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Knowledge for teaching, knowledge about teaching: exploring the links between education research, scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) and scholarly teaching
Get PDFAbstractThe relationship between education research and the scholarship of teaching and learning(SOTL) is still debated, while a distinction has been made between scholarly teaching andSOTL. This study compares and contrasts two programmes of work that took place in aparticular 2nd year engineering course, both led by the author. The first programme was aneducational research project investigating student learning in the course. The secondprogramme was a period of teaching, leading to some SOTL output. Analysis of theknowledge drawn on in teaching, confirms that good university teaching is not a directapplication of research findings but rather draws on a broad and largely tacit practical baseof knowledge. The article also offers a deliberation on whether it is productive to maintainthe distinction between education research and SOTL
Knowledge selection in initial teacher education programmes and its implications for curricular coherence
Get PDFAbstractThere are a multitude of concepts and techniques that could be important for teachers tolearn during their initial teacher education (ITE), but indiscriminately including all of themwould result in an overcrowded and fragmented curriculum. Given the limited time for ITE,rational knowledge selection choices must be made if coherent programmes are to beoffered to prospective teachers. This paper explores the approaches taken to addressing thecritical challenges facing education in South Africa and the principles from knowledgeselection that arise from these approaches. Different conceptions about how best to addressthese challenges offer directed priorities to guide knowledge selection decisions for ITEcurricula. Examples of knowledge selection principles that variously promote conceptual orcontextual coherence are presented and analysed, and tradeoffs associated with each one areconsidered. Although some recontextualising principles are mutually incompatiable, othershave the potential to coexist. In a four-year qualification, where sequencing choices can bemade, there exists the possibility of introducing different principles at different timeswithout unduly compromising internal coherence. A challenge for those who design ITEcurricula is to design conceptually coherent and/or contextually responsive curricula fullyaware of the affordances and limitations offered by different recontextualising principle
Telemedicine Pre and Post Covid-19: Lessons for Commercialisation Based on Previous Use Cases
Get PDFTelemedicine used to be slow, difficult, expensive and widely neglected by doctors and patients. COVID-19 changed everything; telemedicine is entering a period of rapid economic and business growth. This paper discusses the reasons for change in telemedicine over the last 20 years, through real-life medical technology projects, telemetry, ehealth and health IT. Our methods are based on the analysis of telemedicine projects we have implemented and characteristic historical data. The results of our investigation demonstrate a clear increase of significance in telemedicine in the present and near future. We envision the evolution of mobile phones to personal telehealth monitors. Prior to COVID-19, market penetration and economic factors of telemedicine evolved slowly and in an uneven manner on a global scale. Many of the projects remained active only as long as the grant or corporate or national support was provided. The age of novel globally spreading infectious diseases, exemplified by COVID-19, has created an unusual, different setting. Recent pandemics and epidemics have changed global economics significantly and generated a new motivation and a new market with a projected trillion-dollar market value. Post COVID-19, regular and periodic epidemics and pandemics are expected to continue to occur. This will generate an enormous global market for isolated high-tech services, including telemedicine and telemetry
Citizens Participating in their Healthcare – Challenges for Nurses
Get PDFIn Finland, health and welfare is taken care under the common health and social services system that consists of independent private, public and third sector actors. Through taxation, municipalities finance most of the healthcare and the government provides additional support. Functionality and effectiveness of the overall system is vitally important to guarantee today’s good healthcare services. For instance, in social services and healthcare, digital health supports the quality of life, care, dignity and sovereignty. The necessary technology is equally, fairly and easily accessible due to the widespread technological infrastructure. For example, in healthcare, use of technology is agreed with the citizen when preparing the healthcare service plan. The documentation of patient data is carried out virtually at all levels of care. Technology offers options that can paradoxically mean both freedom and slavery depending on how and where technology is used, and who has the right to use it. Furthermore, the digital divide has narrowed, but it still exists. Due to the ageing of people, there is a growing need for healthcare staff who are digitally knowledgeable in order to support citizens and their families in health issues. When studying different digital health related strategies from 1995 to 2020, the vital role of healthcare staff is recognised and their technological competence and skills need to be updated along with the development of technology. During the last decade, in the latest strategies, the role of the citizen as a key part of the healthcare service chain has grown significantly. Simultaneously, the development of a digital society offers possibilities to participate and the advanced digital expertise of citizens promotes their participation in healthcare. In principle, everyone has possibilities to access health data and gather health related data via Internet databases. This article discusses the elements of citizen or patient and nurse interactions, and how and whether this challenges nurses
Career development of women principals in Lesotho: Influences, opportunities and challenges
