Nadine Petersen

‘You just try to find your own way’: the experience of newcomers to academia

The purpose of the research reported on in this article was to explore how newcomer staff members to the academy experience their entry into the academic discourse community. To this end, a generic qualitative research design was implemented to understand the meaning newcomers have constructed about academia and how they make sense of their experience of, and participation in, the academic environment. A purposeful sample of 20 newcomers to a South African university was selected to be interviewed. Within this university newly‐appointed academics are introduced to the academic environment via a two to three‐day general induction seminar. The data‐generating method used was in‐depth, recursive interviews, in which participants were prompted to narrate and reflect on their experiences. Data was analysed inductively by seeking core consistencies and meanings (themes) within the data linked to the purpose of the research. The inquiry revealed three main findings: (1) Newcomers had to change their existing perceptions and expectations about what it means to be an academic; (2) They experienced their entry into the academic context as a highly individualised process; and (3) Most newcomers initially operated ignorantly of many of the features of the community, its discourse and the complexity of its rules of interaction. The article proposes a three‐tier mentoring model that is conceptualised from a dialogic perspective as a means to assisting novice academics in entering and progressing within academia. We argue that the proposed model could also serve as a powerful transformation agent in the university, helping to build a diverse and strong academy.

Pre-service teacher education students' engagement with care and social justice in a service learning module

This study investigates pre-service teacher education students’ engagement with service learning at a South African university. The service learning module was premised on a framework of caring and social justice. A critical discourse analysis technique (Fairclough, 2003) along with content analysis and a hybrid form of ethnomethodological analysis (EA) was used to explore students’ meaning making. The findings show that students performed mainly as ‘technicians’ of service who largely misunderstood the purpose and intention of service learning. Students also positioned themselves as observers of the ‘other’ in a troubled world and took up positions as subjects in the service learning, pathologising the ‘diseased other’. In addition, the investigation reveals that students were challenged by service learning as an experienced/experiential curriculum and that for the majority of students there was only a transient development of their personal and professional knowledge.

Integrating foundation phase teacher education with a ‘teaching school’ at the University of Johannesburg

AbstractSuccessful teacher education programmes underscore the integration of knowledge for teaching with knowledge of teaching, the ‘how’ of teaching. Such programmes necessitate an integrative programme design to counteract the schism between the ‘world of theory’ and the ‘world of practice’ and draw optimally on collaboration between teacher educators and teachers who supervise students in schools to achieve this. This paper reflects on participants’ experiences of a teacher education programme designed to integrate the university coursework curriculum with student-teachers’ involvement in a school established to serve as a practice learning site – a teaching school. Data comprised the views of faculty managers, university and teaching school staff and student-teachers involved in the foundation phase teacher education programme and the teaching school. The main findings are that the teaching school has the potential to strengthen teacher education programmes. However, as the programme designers and un...

Foundation phase teaching as a career choice: Building the nation where it is needed

Abstract This article addresses the question of why students choose to study to become foundation phase (FP) teachers. Career choice in teacher education is an important national issue, particularly since there is a drive to increase enrolment in foundation phase teacher education programmes in the country. In this study we explore the motivation of two cohorts of South African first-year students for their decision to enrol for this qualification. In response to an open-ended question survey, designed within the broad framework of motivation theory, students wrote brief narratives which were utilised as the data source. Particular emphasis was placed on the need-motive-value approach, as one classification of motivation theory to analyse the data. We argue that within the overall value of social justice in education the motivation for becoming teachers of the early grades can be seen as a contribution to the building of a young nation.

University-affiliated schools as sites for research learning in pre-service teacher education

This article proposes that the ‘teaching/practice schools’ formally affiliated to initial teacher education programmes at universities, can be utilised more optimally as research sites by student teachers. The argument is put forward with reference to the role that such schools have played historically in teacher education in the United States (US), and more recently, in the successful Finnish teacher education system, in which research is highly valued as a requisite part of a teaching qualification. The authors propose that the single component of these schools, which has historically distinguished them from schools for work integrated learning (WIL), is that they are also research spaces and have retained some of the ‘lab’ character of earlier schools, such as the one established by John Dewey. In such schools, the authors argue, students learn to be reflective practitioners by positioning themselves as researchers, who reflect on practice in a research-rich environment. In a pilot study, the authors found that university and school personnel hold different views about research in the schools. The article recommends that careful consideration be given to the research function in these public schools as part of teacher training. Keywords : activity systems; Dewey; experimental schools; Finland; lab schools; practice schools; practitioner research;reflective practice; teacher education; teaching schools

