Within the helping professions there are contrasting epistemological views regarding the role of the helping professional, which have direct influences on learning support practices. Despite these views, it remains unclear what parents expect when seeking learning support for their children. This qualitative study explored parents’ constructions of the role of the helping professional in learning support. It specifically addressed parents’ expectations of the helping professional, what they value in their interactions with helping professionals as well as their understandings of their own roles in consultation and intervention for learning support. A case study approach was employed to gain access to participants. Specifically, three parents of children attending a school for Learners with Special Educational Needs [LSEN] were included as participants. These parents had had experiences with various helping professionals, both at the school and in private practice settings, in the course of seeking assistance for their children. It was thus thought that they would be able to provide in-depth perspectives as to their ideas of the role of helping professionals who assist children experiencing difficulties due to their exposure and experiences with helping professionals. Initial data collection was undertaken via semi-structured interviews with the participants. A content analysis of the interviews was subsequently employed to elicit affinities for use during a further modified form of Interactive Qualitative Analysis [IQA] with the contributors to the study. In total, fourteen affinities were generated and included Parental expectations, Professional characteristics, The helping process, Parents’ role, Status of the helping professional, Professional approach, Parents’ personal experiences, Parents’ emotions, Assessment, Recommendations, Stigma, a Team approach, parent-professional Interaction and Values. These affinity descriptions were corroborated and expanded on with the participants and the relationships amongst the affinities where then hypothesised by the participants themselves. A central outcome of the study was the research participants’ social representations of helping professionals. These representations comprise the thematic elements representing the participants’ discourse about the role of helping professionals in learning support and provide the participants’ in-depth ideas of the relationships amongst these elements. / Dissertation (MEd (Educational Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The asset-based approach has been studied within the South African context. Up to now, primary school learners’ meaning of the experienced phenomenon, “assets for learning support” however remains an under-explored topic. The intent with this study was to qualitatively explore and discover the essence of the phenomenon, ‘assets for learning support’, as experienced by learners who attend an urban primary school. This phenomenon was explored from an interpretive/ constructivist paradigmatic perspective, which also informed the study’s qualitative methodology. A phenomenological research design was utilised. The study was conducted in a mainstream primary school, situated in an urban context. The participants for this research were eight female participants in Grades 5-7 that were confronted with and overcame extrinsic barriers to learning, while attending an urban primary school. They participated in a focus group discussion within a classroom on the school premises. During the focus group, the learners’ relevant and natural unit of significant statements were listed (horizontalisation) and structured into central clusters of meanings. Textural themes (what) and structural themes (how) were identified. The study found that human resource assets are integrated assets connecting other assets that support learning. The study also found a significant compound effect of assets upon each other. The essence of the experienced phenomenon is that the identified assets (how) interrelatedly mobilise (what) other assets (textural findings) on one of five levels (structural findings) within various systems and contexts, which contribute to mobilise learning support as an asset. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

The aim of the research undertaken was to answer the question “How do insights during Inclusive Learning Support Programme (ILSP) meetings between parents and teachers of children with Down syndrome (DS) inform mutual attainment of each groups' expectations?” Inclusive Education (IE) for the learner with DS was introduced informally during the early 1990s in South Africa within a few local schools in Pretoria. Transcribed interviews and observations were used from a sample of teachers and parents of children with DS conducted by the ILSP coordinator to collect data. They were analysed using Herman’s and Herman’s- Konopka's (2010) dialogical self theory, positioning theory and pronoun grammar analysis. Results showed there are two opposing tensions in education. One is a need for stability. This is offset by the dynamic nature of education practice with its many actors - learners, teachers, managerial and supervisory staff, support staff, institutions and government departments. Every actor interprets education according to their goals, subjective beliefs and understanding of what the education process is occupying a dominant position but working from a shadow position. IE brings its own set of tensions to the actors in education. Policy documents from government, as interpreted in schools in South Africa, express the need for stability in education. The study was limited to the constraints of the academic format. More accessible versions of the findings and recommendations can be developed in papers. For ILSP coordinators practically to have a promoter position in the dialogue between teachers and parents there is a need for them to become acutely aware of the positions they adopt in dialogue in themselves and with reference to others. The study has offered a new way of interpreting the expectations of both parties in the ILSP meetings and rendering a solution to the often frustrating outcomes. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