Get PDFThis paper presents findings from a study that explored career development of women principals in Lesotho high schools. The aim of the study was to understand women principals’ careers within a particular context by focusing on influences behind their career choices, career transitions and career advancement opportunities. Through a narrative inquiry in qualitative research, in-depth interviews were conducted with eight women principals on their personal and professional stories. The findings revealed that family played a significant role in influencing women’s teaching career choices, while transitions from teaching to principalship were influenced by levels of readiness, desire to implement change and to improve student outcomes. Opportunities of career advancement included self-initiated study which improved qualifications, taking advantage of chances to perform leadership roles as well as self-confidence and self-drive to actively seek promotion
Exploring pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning grammar: Implications for teacher education
Get PDFThis article argues that it is essential to acknowledge the beliefs with which pre-service teachers enter universities as their beliefs could shape how they teach in the future. In our qualitative study, underpinned by metacognitive and attribution theories, we consider English Education pre-service teachers’ beliefs about learning and teaching grammar and the implications thereof for teacher education. The findings revealed firstly that participants’ beliefs were shaped by their experiences of the pedagogic practices in their schools. Secondly, it became clear that teacher education programmes cannot assume pre-service teachers’ competences, and should take cognisance of pre-service teachers’ backgrounds and levels of preparedness for university
The impact of the apprenticeship of observation on preservice teachers’ perceptions of teaching
Get PDFFirst year pre-service teachers’ images of and beliefs about teaching are formed over years of prior educational experiences and these images exert a powerful impact on their developing professional identity. These perceptions are embedded in the apprenticeship of observation that serves as a lens through which they often measure their own ability or inability regarding their knowledge and skills. Acknowledging this impact of the apprenticeship of observation might have on first year pre-service teachers not only poses a great challenge to the students themselves, but also constitutes a critical pedagogical challenge for tertiary institutions. These deeply rooted ways of thinking about teaching and what teachers do should be acknowledged, disrupted and challenged and pre-service teachers should be supported in effort to create their own local knowledge and lived experience that can constitute their dominant discourses about teaching and being a full time teacher
Proxies and perplexities: What is the current state of adult (il)literacy in South Africa?
Get PDFThis article provides a detailed analysis of the data from a range of official sources thathave been used to enumerate the number of people who can be described as totally orfunctionally illiterate and estimates whether illiteracy in South Africa can be reduced in theforeseeable future.The study examines the use of years of schooling (conventionally now set at Grade 7) asthe proxy indicator of a person being functionally literate by the main sources, the GeneralPopulation Censuses of 1996, 2001, and 2011 and the annual General Household Surveysand shows that these sources give somewhat contradictory and discordant estimates of therate at which there is gradual decline of illiteracy in South Africa. Other indicators based onself reporting, also used in the Census and General Housing Surveys, show that a largenumber of adult South Africans have difficulty in reading, writing and calculating withnumbers. The study also shows that the data presented by these surveys about participationin literacy and adult basic education and training classes is inaccurate. Note is made thatcurrently South Africa does not make use of any means of direct testing of adult literacy.The article concludes with an exploration on whether South Africa is able to reach the goalof halving illiteracy by 2015. The target of such a reduction is necessarily based on whatthe baseline number of illiterates is as well as decision on whether full function literacymust be obtained or a merely a basic level of alphabetisation. Through a detailed estimationof the results of the Kha Ri Gude adult literacy campaign since 2008 a finding is made thatthe halving of illiteracy will be made, but only at the most basic level, and that attainingfull functional literacy for all South Africans remains a major task
A participatory approach to service-learning in creative arts education: a win-win learning opportunity for campus and community?
Get PDFAbstractService-learning has been shown to be effective in preparing students to live and work in adiverse and rapidly changing society, especially when it is based on a democraticpartnership between university students and community participants, resulting in mutuallybeneficial learning. Yet, in cases where the community is often regarded as less equal due todebilitating socio-economic circumstances, there is a real danger the engagement turns intomore of a charity rendering experience, rather than promoting deep learning for allinvolved. This article reports on our attempts to create a service-learning experience thatallowed students and community youth to learn with and from each other. Data weregenerated in four cycles of a participatory action research design, using visual, art andtext-based strategies. The thematic analysis indicated that the process gave participants abetter understanding of each other’s lived realities; that it helped to level out unequal powerrelations; and that the reciprocal learning boosted development on personal and professionallevels. The knowledge we share in this article will help others to know how to design andimplement a valuable and mutually beneficial service learning experience not only inCreative Arts education; but in any discipline where students engage with community
Consequences of the progression law in the FET phase: a case study
Get PDFThe progression law, which restricts grade repetition to once within each of the four phasesof basic education, has only been enforced in the Further Education and Training (FET)phase since 2013. The first cohort of progressed learners reached grade 12 in 2014. Weinvestigate the extent of progression in 2014 in various school quintiles and the observedand speculated future consequences of the progression law in the FET phase. Our mainlyquantitative data includes numbers and pass rates for the entire Free State (FS) province,with a focus on the Motheo district. We also draw on some qualitative data in the forms ofquestionnaires and reports from teachers and mentors working in 22 low quintile schools inMotheo. Our findings show marked differences in extents and impacts of progressionbetween the school quintiles, with low quintile schools acutely impacted and withdifficulties likely to escalate in the next few years