Chronicling a Faculty of Education's journey into community engagement through service learning

This article describes and presents the communal story of three lecturers involved in the genesis and development of a multi-tiered service and support system instituted by the Faculty of Education in Johannesburg in conjunction with eight partner schools and a community organisation. The multi-tiered system comprises of pre-service teacher education students, B Ed (Hons) school counselors and M Ed Educational Psychology students. We describe the genesis of the system by first providing a contextual overview against the backdrop of a framework of social justice and care in the Faculty of Education and argue that as an academic enterprise the community engagement initiative contributes to a greater integration of theory and practice. We also posit that this integration, partly based on Bernsteins notion of an integrated curriculum, which is framed in a particular manner, leads to curriculum innovation in all the modules and also includes a revision of roles and power relationships generally assigned to le...

An Exploration of the Value of an Educational Excursion for Pre-Service Teachers.

This paper addresses the question: What is the value of an educational excursion for first year students enrolled in a 4 year pre-service professional teacher education degree at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa? The excursion is an integral part of a first year module that focuses on the personal and professional development of teachers. This article compares the nature of student learning during the excursion with students’ learning and interaction in the traditional formal lecture room and argues that it operates as two different activity systems. Drawing on student reflections, questionnaire data and focus group interviews and using Veresov’s notion of ‘dramatical collisions’ and Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as a lens, this study highlights and explores the unforeseen dynamics and tensions created during the excursion. It focuses on the importance of social interaction during the excursion and how it affords students the opportunity to learn how to live and learn together and to work co-operatively in a natural setting. The major findings are that the excursion provides a different learning environment for personal and professional development and this assists students in planning their professional trajectory. These, it is claimed, hold much promise for teacher education.

Use of a simulation game for HIV/AIDS education with pre-service teachers

The article describes the use of a simulation game in HIV/AIDS education with pre-service teachers in Johannesburg, South Africa. The use of a simulation game, as novel experiential pedagogy, was an attempt to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS and to demonstrate that anyone can be at risk of HIV infection. Using a generic qualitative research design, the data were collected over a three-year period by way of video recordings of the simulation game, recordings of large and small group discussions afterwards, and via questionnaires and written reflections by the education students four weeks afterwards. Content analysis and discourse analysis led to the construction of three main themes. First, we found that the novelty factor of the simulation game for raising HIV/AIDS awareness was confirmed both during the game itself and after a period of time had elapsed. Second, in light of many education students’ naivety about the intersection of biological, socio-cultural and economic issues at play in the spread of HIV, the game prompted more reflexivity about the disease and helped to broaden the participants’ discussions. Lastly, the data revealed the disjuncture between theory and practice in HIV/AIDS education. We propose that in raising awareness of HIV and AIDS, educators should move towards more engaging and challenging pedagogies that address the learning needs of the ‘new’ generation of university students.

Education as Change: Community Service Learning (CSL) theory and epistemology

This special issue of Education as Change focusing on service learning emerged from the commitment of the CHESP research team in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) to disseminating research in the field. We wish to encourage scholarly enquiry into CSL, such as publishing the work emanating from the research project in the Faculty in 2004-2006, and the conference of April 2005.

Service learning and the practice of social justice and care

ABSTRACT The values of a social justice pedagogy in teacher education are assumed to be firmly established in South African higher education. This article discusses how serviced learning (SL) can provide practical experience of caring and serve the promotion of the ideals of social justice in two initial teacher education programmes. However, an analysis of data in this case study shows that, although SL practice has served as a platform for social justice and for care as two basic educational values, participants were not yet able to verbalize and theorize these values. They were also not able to embed these values in their reflection about service as an inherent component of education. With data from different role players in a number of SL projects, we show that the students’ discourse of what it means to be a caring teacher in a just society has not yet been developed despite the successful practical experience. It was found that, although the students had been building a practice ‘platform’ for service, they had not yet been able to articulate the conceptual intersect of care and social justice clearly. With this epistemological notion in mind, two main themes from the data analysis are discussed: 1) How SL shifted student learning from ideas ‘about’ service to implemented service, and 2) how the practical experience promoted reciprocity in inter-institutional and inter-generational communities of practice.