Published Article / The need to increase the number of quality engineering graduates, graduating from South African Universities, informed this study. Based on the findings from the baseline study, conducted prior to the present study, this research seeks to evaluate (using a static, non-equivalent, group design) the effect of Constructionist Computer-Aided Instructional Learning Model (CCAILM) approach, used in some South African Universities, for studying fluid mechanics in mechanical engineering classes. This new learning model is derived from constructionist learning theory, media-affects-learning hypothesis and multiple representation principle. The results of the data analysis indicate that CCAILM learning approach enhances the learning of fluid mechanics in mechanical engineering classes.

This thesis investigates what types of teaching approaches and methods can be used when teaching idiomatic expressions to learners of English. The method used is a small-scale research synthesis where studies are summarized, compared and discussed. An overview of the teaching approaches and methods provide an outline of the strengths and weaknesses of each approach/method in connection to the purpose of teaching idioms to language learners of English. Several different descriptions of idioms are merged into one that is used in this research synthesis. The results indicate that even though teaching procedures appealing to Multiple Intelligences are most common in the articles used for this thesis, there are several different ways to improve learners’ idiom comprehension. Every teacher should have in mind that all students are unique and learn in different ways but some generalizations can be helpful when planning lessons. Keywords: idioms, figurative language, teaching method, teaching approach

This thesis investigated why games are a helpful tool in the teaching classroom and what methods could be used when teaching with the help of games. The research method was a small-scale research synthesis where former studies were summarized and compared. In addition to this, interviews (with two teachers who had focused on developing their teaching with the help of games) were conducted in order for the research to become as sufficient as possible. An overview of the ways in which games could be beneficial in the classroom has been provided and also the reasons to why they should be used.The results indicated that games should be used in a more conscious way and that learners can benefit from learning with the help of games.

This research presents a case study at a South African University, involving students who had studied mathematics in a pre-undergraduate Foundation Programme (FP) and who were currently in their first year of study in Information Technology (IT) at the same institution. The study investigated a possible relationship between the teaching approach used in the FP mathematics classroom and the extent of students’ abilities to use important mathematical practices, such as using procedures flexibly; using representation; understanding/explaining concepts; questioning; justifying claims; disagreeing; strategising; and generalising, in an undergraduate IT context. Focus group interviews and task-based interviews were used to answer three related questions: “To what extent are students aware of differences in teaching approaches between FP mathematics and undergraduate study?”; “To what extent do students believe that their experiences of the teaching approaches in the Foundation Programme mathematics class have helped them in undergraduate study in other courses?”; and “In what ways are the mathematical practices taught in the Foundation Programme used in undergraduate study in IT?” A bricolage of learning theories was used as a framework for understanding the possible relationships between teaching approach, development of mathematical practices and learning transfer. The students in the focus groups described the teaching approach used in the FP mathematics classes as studentcentred, whereas many of the undergraduate IT lectures and tutorials were described as teachercentred. The students felt that the approach used in the FP mathematics classroom was beneficial to further study, in that it taught them how to become responsible for their own learning and brought about deep understanding of the mathematical concepts learned in the FP. The task-based interviews showed that all students used mathematical practices to solve IT problems to a greater or lesser extent. The use of these mathematical practices was best understood as being influenced by all past cognitive, social and cultural experiences, and was therefore not a case of “transfer” in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, the use of mathematical practices could be described as an extreme case of “cognitive accommodation” from a cognitive constructivist perspective, or a case of “generality” from a situative perspective. Furthermore, an inter-relationship emerged between student-centred teaching, students’ productive disposition towards mathematics, and the extent of “transfer” of mathematical practices to the IT domain. This interesting relationship warrants further investigation.

