‘To go boldly’: teaching science fiction to first-year engineering students in a South African context

This paper reflects on the teaching of science fiction texts to first-year engineering students at the University of the Witwatersrand as part of a Critical Thinking course that uses literature as a vehicle through which to develop competence in critical literacy and communication. This course aims to equip engineering students, as future intermediaries between science and society, with the ability to fulfil this role in both the contemporary global world and South Africa more specifically through the imaginative inhabitation of divergent subject positions afforded by literary texts. Science fiction encourages students to engage imaginatively with various societal ideas, constructs and possibilities. One of the principles of the course is that reading facilitates empathic responses, challenging readers to inhabit unfamiliar subject positions. In this way, the teaching of science fiction aims to develop self-reflective and critical learning practices, wherein engineering students grapple with the ethical ramifications of extrapolated known science in a South African context.     

Investigating teachers' ‘take-up’ of reflective practice from an In-service professional development teacher education programme in South Africa

One of the key phases in ‘the action research cycle’ is reflection (Kemmis & McTaggart, 1988; McNiff, 1988). The extension of teachers' reflective capabilities is one of the stated goals of the University of the Witwatersrand's teacher education programmes. In this article aspects of the findings of a 3-year research project, which investigated teachers' ‘take-up’ from a mixed-mode, inservice professional development programme initiated by the university in 1996 are discussed. The research team has described the overall project as ‘a practice-based case study of cases’. Data sources included classroom observations, videotapes of some of the lessons observed, interviews with teachers, written teacher narratives and questionnaires, and samples of learners' work- all obtained from working with the same sample of primary and secondary school teachers of English, Mathematics and Science for each of the 3 years of the project. The authors engage with what counts as ‘evidence’ of the reflective practices of teachers and consider what factors might enable or constrain the development of reflective capability by teachers working in underresourced, multi-lingual contexts. They reflect on their practices as teacher educators and outline some changes to the programme that could assist teachers to become more reflective practitioners in their classrooms and schools.     

Developing mathematical ability in primary school through a ‘pull-out’ programme: a case study

This article reports the findings of a case study which examined a pull-out strategy for provision for mathematically able children in a primary school in London. The research investigated how the needs of a group of pupils, identified as able mathematicians, were being met through a special small group that works outside the regular mathematics lessons. Based on the observations of the lessons and the semi-structured interviews with both the pupils and their teacher, this article presents some interesting and useful ways for teaching mathematics to able children through small, pulled-out classes.     

Educational ideologies and national development needs: the ’African University‘ in Namibia

Although a new institution, the University of Namibia is facing the same problems of curriculum, funding, and access which hinder academic effectiveness elsewhere. Research on the future prospects for the university was facilitated by the senior authors prior involvement in the effort to construct a modern Namibia in the post-colonial period. Such involvement included several advisory assignments relating to the emerging university. This shared experience provided unusual access for in-depth and confidential interviews with national and university decision-makers. Based on these discussions and previous research, the authors outline a process for facilitating the government and academic leadership so crucial to evolving a responsive university. They discern that success for higher education in the Namibian context will require merging the roles of the University and the Polytechnic and transcending imported models to develop an institution responsive to Namibian needs.     

Adult education in a workplace context: recognising production workers’ responses and partnership challenges

Abstract

This article is about a larger regional Swedish partnership programme that was established to develop site-based education for production workers. A partnership is seen as composed of different practice architectures. The actors involved represented larger transnational as well as smaller manufacturing companies, employers, the metal workers’ trade union, educational organizations, university researchers and public labour market authorities. Adult education teachers were engaged to act as leading action researchers on company-specific projects. The partnership programme is used here to illustrate the problem of supporting recognition under shifting partnership circumstances. The aim is to analyse enabling and constraining conditions affecting the teachers’ efforts as well as new possibilities that appeared as the partnership evolved over time. The article illustrates how the development of site-based education within a partnership framework means to develop a new practice that is very sensitive to local circumstances. It also shows how local meetings between people both enable and constrain, but also may open up a space for mutual recognition. A normative argument is that local spaces for mutual recognition need to be supported in a respectful way. Recognition of the particularities of each site is vital for this to happen.     

