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Examples that teachers choose and use are fundamental to what mathematics is taught and learned, and what opportunities for learning are created in mathematics classrooms. This qualitative multiple case study, using Sfard's commognitive theory, draws attention to mathematics teachers' classroom practices during functions lessons which is unexamined in the South African context. In this article, data sets include unstructured non-participant classroom observations on functions, which were videorecorded. Sfard's commognitive theory served as an appropriate lens in interpreting and analysing teachers' discourses and giving meaning to teachers' classroom practices during functions lessons. The findings demonstrate that the example selection and sequences teachers used during functions lessons either constrained or enabled the development of endorsed narratives about the effect of parameters on the different families of functions.

It is uncontested that education systems globally are under constant pressure to respond to the changing needs of societies. The outbreak of COVID-19 has reminded us that the complexity of education needs responsive practices to facilitate effective teaching and learning across all levels of schooling globally. All over the world, the normative ways of teaching and learning evolved drastically in the first quarter of the 2020 academic year when teachers and students found online offerings to be the dominant option available as a consequence of the pandemic conditions. In South Africa specifically, students and teachers were thrust into virtual teaching and learning situations with the majority of them having no preparation for this shift. This conceptual paper considers education in the current and post-COVID-19 era as the greatest paradigm shift in the history of education. I examine measures taken by higher education institutions to support the provision of education to ensure learning continuation. In this paper, I provide some suggestions for carrying out educational activities during the continuing COVID-19 situation. Educational leaders need to rethink content creation and content sharing and establish working communities to meet the demands of the new paradigm in education.

The nature of the relationship between parents, teachers, and the school are continuously important because of teachers' changing social expectations. While formal education is traditionally viewed as the job of teachers, they cannot be expected to address all educational issues that are influenced by multifaceted social issues. We explore parents' and teachers' understanding and experiences of parental involvement, and the nature of parental involvement in rural schools. We used the phenomenological approach; semi-structured interviews were administered to comprehend teachers' and parents' experiences of parental involvement in school activities. Complex parental views of schooling shaped the manner of involvement in school activities, and the nature of partnerships that were imbalanced. Teachers' discourses of parental involvement were unsurprisingly influenced by associating classroom spaces with professional qualifications and curriculum pressure, resulting in the exclusion of parents from classroom activities. The dominant nature of parental involvement that teachers mentioned was that parents' participation was limited to helping outside the classroom to ensure the upkeep of the schools. The findings also revealed that parents' dominant experiences relate to viewing schools as inaccessible spaces without invitation or permission, as they view themselves as outsiders, and questioned the nature of communication channels.