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The study’s research question was how a one-year initial teacher education (ITE) programme could equip prospective teachers for present needs and local challenges and the demands of a fast-changing...

Rather than regarding the COVID-19 pandemic as requiring new principles for teacher education and teacher development, this chapter highlights that the work presented in this book provides a sound foundation for coping both within the time of the pandemic and in the post-COVID-19 world. To summarise, initial teacher education (ITE) must build on the whole range of cultural, linguistic and socioeconomic experiences that our students bring with them. It needs to be pedagogically sound, relevant and ensure that teachers enter teaching with confidence and a strong commitment to the profession. Teacher development needs to build on the foundation principles of ITE by engaging the whole school and its local community, being sustained over a period and enabling the school community to use problem-solving skills on existing and emerging challenges. The chapters make these points in several ways. If we are to build a more socially just society, then any investment in teacher education and teacher development must keep these principles foregrounded and not descend into technological fixes.

The chapter presents an overview of the conceptualisation and framing of a multi-year educational design-based research (EDBR) project, involving several iterations. The chapter explains the rationale of the project, its theoretical framing and how it has been planned over the course of two years. The project, the ‘Sandbox’, was set up to learn from the design and implementation of interventions in the early years of schooling (referred to as the foundation phase in South Africa) about how to enable teaching and learning for the demands of a rapidly changing world, particularly in disadvantaged schools. Some in the field of education claim that attention should not be diverted from the literacy and mathematics crisis in South Africa to focus on other competencies. This chapter argues that improving the universal basic skills could be done in tandem with nurturing the other competencies that children will need to negotiate the changing world. This is a social-justice imperative. Typical of EDBR, the interventions aim to advance theoretical insights, as well as developing artefacts and practices which could be used in learning contexts (schools, classrooms) beyond the context of the Sandbox. Designing this project with its interventions involved a steep learning journey in relation to the complexity of balancing relevance, effectiveness, consistency and practicality while maintaining rigour throughout.

This book disseminates original research on learning in and from practice in pre-service teacher education. Authors such as Lederman and Lederman describe the student teaching practicum (or work-integrated learning [WIL]), which is an essential component of pre-service teacher education, as the ‘elephant in the room’. These authors note that 'the capstone experience in any teacher education programme is the student teaching practicum… [a]fter all, this is where the rubber hits the road'. However, many teacher educators will agree that this WIL component is sometimes very insufficient in assisting the student teacher to develop their own footing and voice as a teacher. This is the ‘gap’ that this research book addresses. Most of the chapters in the book report empirical data, with the exception of two chapters that can be categorized as systematic reviews. WIL is addressed from various angles in the chapters. Chapter 6 focuses on research related to what makes Finnish teacher education so effective, and in Chapter 4 researchers of the University of Johannesburg disseminate their findings on establishing a teaching school (based on Finnish insights) in Johannesburg. Chapter 3 highlights the challenges faced in open-and distance learning teacher education contexts. Several of the chapters disseminate research findings on alternative interventions to classic WIL, namely, where “safe spaces” or laboratories are created for student teachers to learn and grow professionally. These could either be simulations, such as software programmes and avatars in the intervention described in Chapter 2; student excursions, as the findings in chapters 5, 7 and 10 portray; or alternative approaches to WIL (e.g. Chapters 11 and 12). The book is devoted to scholarship in the field of pre-service teacher education. The target audience is scholars working in the fields of pre-service teacher education, work-integrated learning, and self-directed learning. The book makes a unique contribution in terms of firstly its extensive use of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as a research lens, and secondly in drawing on various theoretical frameworks. Both quantitative and qualitative research informed the findings of the book.

Although teacher education actively promotes the ideals of social justice and care, finding ways of enculturating student teachers into what these values mean in education remains a challenge. Additionally, the literature abounds with the struggles of teacher educators to prepare student teachers with the knowledge and competencies required for the complex task of teaching. A way to address this is through the inclusion of service learning (SL) in initial teacher education programs. SL, as a form of experiential learning, with reflection at its core, serves as a means of deepening student learning about the practice of social justice and care and as a way of both drawing on, and informing, student teachers’ practical and situational learning of teaching. SL also holds potential for preparing teachers with the competencies required for the 21st century. The research on SL in teacher education draws on theoretical perspectives of experiential learning, democracy education, social transformation, multicultural education, critical reflection, and education for civic responsibility. A limitation is that the literature within developing contexts is underrepresented, limiting access to useful lessons from the research in these contexts and preventing wider theorization in the field.

In 2011 the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for Teacher Education and Development in South Africa was promulgated. This framework proposes the establishment of teaching schools to strengthen pre-service teacher education. This study arises from this initiative. A generic qualitative study was undertaken to explore the views of research participants from selected teacher education institutions and schools in South Africa on the potential of teaching schools to enable student teacher learning for the teaching profession. The key findings are that teaching schools can potentially make a distinctive contribution towards enabling student teacher learning for the teaching profession through student teachers experiencing good teaching in a model environment and through coordinating experiences in coursework and at the school. The discussion of the findings points to the distinctive potentialities of teaching schools for strengthening teacher education. The notion of hybridity and third space is i...

The article reports on the University of Johannesburg’s efforts at offering a practice-based teacher education program in partnership with a university-affiliated school (a ‘teaching school’) with a view to developing inquiry-oriented novice teachers. The research aimed at exploring what it takes to develop a ‘learningplace’ (Conway, Murphy and Rutherford 2014) conducive to student teachers’ development of professional practice knowledge and the role of mentoring in this regard. A two-phase process of generating data was used. In the first phase the published research on the university-affiliated school was analyzed, using qualitative content analysis to look for patterns across the historical unfolding of the findings of these papers. In phase two a questionnaire was administered involving final year student teachers in the teacher education program. The research shows that a teaching school, if integrated into the program design and delivery, provides a rich practice learning site for student teachers. In addition, mentoring in cognitive apprenticeship mode could indeed be a powerful contributor to student teachers’ professional development. However, the overall programme design is decisive. The preparation of teachers with strong professional practice knowledge requires attention to four interrelated aspects of program design, namely program identity, organizational structures, curriculum and teacher education pedagogy. Addressing these aspects in an integrated manner would be difficult without working closely with one or more partnership schools.

Background: There is considerable agreement that learning to teach is optimised when coursework learning is combined with quality practice learning experiences in schools. Aim: The main aim of this study was to explore the views of a group of student teachers on their practice learning experiences in a ‘teaching school’ (TS) and in the other schools where they were placed for school experience. Setting: The study was conducted at a rural campus of a South African university. Methods: Quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (focus group) data were collected, involving all the student teachers in the programme ( n = 100). The responses to the questionnaire were analysed descriptively, and the constant comparative method of data analysis was used to analyse the focus group interviews. Results: The overall pattern in the data shows that the practice learning experiences contributed to the student teachers’ development as teachers – not only at the TS but also at the schools where they were involved in work integrated learning, despite challenges, including teacher absenteeism and lack of guidance. Involvement in these schools potentially enables an understanding of the challenges that are typical in many South African schools. However, school experience in a well-functioning school remains crucial. Were it not for the TS, the majority of the student teachers would not have been exposed to mentoring and good teaching practices to be emulated. Conclusion: The study concludes that TSs indeed hold the potential to strengthen the teaching practice component of teacher education considerably. International experience with school partnerships and the experience at another South African university also attest to this.

This paper reports on a qualitative enquiry into the affordances of case-based teaching for the professional learning of student-teachers. The context is a first-year foundational course in a four-year undergraduate teacher education programme, offered by an urban university in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a student enrolment of close to 700 students (divided into two groups of 350 students). Data sources used for this study were focus group interviews with student-teachers, individual interviews with teacher educators, video footage of classroom interaction, first-person reports by student-teachers in the form of reflective essays, student-teachers’ discussions on blackboard and examination scripts. The research showed that case-based teaching elicits engaged learning; assists with developing understanding of the complexities of teaching and enables student-teachers to relate theory-based ideas to predicaments of practice. Furthermore, the research revealed how case-based teaching can provide...

Successful teacher education programmes underscore the integration of knowledge for teaching with knowledge of teaching, the ‘how’ of teaching. Such programmes necessitate an integrative programme design to counteract the schism between the ‘world of theory’ and the ‘world of practice’ and draw optimally on collaboration between teacher educators and teachers who supervise students in schools to achieve this. This paper reflects on participants’ experiences of a teacher education programme designed to integrate the university coursework curriculum with student-teachers’ involvement in a school established to serve as a practice learning site – a teaching school. Data comprised the views of faculty managers, university and teaching school staff and student-teachers involved in the foundation phase teacher education programme and the teaching school. The main findings are that the teaching school has the potential to strengthen teacher education programmes. However, as the programme designers and un...

This paper reports on a study that examined the culture and identity of the legal academic as a practising teacher. The study is based on three law teachers working at a prominent South African university. By using an ethnographic design type, data was collected through observation during class visits, discussion about teaching in interviews, and a review of teaching-related documents. The research revealed that the primary professional identity of the participants is rooted in the traditions of law as an academic discipline. The participants characterise themselves as teachers and not as legal practitioners. Not only do they choose to teach, but they actively regard teaching as their true vocation. As core to the nature of their teacher identities, the participants express a significant emotional dimension shaped by their relationships with students.

This article reports the results of an investigation into the predictive value of 33 pre-entry attributes, divided into six broad categories, for predicting the academic performance of first year students at an urban South African university. Low levels of student success are a salient problem in South African higher education. Students tend to dropout quickly, quietly and for a range of different reasons. An important part of early interventions is to be able to accurately identify students who are more likely to drop out. Tinto's longitudinal interactionist theory postulates that pre-entry attributes are the most important influence on a student's ability to achieve their initial integration during their entry into higher education. In this study, the chi-square test is used to examine the relations between pre-entry attributes and student academic performance. The null-hypothesis of no relationship was rejected for the majority of the predictors, which confirms the importance of pre-entry attributes in the South African academic context.