A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Education in fulfilment of academic requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Education in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education at the University of Zululand, 2019. / The purpose of this study was to examine the importance of mainstreaming care and support to address barriers to teaching and learning. The research explored both the potential and limitations of mainstreaming care and support, as a practical and an analytic strategy, by addressing key underlying issues, as well as comparatively assessing the implications of mainstreaming care and support in different settings. There were principles and values about placing a child in the centre of education and taking the importance of the rights of a child so that no child is differentiated or discriminated against. The education ministry ensured that all children access education because it is the right of children regardless of gender and socio economic status. In this study mainstreaming was presented as an approach that held and followed a variety of needs for teaching and learning. Mainstreaming attempted mostly to be socially, customarily, aesthetically, ethically, environmentally and circumstantially relevant and applicable. Mainstreaming called for multi-sectoral collaboration of different ministries that work with and for children, for an example the Ministry of Home Affairs for documentations (birth certificates), the Ministry of Social Development (grants), the Ministry of Health and civil societies. The formation and collaboration with appropriate and relevant partners and stakeholders was presented as an important element in the development of commitment and nurturing of the service delivery of care and support programmes and activities for children. Mainstreaming of care and support served as the amelioration in breaking down the barriers to learning. The addressing of barriers demonstrated that all children accessed school, increased enrolment and retention. It ensured that children stayed in school for the number of required years. Mainstreaming called for the participation and involvement of different role players at different levels in education, including the community, parents, and caregivers. It based its focus on local expertise by providing and prioritizing capacity building on knowledge, skills and guidance through mentoring, training and technical support. It also based its focus on existing initiatives or programmes that supported learners’ social needs. This study based its research in two SADC Member States, namely Swaziland and Zambia. The study compared what was pertinent, using questionnaires to collect information. It investigated what already existed and implemented to deliver care and vi support services. The research used both quantitative and qualitative research methods, however a qualitative research method was mostly used, as a natural science and social science tool, enabling the researcher to study social and cultural phenomena. The decision to use mostly the qualitative research method was based on the context, relevance and theses objectives’ satisfaction. The study enquired into what existed and implemented for care and support service delivery. Key informants in both Member States included senior officials from the key ministries in the National Co-ordinating Units (NCU), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Care and Support Programme Steering Committee, Monitoring Information Systems Units (EMIS), civil society organisations (NGOs), United Nations (UN) agencies, school support teams and teachers.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Master’s Degree in Education in the Department of Foundations of Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand, 2019. / Conditions in rural schools regarding learner academic performance are still categorized as below the expected level of performance based on national and international standards. Learners and teachers continue to underperform as evidenced by poor results in schools. The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which teachers are professionally developed to promote teaching and learning in rural primary schools. The study was conducted through mixed methods approach. Simple random sampling was used to select teachers from twenty-four public primary schools. Purposive sampling procedure was followed to select participants who were interviewed face-to-face. Results showed that teachers find that teacher’s professional development programmes are too demanding. The training of teachers who are at work should be conducted during school holidays to avoid disruption of classes. The study concludes that if teachers are well developed, teaching and learning would be effective. The study recommends that the department should organise workshops for teachers in rural areas and train them taking into consideration the conditions in the rural areas. / National Research Foundation of South Africa

Dissertation submitted to the faculty of education in partial fulfilments of the requirements for the Decree of Masters of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instructional studies at the University of Zululand, 2018. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the leadership practices that promote effective teaching and learning in primary schools in the King Cetshwayo District. The King Cetshwayo District was chosen, because it has both rural and urban schools, though rural schools are dominant. Both rural and urban schools in this district face the same disadvantages. This study was qualitative in nature and adopted structured interviews to investigate leadership practices that promote effective teaching and learning in the targeted area. The findings revealed that the principals as school leaders perceived leadership practices differently; this leads to huge differences in their leadership. The findings also confirmed that the school principals shared the same activities and practise differently, but for the same purpose of promoting effective teaching and learning in schools they lead. This study further revealed that school leaders need to work together and discuss the ways to overcome the challenges they face, in order to progress and prosper in their leadership practices. The following recommendations were made based on the findings from the interviews. The idea was to determine which leadership practices promote effective teaching and learning in the King Cetshwayo District. It is recommended that the school leaders should plan the workshops where they will gain knowledge regarding the effective practising of their roles effectively to promote teaching and learning in the schools they lead, the school leaders should attend academic meetings set to help them and understand curriculum matters.

