Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Micro-teaching provides a framework for teachers’ professional development with emphasis on the teach and re-teach cycle as a practical procedure for the development of micro-teaching skills. One fundamental element in this teach and re-teach cycle is the use of digital technology tools as a recording device which may help aid the understanding and application of micro-teaching skills. This study explores micro-teaching skills with the use of digital technology (cell phone) in B.Ed. programmes at a Western Cape university. The study aims to merge the past and present strategies to initiate the development of a simple model to improve micro-teaching methodology using a simple and mostly available digital technology tool which can allow for self-evaluation and personal reflection. The study seeks to investigate how a digital technology, through a cell phone, can guide practical learning to support pre-service teachers in the micro-teaching presentation. The underpinning theories that frame this study were Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory, Bandura’s Social Learning Theory and Mishra & Koehler’s Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Theory. These theories emphasize social interactions, modelling and the use of technological tools as a significant aspect of skills development. The combination of these theories informs the conceptually developed knowledge acquisition, knowledge construction and the implementation with technology (KACIT) model with the aim to encourage the construction and implementation of micro-teaching knowledge with available digital technology tools. The study employs a sequential explanatory design, using a case study approach, which draws on both quantitative and qualitative methods as sources of data collection. The quantitative procedure adopted video recording as a form of data collection, using a conceptually developed teaching skills rubric, with a three level Likert-scale rating. SPSS version 25 was used to get the aggregated descriptive statistical values of each teaching skill. The qualitative procedure employed unstructured interviews, lesson plan observation, and thematic and content analysis was used to interpret and analyse the interviews and lesson plans respectively. The sample size of this study is drawn from the B.Ed. students in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Two hundred and sixteen (216) participants were involved in the quantitative data collection phase, while the qualitative data collection phase consisted of twelve (12) participants for the focus group discussion, five (5) school-based supervisors, five (5) pre-service teachers and (5) five lesson plans from the students-portfolio documents. The findings attest to the general context of micro-teaching as a strategy for developing pre-service teachers‟ teaching skills. It further highlights the high theoretical knowledge levels of micro-teaching of the B.Ed. students, and the relative lack of practical knowledge of micro-teaching of the students. In addition, the findings reveal the high technological knowledge levels of the participants and the need to deepen the professional knowledge of the B.Ed. students along the lines of authentic teaching experiences within the university environment. As part of the recommendations, the study emphasises the use of a digital video platform as a complementary strategy and as a form of reflective practice in micro-teaching presentations. Importantly, the study further recommends that the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (MRTEQ) policy document, on the knowledge mixes for teaching competences in terms of the observation outcome, should be re-considered with a clear guideline for South African universities to have a uniform framework and a clear picture of its implementation.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor Of Education (D.Ed.) in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional Studies at the University Of Zululand, 2018 / The study examined pre-service teacher training in Open and Distance Learning based Universities in South Africa and Nigeria. The specific focus of the study was on the initial teacher education programmes at Bachelor of Education (B.Ed.) and Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE/PGDE) phases in the two ODL based universities. The theories of self determination, humanism, transformational learning, distributed learning, and transactional distance served as the frameworks for the study. Information for the study was gathered through survey. Anonymous web-based questionnaire was designed and used to obtain information from the pre-service teacher trainees in the two ODL based universities. Interviews were conducted for a selected number of academic and support staff members from the two universities. A combination of purposive and stratified random sampling was used to generate the sample frames of the participants for the study. The sample of the pre-service teacher trainees that participated in the study was drawn from the nine (9) Provinces of South Africa, and six (6) Geo-political zones of Nigeria. One thousand, two hundred and sixteen (1216) ODL based pre-service teacher trainees in their B.Ed. and PGCE/PGDE programmes responded to the web-based questionnaire from the two countries. In addition, a total of ten (10) academic and support staff members were interviewed from the two Universities. The overall results revealed that the majority of pre-service teacher trainees by distance are young people between 18 and 29 years of age, unemployed or engaged in voluntary works with no stable source of income. Furthermore, flexibility of the programme and desire to work full time while studying were found to be the major factors that motivated majority of the participants to enrol in pre-service teacher training by distance. Electronic mail (E-mail), postal services, Learning Management Systems (LMS), radio programmes, and social media were found to be the major platforms through which the selected ODL based universities reached their pre-service teacher trainees. Moreover, mobile phone and tablet were found to be the major devices that the sampled student teachers used to access learning materials.