In this paper we examine an Australian project in which we seek to develop leadership capacity in staff and students throughout the country, such that they may contribute to and lead others to contribute to the development and sharing of learning support resources for mathematics and statistics across disciplines and universities. One of the tangible outputs is a set of video based learning support resources that can be embedded in subjects across disciplines and shared across institutions. However the guiding aim is to develop leadership capacity, in its simplest form leading others to lead others to contribute to the project. Leadership may also be developed and exercised across different aspects of the project whether it be mapping needs, drawing together disciplines groups, finding ways to recognise and reward those engaged in the process, developing resources and the associated skills, ensuring copyright adherence, creating learning designs for optimal use of resources, evaluating the impact on student outcomes, peer review and the dissemination of findings.

Durch interne und externe Ereignisse, wie z.B. die aktuelle Covid-19 Pandemie, ergeben sich Veränderungen in fast allen Lebensbereichen. In diesem Zusammenhang müssen Konzepte des Bildungssektors und insbesondere die daraus resultierenden Herausforderungen für die Lernberatung und Lernbegleitung regelmäßig auf den Prüfstand gestellt werden. In diesem Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie der Einsatz von online-basierten kollaborativen Werkzeugen zur Unterstützung von Lehr-Lern-Prozessen in Hochschul- und Berufsbildungskontexten gestaltet bzw. weiterentwickelt werden können. [Aus: Einleitung]

One of the major challenges associated with nursing education in this 21st century is the practice preparation of student nurses in this complex healthcare environment to ensure their fitness to practice. Practice training relies largely on mentoring which is central to the professional development of student nurses. In the local context of Mauritius, the clinical mentoring of students is service-led rather than education-driven. In the context of the current debate, it is becoming evident that the clinical mentoring system in Mauritius needs rethinking in order to respond to the emerging training and education needs of nurses. The aim of the study was to develop a contextually relevant clinical mentoring framework for student nurses in Mauritius in order to enhance the standard of student nurses’ training during clinical placements. A descriptive exploratory sequential mixed method with a cross-sectional design was used in this study. The sample for the qualitative phase consisted of eight nurses, while there were 255 nurses and 115 students in the quantitative phase. Data were collected through face-to-face semi-structured interviews and a self-administered questionnaire, respectively. The findings were synthesised using Dickoff et al’s (1968) survey list to develop the clinical mentoring framework for student nurses. The findings of the qualitative phase indicated that the current learning support system for students in the clinical settings did not reflect what mentoring should be about. Mentoring per se was not practiced, but rather a form of clinical accompaniment resulting in the practice being less effective for its purpose. A variety of activities/roles were described that nurses fulfil in everyday clinical practice that included some aspects of a mentoring approach. Participants provided a number of pre-requisites needed for the mentoring process. The results of the quantitative phase revealed that both students and nurses recognised that the mentoring system was informal. They also shared the same views regarding barriers to mentoring, such as staff shortage, lack of resources, and inadequate support from management and the Central School of Nursing (CSN). Along with mentoring competencies, teaching, assessing, communication, managerial and leadership skills, were identified as core competencies for mentors. Effective clinical mentoring requires an understanding of the mentoring process from a broader perspective. Mentors should be equipped with core competencies. Successful mentoring outcomes are dependent on a conducive clinical learning environment (CLE) and the approach used to mentor. The framework on mentoring could guide and provide a holistic approach to mentoring students in CLEs. However, emphasis must be placed on the collaboration between the management, the clinical setting and the CSN. The clinical framework developed from this study can be tested for its effectiveness. / Health Studies / Ph. D. (Nursing)