This work is focused on the measurement and prevention of procrastination behavior among college level introductory physics students completing online assignments in the form of mastery-based online learning modules. The research is conducted in two studies. The first study evaluates the effectiveness of offering students the opportunity to earn a small amount of extra credit for completing portions of their homework early. Unsupervised machine learning is used to identify an optimum cutoff duration which differentiates taking a short break during a continuous study session from a long break between two different study sessions. Using this cutoff, the study shows that the extra credit encouraged students to complete assignments earlier. The second study examines the impact of adding a planning-prompt survey prior to a string of assignments. In the survey, students were asked to write a plan for when and where they would work on their online homework assignments. Using a difference in differences method, a multilinear modeling technique adopted from economics research, the study shows that the survey led to students completing their homework on average 18 hours earlier and spreading their efforts on the homework over time significantly more. On the other hand, behaviors associated with disengagement, such as guessing or answer-copying, were not impacted by the introduction of the planning prompt. These studies showcase novel methods for measurement of procrastination behavior, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of the designed interventions to help students avoid waiting until the last minute to make progress on assigned tasks.

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Published Article / Reflection and reflective practice as a method to inform facilitators' teaching and learning practices has been in use for a long time. It was first introduced by Dewy in 1933. The methodology consisted of a qualitative approach supported by a quantitative analysis and was prompted by a number of questions pertaining to reflective teaching. This article communicates how reflective teaching was embedded in the Radiographic Pathology module for undergraduates in 2007 as well as the outcomes of the process.

This study examined the impact of animation interactivity on novices’ learning of introductory statistics. The interactive animation program used in this study was created with Adobe Flash following Mayer’s multimedia design principles as well as Kristof and Satran’s interactivity theory. The research was guided by three main questions: 1) Is there any difference in achievement improvement among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program? 2) Is there any difference in confidence improvement among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program? 3) Is there any difference in program perception among students who use different interactive levels of an animation program? This study was a one-way design where the independent variable was animation interactivity. In addition to a control group (Static Group) provided with only static materials, there were three groups with different levels of animation interactivity: 1) Animation with simple interactivity (Simple Animation Group), 2) animation with input manipulation (Input Group), and 3) animation with practice and feedback (Practice Group). A sample of 123 college students participated in the study and was randomly assigned into groups. They gathered in the computer lab to work with the animation program and then took online surveys and tests for evaluation. Students were expected to learn Principles of Hypothesis Testing (concepts of type I error, type II error and p-value). The data collected in this study included 1) student learning attitudes, 2) achievement and confidence pre-test scores, 3) achievement and confidence post-test scores, and 4) program perception. Also, student manipulation of the animation program was recorded as Web log data. The data were analyzed by using multivariate analysis (MANOVA), univariate analysis (ANOVA), regression analysis, regression tree analysis and case analysis. The findings were as follows: 1) Animation interactivity impacted students’ improvement in understanding (p=.006) and lower-level applying (p=.042), 2) animation interactivity did not impact student confidence and program perception, 3) the regression analysis indicated that student prior knowledge and interest were the most important predictors on student achievement post-test scores instead of program manipulation, and 4) the regression tree showed that there were interactions among student interest, prior knowledge, and program manipulation on the achievement post-test scores. The case analysis showed that not all students manipulated the interactive animation program as expected due to a lack of motivation and cognitive skills, and this could decrease the effect of the interactive animation. This study hoped to broaden theories on interactive learning and serve as a reference for future statistics curriculum designers and textbook publishers. / text