Learning through South–South development: Cuban-African partnerships in sport and physical education

Since the 1990s, Cuba has offered scholarships to students from low-resource countries to attend the Escuela Internacional de Educación Física y Deporte (EIEFD) for a six-year degree in sport, physical education, and coaching. Drawing on the experiences of EIEFD graduates from four Southern African countries (Zambia, South Africa, Mozambique, and Lesotho) the authors discuss the meanings that this South–South cooperation through education holds for international students and for the self-sufficiency of sport and physical-education systems within partner countries. The authors also show that upon returning home, many EIEFD graduates are left to negotiate insular job markets and inconsistent domestic commitments to public sport and physical education. The implications for South–South development through international education, and the place of sport and physical education therein, are discussed.     

Opportunities and challenges in the development of teachers’ knowledge: the development of narrative authority through knowledge communities

This work examines generative approaches to teacher professional development that pay attention to how personal, interpersonal, contextual and situational factors influence teacher knowledge developments over time. Using examples from our research programs, we show how critical it is to intentionally account for how teachers filter their professional development experiences through their personal practical knowledge expressed in community. By featuring Pat (the pre-service case) and Liz (the in-service case), we illustrate how teachers develop their narrative authority in knowledge communities and show why knowledge communities are critical to the sustained development of narrative authority. We argue that attending to these critical matters creates opportunities for understanding that can lead to confirmation of, refinement in, or transformation of present practices.     

From aspirations to practice: curriculum challenges for a new ‘twenty-first-century’ secondary school

This paper reports on the initial stages of an empirical study of a new secondary school in New Zealand. The school vision and organisation reflect current international twenty-first-century learning discourse by confronting long-established beliefs concerning the nature of education and knowledge and the roles of teachers and students. The school's focus is on developing the dispositions and competencies of students through thematic, intersubject, inquiry-based learning. While these twenty-first-century ideas appear widely accepted worldwide, there is little research on the impact of these ideas on student learning. This study considers the challenges faced by the school in moving from aspirational vision to curriculum enactment during its first 18 months of operation. The focus of this paper is the curriculum design and development process. The issues faced by staff in this twenty-first-century school will be of interest to educationalists worldwide who are involved with the planning of new schools and curricular innovation within existing schools. Four key questions that arise from the study and that will form the focus of future research are identified.     

The reflexive adaptations of school principals in a ‘local’ South African space

This paper is an analysis of the work of three principals in an impoverished black township in post‐apartheid South Africa. Based on qualitative approaches, it discusses the principals’ entry into the township, and their navigation of their schools’ surrounding social dynamics. It combines the lenses of ‘space’ and ‘performance’ to analyse the reflexive basis on which they establish their principal roles. The paper suggests that their identities as principals were established in light of a range of engaged pedagogical performances. It is argued that these were enacted based on nuanced readings of their discursive environment and the enactment of strategic practices that provided them an authoritative platform for their principal roles.     

Reflection on teaching and epistemological structure: reflective and critically reflective processes in ‘pure/soft’ and ‘pure/hard’ fields

We empirically explored whether academics from pure/soft and pure/hard fields engage in reflective practice on teaching differently and, if so, whether these differences could be partially explained by the epistemological structure of their discipline. Interview data from academics in pure/hard (N = 30) and pure/soft fields (N = 10) were deductively analyzed according to different types and domains of reflection as well as the nature of learning underlying these reflections. The greatest differences between the two groups were found with respect to reflection on core beliefs as well as within the domain of educational goals and purposes, both being more common in soft fields. Soft and hard fields engaged in instrumental, communicative as well as emancipatory learning about teaching but to different degrees. We propose that teaching expertise requires a disposition to engage in reflection on core beliefs, particularly but not exclusively within the domain of goals and purposes, the latter involving both communicative and emancipatory learning. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

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Carolin KreberEmail:

     

Teaching ‘community engagement’ in engineering education for international development: Integration of an interdisciplinary social work curriculum

This article reviews the literature on challenges faced by engineering faculty in educating their students on community-engaged, sustainable technical solutions in developing countries. We review a number of approaches to increasing teaching modules on social and community components of international development education, from adding capstone courses and educational track seminars to integrating content from other disciplines, particularly the social sciences. After summarising recent pedagogical strategies to increase content on community-focused development, we present a case study of how one engineering programme incorporates social work students and faculty to infuse strategies for community engagement in designing and implementing student-led global engineering development projects. We outline how this interdisciplinary pedagogical approach teaches students from the two disciplines to work together in addressing power balances, economic and social issues and overall sustainability of international development projects.     

