Towards a collaborative approach to teacher professional development : a journey of negotiation
- Authors: Southwood, Sue
- Date: 2001
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of -- South Africa Teachers -- In-service training -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1866 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004649
- Description: The research presented in this thesis is a case study, based on ethnographic principles, located in the interpretive paradigm of qualitative research. The focus is specifically on the development of a collaborative approach ro teacher professional development: an approach that recognises and celebrates teachers themselves as resources for their own and other teachers' professional development. The study was carried out over a period of four years with a group of twelve teachers who had recognised the need and expressed the desire to develop their teaching. The research evolved in two main phases. The initial phase was based on the implementation and evaluation of a project designed to encourage a collaborative approach to teacher development based on mutual peer support. This led to a second phase, the main focus of the research, aimed at gaining a greater understanding of the teachers' situation and situating their practice in the wider context generated by this understanding. Conversations with the teachers led to the identification of dimensions and tensions characterising their experience. The research presented here, represents an attempt to understand, interpret and make recommendations relating to the professional development of teachers. The understanding is linked to the teachers' educational biographies and experience of the culture in which they are situated. The interpretation is based on what may be viewed as a dynamic ongoing construction of meaning - a journey of negotiation. The text, described as a narrative collage, a tapestry of voices interwoven by threads of negotiation, represents a collaborative accomplishment. The teachers' words have been interpretively framed and these constructions validated in an interpersonal construction of social reality. The reader is invited to engage in an act of complicity, to collude with the text in the construction and negotiation of shared meaning, possibly finding resonance with their own situations. Reflections on the teachers' experience reveal journeys which resonate with that of the society in which the school is located - 'a case in transition' - situated between an environment characterised by constrained cooperation and an environment characterised by freer collaboration. The overall tension may be viewed metaphorically as a 'Tug o' War'. On one end of the rope is a cultural legacy of authority, isolation, social division and conservatism, while on the other end there is a pull towards greater autonomy and interaction, to adapt rather than conserve and to work together in mutual collegial support: a struggle between cooperating with what is and collaborating towards what could be. The main contention of this thesis is that we ought strongly to support and encourage collaborative approaches to professional development based on mutual peer support. We need to look towards a future of open professionalism where the teachers are regarded as key persons in the process. The attainment of such an ideal needs to be seen as part of systemic changes in management, policies and structure geared towards greater inclusivity and democratic practice; it necessitates a coherent approach that is based on relationships of mutual respect and appreciation.
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- Date Issued: 2001
An investigation of the key mechanisms that promote whole school development in a secondary school pilot project context
- Authors: Westraad, Susan Fiona
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Education -- South Africa Education, Secondary -- South Africa Education and state -- South Africa School improvement programs -- South Africa Educational change -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1414 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003291
- Description: Providing relevant and quality schooling for all South African learners is the paramount goal of the South African National Department of Education. South Africa 's historical and current socio-economic contexts provide many challenges for both the Department of Education and schools in this endeavour to provide quality teaching and learning. These challenges impact directly and indirectly on what happens in the classroom. Since 1994 a plethora of education and training policy has been introduced in South Africa to redress historical imbalances; to introduce a new education and training framework and approach; and to provide guidelines, principles and procedures for addressing some of the challenges that impact on schools. The National Whole School Evaluation Policy provides the legislative framework for the establishment of a quality assurance process in South African schools based on accountability and support. The subsequent Integrated Quality Management System attempts to provide a framework for integrating school evaluation and performance measurement. Policy frameworks are in place to guide quality assurance and school improvement, however, the reality of implementing this at a grass roots level is particularly challenging. The General Motors (GM) South Africa Foundation, a non-governmental development organisation, established by General Motors (GM) South Africa, commenced with the piloting the Learning Schools Initiative to investigate some of the challenges of whole school development and evaluation. This research documents the Learning Schools Initiative's intervention with the initial two pilot secondary schools situated in Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Bay) over a four-year period. It reviews the relevant school reform and school development literature and adopts a critical realist evaluative research approach to investigate the key mechanisms that promote whole school development and change in this context. In keeping with this approach, the results of the research are analysed and discussed within a context-menchanism-outcome configuration that involves the identification of the key mechanisms that bring about desired outcome/s in a specific context. Seven key generative mechanisms are identified as critical at a school and classroom level (i) school culture, (ii) school structures, (iii) effective leadership and management, (iv) personal growth and meaning, (v) restoration of relationships, (vi) professional development of educators, and development of capacity to work together, and (vii) support and accountability. The need to structure school development interventions around the triggering of identified key mechanisms is also identified as an important overarching mechanism. Suggestions are made for further research required to facilitate a deeper understanding of how to bring about meaningful change that results in quality teaching and learning in South African schools.
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- Date Issued: 2007
Master's Degree studies at Rhodes University : access and postgraduate readiness
- Authors: Stephenson, Sandra Lisa
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Rhodes University Universities and colleges -- Graduate work Recognition of prior learning Graduate students Corporate culture
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1967 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011783
- Description: This mixed method, grounded theory study aimed to explore access to Master's level study at Rhodes University, a small, traditional South African university established in 1904, over the ten year period 1999-2008. It also sought to capture the essence of 'postgraduate readiness': the generic (non-certificated) attributes which academics expect graduates to possess in order to undertake Master's degree study. While the majority of students enter Master's level via the formal route (which at Rhodes is an Honours or 4-year bachelor's degree), a significant number are admitted based on the recognition of prior learning (RPL), a practice which is encouraged in South African higher education national policy as a means of widening access and also of acknowledging that learning can take place in ways other than 'formally'. The findings show that while RPL is well defined nationally at the undergraduate level, the concept of RPL at the postgraduate level is vague and largely left to institutional discretion. No national, and few institutional, guidelines are available on which to base the assessment of potential Master's degree students who do not have Honours degrees. Interviews with Deans, supervisors and policy makers at Rhodes indicated that while there is institutional support for admitting alternative access candidates, there is a general perception of deficit compared to those entering the Master's with formal qualifications. However, the statistical findings showed no significant difference in success rates or time taken to completion between students with and without Honours degrees. In addition, comments from supervisors with extensive experience of alternative access students praised the diversity and rich life experience which such students brought to their studies and their peers. The study concludes that an institutional culture characterized by resistance to change, risk and externally imposed regulations at Rhodes has resulted in weak implementation of the University's RPL policy, little marketing or publicizing of alternative access routes to postgraduate study, and low numbers of RPL enrolments at the Master's level. A framework for the assessment of potential Master's candidates - both RPL and formal admissions - for use at Rhodes University and potentially also at other higher education institutions, is proposed in conclusion.
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- Date Issued: 2014