Sarah Gravett

‘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.

New teachers look back on their university education: Prepared for teaching, but not for life in the classroom

Abstract Starting from current views on pre-service teacher education, this article presents the findings of an inquiry into new teachers’ perceptions of their university education. The authors argue for a specific view of pre-service teacher education, in which students are given the opportunity to seriously study the content of the subjects they will be teaching, while learning some skills to deliver the school curriculum and to begin to understand, and deal with, learners’ sociological and psychological dispositions. They also argue that the expectation that universities should prepare teachers fully for practice is not feasible, as the school itself as a place of work is the optimal setting for getting to know – in an authentic and non-trivialising way – the hardships and challenges of what constitutes teaching in a country like South Africa. The findings of the study show that teachers are confident about their preparation in content knowledge. They are also comfortable with some aspects of pedagogy,...

Pedagogical craft and its science: Janus-faced in pre-service teacher education

Abstract The authors of this article propose that theory and practice, as the science and the craft of teaching, are reciprocal and interfacing. To manifest this construct in teacher preparation courses, they suggest the analogy of ‘bootstrapping’ as a way of thinking about the epistemologies of theory and practice in tandem. With this analogy in mind, they explore the use of a specific curriculum tool to bring theory and practice closer together. Survey and interview data in a study they conducted indicate that new teachers’ experience of their first year or two in the workplace is largely positive with regard to what they think they know and can do pedagogically, while revealing that they nevertheless perceive themselves as unprepared to cross the boundary into the workplace. The authors conclude that more can be done in teacher education programmes to amalgamate the epistemologies and the discourses of the science and the craft of pedagogy in non-clinical work.

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...

Literacy development as ‘a marginalised pedagogical service enterprise’ or as social practice in the disciplines?

Abstract This paper discusses one of the main findings of an inquiry into a literacy bridging2 course for Education students at a comprehensive university. The course was designed for students whose school education did not prepare them for higher education. The study shows how the course has been marginalised from mainstream university activity. The authors argue that writing is a social practice which depends on a community and its discourses and that university writing centres, being detached from this community, therefore have a limited function in academic development. They present a sociocultural perspective on literacy, derived from Vygotskian theory, highlighting writing as an epistemic tool, invoking their design-based (DBR) inquiry to illustrate the operationalisation of this theory. The authors tell of the struggle of the designers of writing courses to fashion an epistemic fit between the technology of writing academically and the ‘distant’ disciplinary coursework students are expected to perf...

The affordances of case-based teaching for the professional learning of student-teachers

Abstract This paper reports on a qualitative enquiry into the affordances of case-based teaching for the professional learning of student-teachers. The context is a first-year foundational course in a four-year undergraduate teacher education programme, offered by an urban university in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a student enrolment of close to 700 students (divided into two groups of 350 students). Data sources used for this study were focus group interviews with student-teachers, individual interviews with teacher educators, video footage of classroom interaction, first-person reports by student-teachers in the form of reflective essays, student-teachers’ discussions on blackboard and examination scripts. The research showed that case-based teaching elicits engaged learning; assists with developing understanding of the complexities of teaching and enables student-teachers to relate theory-based ideas to predicaments of practice. Furthermore, the research revealed how case-based teaching can provide insights into student-teachers’ preconceptions of teaching. In this study, case-based teaching was used with large class groups. The findings suggest that case-based teaching, as used in the course reported on, could serve as an antidote for some of the issues that plague large course teaching.

The potential of teaching schools in enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession

Abstract In 2011 the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa was promulgated. This framework proposes the establishment of teaching schools to strengthen pre-service teacher education. This study arises from this initiative. A generic qualitative study was undertaken to explore the views of research participants from selected teacher education institutions and schools in South Africa on the potential of teaching schools to enable student teacher learning for the teaching profession. The key findings are that teaching schools can potentially make a distinctive contribution towards enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession through student teachers experiencing good teaching in a model environment and through coordinating experiences in coursework and at the school. The discussion of the findings points to the distinctive potentialities of teaching schools for strengthening teacher education. The notion of hybridity and third space is invoked as a heuristic to shed light on the developing of a true collaborative relationship between the teacher education institution and the teaching school for enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession.

Law teaching: a true vocation or mere prostration?

This paper reports on a study that examined the culture and identity of the legal academic as a practising teacher. The study is based on three law teachers working at a prominent South African university. By using an ethnographic design type, data was collected through observation during class visits, discussion about teaching in interviews, and a review of teaching-related documents. The research revealed that the primary professional identity of the participants is rooted in the traditions of law as an academic discipline. The participants characterise themselves as teachers and not as legal practitioners. Not only do they choose to teach, but they actively regard teaching as their true vocation. As core to the nature of their teacher identities, the participants express a significant emotional dimension shaped by their relationships with students.