. It describes the mental activity in formulating a problem to allow a computational solution. The solution can be carried out by the learner or the computer or a combination of learner and computers. Problem-solving competency as addressed in the next literature chapter involves the ability to acquire and use new knowledge, or to use old knowledge in a new way to solve problems that are not routine. Problem-solving as a skill involves a range of processes that includes analysing, interpreting, reasoning, predicting, evaluating and reflecting. Learners need profound Computer Applications Technology (CAT) knowledge and a general reasoning ability as well as investigative strategies for solving ill-defined problems. To address the research questions, the researcher employed the QUAN-QUAL design in this study. In this study the quantitative method was used to gather data relating to the education of teachers, in-service training received and answers to certain computational thinking skills and problem-solving skills. It was also used to test the relationship between problem solving and computational thinking skills. A Likert-scale type questionnaire was completed by 150 CAT teachers. In addition, this study also employed the qualitative method with semi-structured interviews to gather data relating Abstract vi to problem solving and computational thinking skills. Eight CAT teachers were interviewed to ascertain the afore-mentioned. A pilot study was conducted with the aim to test the research approach and to identify potential problems that may affect the quality and validity of the results. The wording of some questions in the questionnaire was altered to ensure that the instrument measures what it is supposed to. Descriptive statistics in this study was used to describe the findings and the inferential statistics used to test the hypotheses and draw conclusions from the quantitative statistics. For qualitative data, thematic analysis was used to analyse the original data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. To promote critical thinking skills, teachers must engage learners in higher-order thinking. Findings show that teachers do not always use classroom practices that encourage critical thinking. It was encouraging that the majority of teachers do allow group work in the CAT classroom, as group work is an important facet in computational thinking and problem solving. The study culminates in a computational thinking and problem-solving toolkit developed by the researcher. This toolkit is intended primarily for facilitators (such as CAT subject advisors or CAT mentor teachers) to enable them to conduct workshops for fellow CAT teachers. By using this toolkit, teachers will gain an understanding of what computational thinking skills and problem-solving skills are and how to develop these skills in Grades 10 – 12 CAT learners.

The aim of this study was to investigate the criteria for effective continuous professional development of educators and to determine ways of improvement of the programmes as implemented in secondary schools in the Thohoyandou district of Limpopo Province. The study was conducted through a literature review and qualitative investigation. The literature review explored the nature of effective professional development of educators and the criteria for design, planning and implementation of such programmes. The qualitative study investigated the management of professional development programmes for secondary schools educators in the Thohoyandou district using interviews with district coordinators or Educator Multi Purpose Centers (EMPC) facilitators, secondary school principals and educators. The findings revealed the strengths and weaknesses of professional development programmes. Based on the literature review and qualitative investigation, recommendations were made with regard to the provision of effective professional development programmes for educators, particularly secondary school educators. / Teacher Education / M. Ed. (Education Managament)

The study developed and designed a pedagogical content knowledge framework to guide and support the professional development of pedagogical content knowledge to about 130 statistics teachers. It captured the experiences of teachers during the development of pedagogical content knowledge, to come up with the main themes that describe pedagogical content knowledge as the relevant knowledge for teaching Grade 11 and 12 statistics. The study was overall qualitative in nature and supported by some quantitative data. Questionnaires, in-class facilitated tasks/activities, in-class facilitated discussions and observations were used as the main data collection instruments. This process revealed some significant themes, described as “missed opportunities”, which were defined as incidents in which pedagogical content knowledge was needed but not used. The thesis contributes to the theoretical and knowledge base of secondary school statistics teachers in the education system by providing measures that can be used to determine professional development needs of teachers. / Mathematics Education / D. Ed. (Mathematics Education)

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

M.Ed. (Educational Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract