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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.

The complexity and dynamic nature of rural contexts and schools present intricacies for teaching and learning practices, understanding the challenges learners experience, as well as the overall educational achievements within the South African context. We argue that learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon that occurs within communities, making it important to explore the strengths, diversity, as well as learning challenges presented by the rural context to learners given that they learn in rural schools and classrooms daily. The symbolic interactionism framework was used to understand emergent meanings in the process of interacting with primary school learners, and how learners made sense of their experiences of learning in rural schools. A qualitative phenomenological research methodology was espoused to unearth learners' experiences of the rural contextual conditions in relation to learning. Photo-elicitation group interviews were used to collect data from eight learners from three different schools, and the data were analysed using a thematic approach. The findings revealed that children are aware of the conditions that shape their learning in rural schools. The information provided by the learners shows that much is yet to be done by the postapartheid government to address issues of equity and social justice through education in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, titled "THEME: MATHEMATICS EDUCATION AND QUEST FOR MATHEMATICS EDUCATING IN THE 4IR AND COVID-19," focuses on the teaching and learning of mathematics education using Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) tools during the Covid-19 pandemic. The objective is to gather new research on this topic, particularly in relation to the training of mathematics teachers. The article acknowledges that higher education is undergoing a transformation towards the use of 4IR tools, and teacher educators need to share research knowledge about teaching and learning experiences in online platforms. The authors invite submissions that explore the teaching and learning of mathematics in the context of 4IR, while also considering the local context. [Extracted from the article]