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This qualitative study sought to explore reasons why social studies teachers chose to teach controversial issues and counternarratives in their classroom in an era where doing so is dangerous for teachers and their job security, and how they go about doing so in their classrooms. The theoretical framework of this study encompassed the notion that the five selected teachers embodied and practiced elements of Foucauldian parrhēsía, which is teaching the truth despite the risk of doing so, despite not having explicit knowledge of this particular philosophy, and utilized counternarratives and controversial issues as a means of challenging dominant social norms to bring about a more just and equitable society. The existing literature suggests that their pre-service teacher education provided little influence on their decisions, despite the positive historical, personal, and democratic outcomes from teaching a curriculum exploring controversial issues and counternarratives. Five teachers were recommended for this study due to their reputations for teaching controversial issues and counternarratives in their social studies classrooms. After interviewing and observing these teachers, a number of interesting findings came to light, including a list of best practices for how to teach controversial issues in the classroom, reasons why the teachers taught controversial issues in the classroom, structures of support and barriers for teaching a critical social studies curriculum, and differences between those who believed they taught controversial issues in their classroom but did not, and those who actually did.

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Addressing training in Response to Intervention at the pre-service level has potential to reach educators during their formative years; preparing them to implement research-based practices upon entering the field and building the capacity to do so with more fidelity and less support. While the knowledge levels and perceptions of pre-service teachers are critical to the future success of RTI implementation, the level of training among pre-service educators is less understood relative to their colleagues in the field. This exploratory study was designed to examine pre-service general and special education teachers' perceptions of RTI, and self-efficacy in implementation. A survey, created and distributed to measure teacher candidates' (TCs) opinions and self-efficacy in RTI, found that TCs have positive opinions of RTI. They believe it to be effective for students, but have less ability to implement specific components in the classroom. The outcomes from this study suggest that special education majors had significantly higher ratings of their self-efficacy than elementary education majors. This has implications for curriculum changes in teacher training programs to better prepare educators to implement RTI in the classroom.

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The United States continues to face a national shortage of teachers with large numbers of vacancies in districts creating crisis situations for many schools. Novice teachers often quit within five years, with highest attrition in schools serving minority and economically challenged students. Among the reasons teachers cite leaving the profession is lack of preparation. The most impactful teacher preparation experience is field placement with a mentor teacher during supervised student teaching. While research highlights its benefits, little is known about how mentor teachers are matched with pre-service teachers. This study sought to investigate the decision-making process of school leaders in this regard. This qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with 20 PreK-12 public school principals to investigate the following research questions: 1) What criteria do principals use to make decisions involving the matching of mentor and pre-service teachers within PreK-12 schools? 2) What are principals’ perceptions of matching mentor teachers with pre-service teachers? Regarding the first question, findings indicate that principals played a more pivotal role in the matching process than university partners, principals used similar criteria to select mentors as they use when hiring new teachers, and principals had little insight into pre-service teachers' backgrounds, experiences, and goals to inform the matching process. As for the second question, findings indicate that principals often struggle to find mentors, relationships forged between mentor and pre-service teachers were the primary contributor to positive outcomes from the matching process, and pre-service teachers were often blamed for negative outcomes from the matching process. Additionally, principals often regarded the matching process as a potential pipeline for recruiting and hiring prospective teachers and as a vehicle to meet the urgent need for effective teacher preparation, given teacher shortages. Principals noted the need to increase university involvement to improve the matching process. A framework for matching was created using the research in this study to inform future matching decisions. / Educational Leadership