Teacher unions’ participation in policy making: a South African case study

This article contends that teacher unions’ participation in policy making during South Africa’s political transition was characterised by assertion of ideological identity (unionism and professionalism) and the cultivation of policy networks and alliances. It is argued that, historically, while teacher unions were divided along political and ideological lines, they have demonstrated flexibility in contesting for influence in the policy arena. In this regard, teacher unions’ agency plays an important part and is reflected in changes in organisational strategies to ensure their independence or prevent marginalisation. The article highlights the threat of state co-optation for teacher unions and suggests that a framework for managing teacher union–state relations based on ‘professional unionism’ could potentially contribute to more effective education service provision. Comparisons with teacher unions’ experiences elsewhere in the world are also made, while recognising the specificity of the South African situation.     

‘Luring the academic soul’: promoting academic engagement in South African universities

There is widespread pressure that universities should become more responsive and accountable to multiple demands in their local, national and global contexts. Academics grapple to identify appropriate organisational responses to the pressures of state steering and incentive programmes. The empirical focus of the paper is a survey of academics' community engagement activities, mapping their interaction with external partners at five South African universities. The paper addresses a basic question: Who are the academics that engage, and what are their main academic influences? We argue that engagement is more likely to ‘lure the academic soul’ when it is driven by substantive growth in a disciplinary field and enhances reputations. The analysis seeks to identify how disciplinary, institutional and positional attributes are correlated with engaged activities. ‘Luring the academic soul’ through an understanding of the influences on academics' propensity to engage can facilitate more effectively targeted incentives and policies.     

Developing communication as a graduate outcome: using ‘Writing Across the Curriculum’ as a whole-of-institution approach to curriculum and pedagogy

Communication is widely recognised as an important capability for university graduates [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2013). OECD skills outlook 2013: First results from the survey of adult skills. Author. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264204256-en]. Yet, research suggests that it is often not adequately developed by Australian universities, remaining implicit in teaching and assessment. This is in part because Australian universities have historically conceptualised communication not as an outcome of disciplinary study, but as a generic, foundational competency or skill. It has therefore been managed outside the curriculum by establishing academic language and learning units that help students develop written and spoken communication through a range of student services. The services model of communication development is becoming untenable, however, given the increasing cultural and linguistic diversity of students and the recognised importance of communication as a graduate outcome. Whole-of-institution approaches are required to integrate communication into course curricula as a fundamental part of disciplinary learning, and develop the capacity of teaching staff to teach it. This paper explores Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing Inside the Disciplines, two complementary approaches used widely in the US for developing literacy in higher education. They emerged in the 1970s in response to the kind of student diversity now common in Australian universities, and offer institution-wide strategies for developing communication as an essential outcome of study in academic and professional disciplines.     

Routes through higher education: BME students and the development of a ‘specialisation of consciousness’

With changing demographics and the advent of mass higher education, there has been a significant impact on graduate transitions which has led to greater inequalities in access to social support during the transitionary period between undergraduate study and entrance into the labour market. This article explores the experiences of students in their final year of undergraduate study by drawing on 43 interviews with Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) students. Using Bourdieu, we argue that BME students preparing to enter the labour market display a ‘specialisation of consciousness’: a set of practices framed by their prior background and experience, choice of university and the support derived from attending university. ‘Specialisation of consciousness’ is an ongoing process in which BME students identify and understand racial inequalities in higher education and accept the limiting consequences these have on transitions into the labour market or further study.     

Investigating the curriculum through assessment practice in higher education: the value of a ‘learning cultures’ approach

It is widely acknowledged that the curriculum and knowledge in higher education (HE) are especially visible through (and often constructed by) assessment practices. If this is the case, it matters greatly what perspectives and theoretical tools are brought to bear on the task of understanding these practices. Having briefly set out three perspectives on assessment in HE (the technical, humanist and interactionist), this paper introduces a ‘learning cultures’ perspective, drawing upon the work of Bourdieu, developed as part of a recent research project on English Further Education. The application of this perspective in HE is introduced through a vignette outlining a recent assessment episode and notes on how it may be explored. The paper argues that whilst some contemporary work on HE assessment incorporates elements of a cultural perspective, there are potential practical benefits to a more thoroughgoing adoption of a ‘learning cultures’ approach.