Teacher Education

Paul Mumba, Principal of LEAP Science and Maths School in Diepsloot joins the panel to talk about his experience of leading a school in a township context. He also talks about the South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition (the community of practice he belongs to) and what it has meant to him to be part of that collaborative platform.

Find more podcasts on Leadership in Education on the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub or on CliffCentral.com.

A team of key players from BRIDGE’s National ECD Community of Practice (ECD CoP) and the National ECD Alliance (NECDA) met in dialogue to focus on key challenges facing the ECD sector, the specific strengths and challenges of each structure and the potential for collaboration.

Through the dialogue, participants identified and agreed on opportunities for strategic collaboration to further the agenda of civil society organisations working in ECD in South Africa.

BRIDGE’s focus on ICTs as a cross-cutting theme in education has recently taken centre stage in several contexts. An important concern is to make sure that the device is not the goal; technology must support teaching and learning rather than overwhelming it.

We were joined by the first two principals in Gauteng to be part of the controversial school-twinning process.  They discussed how they have worked through the process and dispelled some of the myths.

In this video, Melissa King of BRIDGE, provides an update on the progress of the development of the ECD CoP’s ECD Quality Reflective Toolkit. The purpose reflection tool is to help practitioners (including care-givers, trainers and other stakeholders) think about quality in ECD and reflect on: “What is quality ECD provision in practice?”

The Axis Education Summit is an annual convergence of students, teachers, school leaders and stakeholders in the South African educational sector. The summit was hosted by the Global Teachers Institute in partnership with Teach With Africa, the South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition and BRIDGE. In 2015 the summit theme was “A New Story for Education” and strove to lead the change for a new and positive narrative for education transformation in South Africa and the rest of the world.

This resource focuses on the Leadership in education show on Cliffcentral.com every Monday. This weeks guest was Fiona Wallace of the CoZaCares Foundation, chatting about leadership in a school that’s on a tech journey.

If you are a lecturer responsible for supporting teacher development at the Foundation Phase (FP) level, this guide is for you. It explores fundamental principles of Early Childhood Education (ECE) practice, offering what we hope is a clear but critical explanation of what is called ‘Developmentally Appropriate Practice’ (DAP). This explanation is accompanied by a series of reflections which raise questions that you as a teacher educator might use to clarify your own thinking, in preparation for teaching and engaging with students. There are also suggested readings which can enrich and deepen your own as well as your students’ understandings of ECE practice. We also provide a number of student tasks which, together with the explanations and readings, we hope can help to make the concepts come alive for you and your students. The readings and activities are intended primarily for you to use with students in class, but you might find it helpful to go through them yourself beforehand.

Jika iMfundo - a NECT funded pilot to improve education outcomes in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa studied how classrooms, schools and districts have changed; what has been learned from previous initiatives; and needs to be done to improve interventions in the future.

This research report is an Evaluation of B.A. (Hum) Programme being an analysis of learners' opnion about various activities from programme publicity till result declaration. The purpose of this research was to make the programme more learner friendly by seeking their opinion about various activities and make necessary changes wherever possible and found fit and proper. These distance learners live isolated at different places of Swaziland and have very few occasions for a face to face contact with Academic counsellors. They need guidance about how to study in an isolated situation, write good quality assignemtns, prepare a project report and appear for final examination. The analysis of their views made recommendations for putting sample assignments and sample project reports on University of Swaziland website and the students' handbook must have information about how to study in an isolated situation. Learner orientation and workshops for their teachers about how to deal with distance learners was part of recommendations. This project report opens the doors for similar exercise for other programmes.

This research report is a critical analysis of opinion gathered through an opinion scale among 540 school teachers of Swaziland regarding staff development for Effective Classroom Management using distance education mode. The opinions were regarding Orientation, Session, two days contact session, various 17 units of self instructional materials and a 3 month interaction with peers and resource persons using a variety of media. It revealed some fruitful guidelines useful for organising thie programme in the future for other teachers. This project is a landmark effort in the direction of making this staff development programme learner friendly among school teachers of Swaziland. An acceptance and implementation of the findings may enhance the quality of this programme. The purpose of publishing these results in book form is to appraise the outcomes among all programme organisers for staff development among school teachers using distance education mode.

Part of the Being a Teacher module is a 47 minute long video which introduces viewers to the perceptions, doubts and concerns of student teachers about their choice of career. Through a range of interviews with two celebrities and teachers, as well as clips of classroom teaching and school management practices, we explore the role of the teacher as a knowledge worker; care giver; and change agent through teaching and management. On the basis of these experiences, we return to the questions that initiated the tour of schools and classrooms.

This module discusses structured learning specifically methods that teacher can utilize in their learning programmes with the outcome of ensuring learners easily comprehend the subject matter. Referred to also as teaching with leaening in mind this module juxtaposes between teaching to remember and teaching to understand

This guide supports FET College lecturers to make the shift from content-based, lecturer-centred, transmission teaching and learning to an outcomes-based, learner-centred, activity-based approach. It is intended to assist the FET lecturer to understand why and how a particular strategy, method, or idea is useful, and not to just be a “how to” manual of tips.  Yet it is at the same time intended to be relevant at all times to the context and practice of the FET lecturer, offering realistic exemplars and demonstrating approaches and methods for implementation.

This book is a play manual. It brings together play activities and ideas drawn from the exeriences of people working with children in South Africa. Part 1 describes children's right to play and looks at play rights in practice; Part 2 offers many play activities to try out; and Part 3 explores how we can enable ourselves to make play happen for and with children.

After studying this course you will have:

• been introduced to practical active teaching strategies to support early reading
• developed an understanding of some methods for teaching early reading
• thought about how to assess early reading and how to use the assessment results to inform your planning of early reading
• developed resources to support early reading
• developed your ICT skills.