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Aubrey Golightly

Technology education instils technological literacy in South African learners, preparing them for life and employment. Yet, few high school-level Technology1 teachers are being trained and ensuring that Technology student teachers are... more
Technology education instils technological literacy in South African learners, preparing them for life and employment. Yet, few high school-level Technology1 teachers are being trained and ensuring that Technology student teachers are optimally prepared, is vital. Learning strategies such as problem-based learning need to be implemented to provide students with opportunities to have their voices heard as well as being actively involved in their education. Hybrid problem-based learning has been successfully implemented in geography and life sciences teacher education, but its use in Technology teacher preparation has not been reported. Therefore, we conducted a concurrent triangulation research study at a South African university offering Technology teacher preparation. In the study, we explored how teacher students experienced and perceived hPBL as a teaching-learning strategy and how this gave them a voice in their teacher training. The study, therefore, substantiated hPBL as a ben...
This study explores the relationship between teaching experience of geography teachers and their involvement in self-directed professional development (SDPD) activities to enhance their geography knowledge, skills and attitudes,... more
This study explores the relationship between teaching experience of geography teachers and their involvement in self-directed professional development (SDPD) activities to enhance their geography knowledge, skills and attitudes, understanding and development in the geography curriculum areas, as well as teaching and learning practices. A non-experimental survey design was employed in the study. Grade 10 to 12 geography teachers (n = 130) from the Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Bojanala Platinum districts in the North West province in South Africa with different amounts of teaching experience in geography education who attended the scheduled geography meeting with their respective subject advisors, completed a questionnaire on SDPD activities in geography education, developed by the researcher. The analysis of the results did not establish any relationship between geography teachers’ teaching experience and their involvement in SDPD activities. In this study the practical significance was cal...
South Africa has had four school curricula changes in the post-apartheid era. The latest change occurred in 2011 when the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) were implemented in South African schools. In terms of the CAPS,... more
South Africa has had four school curricula changes in the post-apartheid era. The latest change occurred in 2011 when the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statements (CAPS) were implemented in South African schools. In terms of the CAPS, geography is compulsory in the lower grades (Grades 4 to 9) and forms part of the natural and social sciences, while in the Further Education and Training band (FET, Grades 10 to 12), geography is an elective. The main global issues covered in the various sub-disciplines of geography in the FET phase include, for example, overpopulation; urban and industrial development and growth; trade and development; HIV/Aids; climate change; and ocean pollution. Unfortunately, Ecological Geography as a sub-discipline and the influence of humans on the environment are not as prominent as in the previous geography curriculum. Knowledge about geography themes alone will not generate individuals who feel part of a global community and have the necessary understandi...
This book will benefit specialists in the field of education sciences and represents significant progress in knowledge production. The content focuses on the theory behind self-directed learning and explores strategies such as cooperative... more
This book will benefit specialists in the field of education sciences and represents significant progress in knowledge production. The content focuses on the theory behind self-directed learning and explores strategies such as cooperative learning, problem-based learning, case-based teaching and large-group teaching that enhance self-directed learning and the use of blended learning in a self-directed learning environment. The book demonstrates how self-directed learning can be enhanced in mathematics, computer-science and life-science education and through the use of student tutors for geography. Digital technology could, for example, also be used in innovative ways for education in isiZulu folk poetry. In an environment of rapidly changing knowledge production, this book responds to the challenge of how to equip learners with the necessary skills to take responsibility for their own learning. The book presents innovative teaching and learning strategies for meeting the changing de...
Teachers often lack appropriate pedagogical content knowledge to infuse indigenous knowledge in Life Sciences classrooms. This paper focuses on Life Sciences teachers’ skills when infusing indigenous knowledge by using problem-based... more
Teachers often lack appropriate pedagogical content knowledge to infuse indigenous knowledge in Life Sciences classrooms. This paper focuses on Life Sciences teachers’ skills when infusing indigenous knowledge by using problem-based learning after these teachers have attended an indigenous knowledge short course. Learners enter the Life Sciences classroom with indigenous knowledge, and a cultural border crossing is essential to limit discrepancies between their home and school realities. Problem-based learning lends itself to the infusion of indigenous knowledge with classroom activities based on the tenets of the nature of science. As a theoretical framework, we made use of embodied, situated, distributed cognition. Participating Life Science teachers were chosen randomly from teachers who voluntarily attended one short course (one cohort in Limpopo and one in the North West province). The quantitative data reported on in this paper capture the feedback of all 75 participants who t...
... Page 5. A Concept Model for Optimizing Contact Time in Geography Teacher Training Programs ... GEOGRAPHY Role of student Active involvement in learning process. Accepts responsibility for own learning. Independent preparation for... more
... Page 5. A Concept Model for Optimizing Contact Time in Geography Teacher Training Programs ... GEOGRAPHY Role of student Active involvement in learning process. Accepts responsibility for own learning. Independent preparation for outcome realization. ...