Loyiso C. Jita

The role of lead teachers in instructional leadership: A case study of environmental learning in South Africa

AbstractSouth Africa has a fairly centralised education system with a national curriculum. To expect that its instructional guidance system will be formal and centralised is thus not far-fetched. For the most part, that is indeed the case with most curriculum leadership vested formally in the various education specialists located at the national, provincial and district levels. Environmental Education (EE), however, is one area of learning that bucks the trend, where instructional guidance seems to be mostly decentralised to the schools and teachers. This article presents two qualitative case studies that illustrate the role of lead teachers in curriculum leadership for EE in primary schools. The cases suggest that instructional leadership is first and foremost a distributed practice that involves not only leaders in formal positions. Second, that in spite of the centralized education system in South Africa, instructional leadership may be decentralised to the schools in some of the subjects such as EE. T...

When Professional Development Works: South African Teachers' Perspectives

Abstract Despite the general acceptance of continuing professional development (CPD) programmes as essential to the improvement of education, reviews of professional development research constantly point to the ineffectiveness of most of these programmes. Furthermore, many teachers express dissatisfaction with the professional development opportunities made available to them in schools and insist that the most effective development programmes they have experienced have been self-initiated. There is consensus that many CPD programmes have yet to understand professional development from teachers’ perspectives. Such perspectives will enable one to understand what drives teachers to enlist in these programmes and how such programmes make a difference to them and their classrooms. This will help to throw light on how professional development programmes can be improved upon. This paper, therefore, returns the emphasis of professional development back to the teachers. It explores the perspectives of a group of South African teachers on CPD in general, their personal meaning of CPD, and its meaning in the context of their work. By interviewing a sample of teachers who were part of a science and mathematics professional development intervention, the researchers explored the teachers’ opinions of the intervention; its meaning to them and their work; and its impact on their classroom practices. The researchers present data from a longitudinal study of the teachers in greater detail. In discussing the data, the researchers argue that CPD, however well- intentioned and executed, is received differently by each teacher as a result of their personal circumstances and investment in the programme. The researchers then conclude that the greater the unity between the personal circumstances and motivations of the teachers and those of the CPD intervention, the more likely the outcome will be meaningful for the participating teachers. In turn, the ability to sustain the benefits of the intervention will be enhanced by such unity. An emergent recommendation is for policymakers and other providers of CPD to strive for such a unity of purpose.

Distance-and-Online Learning Support Service Benefits and Barriers in Undergraduate Mathematics Learning in Nigeria

The paper explores the benefits and barriers of Support Services (SS) in learning undergraduate mathematics through the distance-and-online mode. The aim was to explore SS that employ accessible and advanced technologies to improve the students’ distance-and-online learning of mathematics at university-level. Samples of students from the University of Lagos’ Distance Learning Institute (DLI) and the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) were selected purposively for this mixed-methods research study designed to understand how distance-and-online students perceived undergraduate mathematics, with regard to SS in the two Open and Distance Learning (ODL) institutions in Nigeria. The analyses of the data included a one-sample binomial test and students’ narratives. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (CTML), which has become increasingly influential in distance-and-online education, was used as a lens to explain student benefits and barriers of SS in undergraduate mathematics learning. The findings, which were consistent between quantitative and qualitative analyses, revealed that print materials, the Learning Management System (LMS), online processing of admission, registration, results checking and availability of course materials online all have significant benefits for students who are learning mathematics. However, the findings show that apart from uploading the course materials and leaving occasional information on the LMS, many mathematical activities were not available on the platform. The students’ desire for audio and visual systems, as advocated in CTML, also did not find expression in the findings, as students strongly disagreed that the utilisation of these technologies in their institutions was prevalent, thus creating barriers to the learning of mathematics in the institutions. The paper recommends that the SS which encourage constructivist–based learning aimed at inspiring, supporting and satisfying students’ needs, should be the major focus for improvements in the mathematics programmes offered through this mode.

TEACHER INDUCTION IN ETHIOPIA: STRUCTURES AND PRACTICES

Teacher education needs to be viewed as a continuum that begins with pre-service learning, followed by teacher induction, and then the continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers. To date researchers know much less about teacher induction relative to the other two phases of teacher education, in part because of its informal nature in most schools. Ethiopia is one of few exceptions in the world that has recently introduced an institutionalised and formal multi-year programme of induction for beginning teachers. This paper examines the organisation and practice of teacher induction in Ethiopia by exploring the experiences of three first year primary school teachers. Our findings suggest that while the structure and organisation of the mentoring programme are similar across schools, the professional guidance and assistance that is offered to the first year teachers varies greatly depending on a number of factors. We conclude with a discussion of the need to re-examine the conditions of implementations of the induction programme. Without proper resources, mentors, time allocated, and regular on-site monitoring, the formal teacher induction programme is unlikely to realise its intended benefits of supporting beginning teachers with adequate subject knowledge and skills required for quality teaching in the schools.