Este trabalho tem como tema central a epistemologia do audiovisual, na medida em que é o relato de uma investigação sobre a maneira com que adolescentes podem aprender a fazer cinema no ambiente escolar. A experiência docente aqui descrita aconteceu num colégio particular da cidade de São Paulo, durante o segundo semestre do ano de 2015, e se aproveitou do fenômeno da disseminação, entre os estudantes, de câmeras de gravação de vídeos embutidas nos smartphones. A metodologia desenvolvida teve como base a transposição dos conceitos da Abordagem Triangular do ensino das artes visuais, sistematizada por Ana Mae Barbosa, em conjugação com um referencial teórico proveniente das áreas do cinema e audiovisual, com uma menção especial aos escritos de Alain Bergala, Jean-Claude Carrière e Andrei Tarkovski. A reflexão sobre esta experiência é agora oferecida ao público envolvido com as questões contemporâneas de ensino-aprendizagem do audiovisual nas escolas, universidades e cursos livres espalhados pelo Brasil. / This work has as its central theme the epistemology of the audiovisual language, since it is the report of an investigation about the ways in which adolescents learn the filmmaking process into the school environment. The teaching experience described here took place in a private school in the city of São Paulo during the second semester of 2015, and took advantage of the phenomenon that possessing video recording cameras embedded in smartphones is widely disseminated among students. The methodology developed in this dissertation was based on the transposition of the concepts of the Triangular Teaching Approach in Arts, systematized by Ana Mae Barbosa, in conjunction with a theoretical references originally from the cinema and audiovisual areas, with special reference to the writings of Alain Bergala, Jean-Claude Carrière and Andrei Tarkovski. The reflection upon that this experience is now offered to the public involved in contemporary audiovisual teaching-learning issues in schools, universities and courses throughout Brazil.

Este trabalho tem como tema central a epistemologia do audiovisual, na medida em que é o relato de uma investigação sobre a maneira com que adolescentes podem aprender a fazer cinema no ambiente escolar. A experiência docente aqui descrita aconteceu num colégio particular da cidade de São Paulo, durante o segundo semestre do ano de 2015, e se aproveitou do fenômeno da disseminação, entre os estudantes, de câmeras de gravação de vídeos embutidas nos smartphones. A metodologia desenvolvida teve como base a transposição dos conceitos da Abordagem Triangular do ensino das artes visuais, sistematizada por Ana Mae Barbosa, em conjugação com um referencial teórico proveniente das áreas do cinema e audiovisual, com uma menção especial aos escritos de Alain Bergala, Jean-Claude Carrière e Andrei Tarkovski. A reflexão sobre esta experiência é agora oferecida ao público envolvido com as questões contemporâneas de ensino-aprendizagem do audiovisual nas escolas, universidades e cursos livres espalhados pelo Brasil. / This work has as its central theme the epistemology of the audiovisual language, since it is the report of an investigation about the ways in which adolescents learn the filmmaking process into the school environment. The teaching experience described here took place in a private school in the city of São Paulo during the second semester of 2015, and took advantage of the phenomenon that possessing video recording cameras embedded in smartphones is widely disseminated among students. The methodology developed in this dissertation was based on the transposition of the concepts of the Triangular Teaching Approach in Arts, systematized by Ana Mae Barbosa, in conjunction with a theoretical references originally from the cinema and audiovisual areas, with special reference to the writings of Alain Bergala, Jean-Claude Carrière and Andrei Tarkovski. The reflection upon that this experience is now offered to the public involved in contemporary audiovisual teaching-learning issues in schools, universities and courses throughout Brazil.

As a result of two years working with the pre-service primary teachers in a College in Fiji I became aware of the difficulty many of the students were having understanding the primary school mathematics they would be required to teach. During that time I had attempted to help them overcome the difficulties by using different teaching approaches and activities but was far from satisfied with my efforts. Hence I decided to make a concerted effort to help the students by planning, implementing and partially evaluating a mathematics education unit, known as the Teaching Program for the first semester of their course. This work formed the basis of my study. For the Teaching Program I chose a constructivist teaching approach with number sense as the underlying theme. To examine the aspects of the Program I used my observations and those of the students especially ones reported in their mathematics journals. To evaluate the effectiveness of the Teaching Program I collected and analysed quantitative data from traditional testing of the class of forty students as well as data from case studies of six of the pre-service teachers in the class. To determine what features of the Teaching Program were linked to positive changes my main source of data was the case studies, especially entries from their journal writings. The findings suggested that a significant development of the cognitive aspects of the students’ number sense did occur during the time of the Teaching Program but not as much as was hoped for. As a result of the analysis of the data I came to a greater realisation of the importance of the non-cognitive aspects of number sense and the necessity for a greater consideration of them in the development of a Program. I also realise now that a major development that did occur was in my understanding of the knowledge and learning of mathematics. My ideas of a teaching paradigm of social constructivism had not guided me sufficiently to incorporate activities and procedures to develop the non-cognitive aspects. I suggest that a paradigm which extends the theory of social constructivism to give greater consideration of these aspects of learning in general, and hence numeracy and number sense in particular, was needed. As a result of this study, my introduction to the theory of enactivism appears to be giving me some direction in this search at this stage.