Leading and managing teaching and learning is the core purpose of every school, especially where learner achievement is concerned. Therefore, this study explores the role of principals in managing teaching and learning in relation to learner performance. The study looks at how principals plan for the academic year, how quality of teaching and learning is assured as well as how provision and management of learning material is done. It points towards the school contexts, structures and cultures within which principals operate. The study considers the challenges faced with principals who get promoted because of experience and seniority without training, but it does not aim at pinning down the importance of experience in executing a task The study concludes by suggesting that principals have a major responsibility for the creation and development as well as implementation of plans, policies and procedures that enable the school to translate its vision and mission into achievable action and outcomes. The study also recommends that courses and programmes to enhance professionalism in carrying out principal duties be made available and accessible. This should be done so that principals can have a better understanding of their role in instructional management above other general roles. It was noticed in this study, particularly in the literature review chapter, that many principals do not have a clear understanding of their role in instructional management and consequently confuse it.. Principals often perform other tasks other than the task of managing teaching and learning, hence they often confuse their role with the general role of principalship; which is a broad task performed by principals in general.

The University of Waikato brought the Internet to New Zealand, was one of the first Universities in New Zealand to graduate students who had completed a bachelor's degree online, and recently won an award for innovative use of video software in an online classroom. The video software was created by a company that had its beginnings within the University. However, the use of the Internet for teaching and learning in the University has reached a plateau in the last few years, as measured by the daily page views of the online platform (Moodie, 2004), the number of courses taught online and staff teaching online remaining fairly constant. This thesis sets out to investigate why the use of online teaching at the University has not increased to a point where a majority of staff are using online teaching to at least supplement their classroom teaching. Previous research into online teaching and learning focused heavily on technology barriers and lack of access to computers and the Internet. It is the position of the researcher that this lack of access is no longer a valid reason for academics not to use online environments for teaching and learning in a tertiary environment. This study hypothesized that enhancing their teaching using online technologies may be related to the culture of different subjects, disciplines and Schools of study. Accordingly three groups of lecturers from different Schools within the University were invited to participate in focus group interviews. Questions asked were related to their approach to teaching in their subject areas, the culture of their Schools and the University, as well as their reflections on teaching online. The study found that there was a strong relationship between the use of online technologies and subject areas as well as the culture that exists within the School of study. The influence of University management on the use of online technologies was also highlighted. But more surprising was the relationship between trained teachers in the University, and their uptake and use of online technologies. To take advantage of the changing student population, with their greater awareness and use of computing and new technologies, the University of Waikato, and indeed many other similar institutions, are now at a technological and educational crossroad. Decisions need to be made by senior management regarding the importance of the Internet and emerging media technologies in shaping the teaching and learning environment of tomorrow's University.

This research explores issues encountered by academic staff in their adoption of technology within the teaching and learning environment. The context of this research is set within a global environment; where technology is seen as both underpinning and enabling the current period of rapid change. Both the literature and University documents purport that the use of technology is instrumental in the delivery of positive economic, educational and social change. The researcher identified a dissonance between administrative policy and practices, and academic practice in relation to the use of technology. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of academic staff in their adoption of technology within the teaching and learning environment. The literature review generated following research questions: 1. Why do academic staff use information communication technology (ICT)? 2. How do academic staff use ICT? 3. What are the barriers to the use of ICT that have been identified by academic staff? 4. How do academic leaders promote the use of ICT in teaching and learning? As the adoption of technology is essentially a social process, the epistemological position of constructivism, using an interpretative perspective, was adopted for this research. The methodology of case study is utilised as it allowed detailed exploration of self-perceptions and lived experiences of the participants in relation to their use of technology within their professional practice. 21 participants were initially selected for this study. From this group of participants Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion was used to select those participants who could provide the most useful insights; resulting in the seven case studies documented in this thesis. Participants within the case studies ranged from those who were highly innovative, to those who were late technology adopters.This research concluded that for the academic mainstream, the deployment and availability of technology had reached a stage where hardware, software, internet connectivity and projection capability were no longer seen as impediments to their use of technology. All participants, ranging from the highly innovative to the late technology adopters, used technology for email, the world wide web (WWW), administrative tasks, and the preparation and presentation of their lectures. While the use of various technologies was universal among the participants, the predominant use of technology was to support the transmission mode of instruction. The research concluded that a constructivist educational approach was not closely linked to early technology adoption, but to the participants’ individual educational beliefs. The educational beliefs of the participants were in conflict with their experience of the University’s practices, which reflected a lack of instructional leadership in relation to the use of technology