Water stored in snow is a critical contribution to the world’s available freshwater supply and is fundamental to the sustenance of natural ecosystems, agriculture and human societies. The importance of snow for the natural environment and for many socio-economic sectors in several mid‐ to high‐latitude mountain regions around the world, leads scientists to continuously develop new approaches to monitor and study snow and its properties. The need to develop new monitoring methods arises from the limitations of in situ measurements, which are pointwise, only possible in accessible and safe locations and do not allow for a continuous monitoring of the evolution of the snowpack and its characteristics. These limitations have been overcome by the increasingly used methods of remote monitoring with space-borne sensors that allow monitoring the wide spatial and temporal variability of the snowpack. Snow models, based on modeling the physical processes that occur in the snowpack, are an alternative to remote sensing for studying snow characteristics. However, from literature it is evident that both remote sensing and snow models suffer from limitations as well as have significant strengths that it would be worth jointly exploiting to achieve improved snow products. Accordingly, the main objective of this thesis is the development of novel methods for the estimation of snow parameters by exploiting the different properties of remote sensing and snow model data. In particular, the following specific novel contributions are presented in this thesis: i. A novel data fusion technique for improving the snow cover mapping. The proposed method is based on the exploitation of the snow cover maps derived from the AMUNDSEN snow model and the MODIS product together with their quality layer in a decision level fusion approach by mean of a machine learning technique, namely the Support Vector Machine (SVM). ii. A new approach has been developed for improving the snow water equivalent (SWE) product obtained from AMUNDSEN model simulations. The proposed method exploits some auxiliary information from optical remote sensing and from topographic characteristics of the study area in a new approach that differs from the classical data assimilation approaches and is based on the estimation of AMUNDSEN error with respect to the ground data through a k-NN algorithm. The new product has been validated with ground measurement data and by a comparison with MODIS snow cover maps. In a second step, the contribution of information derived from X-band SAR imagery acquired by COSMO-SkyMed constellation has been evaluated, by exploiting simulations from a theoretical model to enlarge the dataset.

No description available.

The study identifies the challenges in the implementation of Inclusive Education in the Umgungundlovu District of Education and establishes the possible solutions. The basis for this investigation is the Education White Paper 6, Special Needs Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System (Department of Education, 2001). The study was conducted in the Umgungundlovu District of Education in the area of Pietermaritzburg. A qualitative research method was used. Data collection strategies that were used are structured interviews, observation and a questionnaire. The study reveals the following challenges that hamper theimplementation;Negative attitudes of some educators and parents towards inclusion, lack of Skills Development Programmes for educators, minimal involvement of parents as well as lack of infrastructural development. These challenges could be dealt with by appointing a Manager within the District to ensure that advocacy on Inclusive Education, training of educators and infrastructural improvement in all schools are done. / Educational Studies / M.Ed. (Inclusive Education)

The policy of Inclusive Education (IE) in White Paper 6 (2001) acknowledges that all children can learn with support. The aim of this study is to explore the experiences of Learning Support Teachers (LSTs) in supporting Foundation Phase teachers in implementing Inclusive Education (IE) in Gauteng Province, South Africa. A lack of support for teachers and learners in IE has dominated current discussions on education. According to the Department of Education (DoE, 2000:28), the establishment of an IE system in schools would require appropriate district as well as institution level support services, and more than just accepting learners with different learning needs in mainstream classrooms. Many teachers have not had the benefit of being trained to teach learners who experience barriers to learning, hence most find it difficult. Although specialist teachers in the form of Learning Support Teachers (LSTs) have been employed in the Foundation Phase to fill that gap and assist classroom teachers, the learners are not receiving the assistance hoped for. Based on an assumption that the failings may largely be systemic, this study therefore uses Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and a qualitative research design to examine the implementation of IE in selected schools, with seven LSTs being interviewed and observed, while documents pertaining to the support rendered were analysed. Seven principals and seven classroom teachers were also interviewed. The analysis employed Creswell’s method and the findings highlighted factors affecting the implementation of IE. The factors include inadequate district support, socio-cultural issues, classroom and management factors, lack of resources and inadequate collaboration between the stakeholders. The study makes recommendations and suggests further areas of research. / Teacher Education / D. Ed. (Inclusive Education)