This study investigated the perceptions of teachers of the Junior High and the Senior High Schools on the Communicative Language Teaching ( CLT ) in Irian Jaya province, Indonesia. Forty- six participants were involved in this study, i.e., twenty JHS teachers, twehty SHS teachers, four headmasters and two supervisors. Three instruments: questionnaire, interview and field study were employed to collect the data. Interviews and field study were carried out by the researcher in Indonesia. Spearman's rho was used to correlate answers about teaching principles of CLT and chi-square tests were used to examine responses on the relevance of subjects and the influence of the course on professional knowledge and teaching skills. The participants' opinion on the most and the least useful units was discussed based on the calculated frequency. The problems faced by the participants in implementing CLT were analyzed. The benefits of CLT were analysed and categorized into positive and negative points. Results indicated that both teaching levels have positive perceptions on CLT. Both groups showed an overall similarity in problems faced in their teaching, on the usefulness and the relevance of units presented in the Teacher Training despite some minor differences. It is argued that it is necessary for the teachers to give consideration to the teaching of vocabulary. It is also desirable to train the teachers to design tests which are valid and reliable.

Outdoor education constitutes an alternative teaching approach that is characterized by authentic experiences and activities in outdoor natural and cultural landscapes. As a relatively new and progressive teaching method, it tries to find and consolidate its place within the existing educational system. The current thesis explores Greek academic teachers’ perceptions and experiences in the field of outdoor education. More specifically, eight academic teachers from a Greek university express their views about outdoor education and report their experiences in outdoor lessons. Through a qualitative approach, this research includes analysis of data extracted from semi-structured interviews with the academics. From the thematic analysis of the data four themes emerged that illustrate teachers’ opinions. The results of the research revealed academic teachers’ basic knowledge on the field of outdoor education, as they presented some well-aimed examples of main characteristics of the approach. Moreover, they reported limited previous outdoor experiences with their students and perceive outdoor lessons as any action outside the typical classroom, attributing higher importance to outdoor activities performed in cultural rather than natural landscapes. Also, academics acknowledged several benefits that outdoor education provides to their students such as the stimulation of all their senses, the connection of theory with practice and the promotion of social relations. In addition, they attributed significant importance to both the experiential approach to learning and to the connection with nature that outdoor lessons provide. Nevertheless, academic teachers highlighted many barriers that inhibit their efforts to apply outdoor lessons such as lack of time and appropriate places, inadequate infrastructure, human resources as well as insufficient pedagogical training and preparation. Concluding, what seems to trouble academics most is the prevailing educational culture inside schools and universities as well as teachers’ and academic teachers’ attitudes. The above findings contribute to the current limited scientific knowledge concerning the practice of outdoor education in the higher level of education. Last but not least, further qualitative research is a prerequisite in order to study the origin of the perceptions and attitudes of Greek academics and comprehend the socio-cultural and educational context in which these have been formed.

Worldwide the teaching and learning of mathematics pose a great challenge to mathematics teachers as learners' performance in the subject leaves much to be desired. This is particularly the case in South Africa where there was a great disparity in the development of teachers in the past. Extensive research has shown that many teachers in South Africa are under-qualified, especially in the teaching of mathematics at secondary schools. Those who are regarded as well qualified for teaching mathematics at secondary schools still experience problems in teaching certain sections of the syllabus, for example geometry, which is not offered at tertiary institutions. It is for this reason that the researcher, together with colleagues at an experimental school, joined forces to share the teaching of mathematics in what they referred to as "collaborative teaching". This work therefore involves a case study, which resulted after three teachers successfully achieved good matric results on employing this approach between 1993 and 1996. The study is based on an experimental design where both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. The aim of the study was to measure the extent to which collaboration between teachers affects the learning of mathematics in Grades 12. Two schools, the experimental school and a control school were involved. Learners from the experimental school were taught according to a collaborative approach whereas learners at the control school were taught conventionally (one teacher teaching all sections alone). This happened over a period of six months in 2001. Learners who were taught collaboratively outperformed those who were taught conventionally especially in the most problematic areas of the syllabus, namely geometry and trigonometry. The teachers who were involved in this approach, that is, collaborators, loved it to the extent that one of them applied it in another school where it improved their Grade 12 results tremendously. Learners who were taught according to this approach greatly appreciated it and wished they had been taught the same way in other subjects. This approach did not, however, significantly influence learners in their problem solving and information processing skills. In addition, one of the most serious limitations of this approach is to find a substitute for a teacher who leaves the team. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.