The study explored professional development experiences of professionally unqualified practicing teachers in rural secondary schools. The findings suggest that professional development for these teachers occurs in a number of places, namely: through the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) / Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme; in school through practice and school meetings;. Based on cultural historical activity theory to describe, analyze and understand data, I argue that the professionally unqualified practicing teachers experience professional development through interaction in several domains of formality and experience: formal, non-formal, informal and experience-based.
Professional development occurs in these areas, however, findings indicate that these teachers feel disabled by a lack of support. The thesis suggests the need for further research into improving the professional development practices of non-professionally qualified practicing teachers in rural school settings. In relation to Cultural Historical Activity Theory, my argument is that the framework provides a useful generic, analytical tool for thinking about how professional development takes place in many fields.
On its own, however, it does not provide a complete lens for making sense of the variations in professional development within the domains and levels of formality and experience.
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Therefore, this study sought to explore the professional development experiences of unqualified practicing teachers in rural secondary schools. The purpose of this study was to understand all four dimensions of their professional development experiences. In pursuit of the issues mentioned above, this study sought to understand the professional development experiences of PUPTs in rural secondary schools.
What is the nature of professional development practices practiced by the POPs in rural secondary schools. How does support by colleagues and the university promote professional development practices of the POPs in rural secondary schools? What are the perceptions of the PUPTEs about their professional development experiences at the rural secondary school level.
The study provides some insights into the processes of professional development of PUPTs in rural secondary schools.
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In the South African scenario, the provision of teacher education in secondary schools and universities was along racial lines (Carrim, Postma et al., 2003). While white teacher training from the fifties remained in the provinces and black teacher training by race. As a result, various teacher education programs and models were introduced to run either concurrently or subsequently, namely: Zimbabwe Integrated National Teacher Education Course (ZINTEC), 2-year in, 2-year model, the attachment model (1.1.1. ) 2-5 -2 Model and Zimbabwe/Cuba teacher training.
This section has broadly provided the educational context of general education and teacher education provision in both pre- and post-liberation education systems. This section has presented an overview of Zimbabwe's teacher education policy, the next section discusses the SA teacher education policy framework. The Report of the Ministerial Committee on Teacher Education (2005) provides a Framework for SA teacher education (HSRC SA, 2005).
The purpose of this chapter was to discuss education and teacher training before and after liberation, as well as teacher training policies in the two education systems.
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Guskey states that “…never before has there been a greater recognition of the importance of professional development for teachers…” (Guskey, 2002:2). Third, whole school staff and student gatherings also provide opportunities for professional development. This section has provided literature related to the concepts: profession and professional development as well as professional development in different fields.
In the area of professional development, Monk (1997) and Acedo (2002) agree and isolate the professional development needs of rural school teachers regarding support in terms of. The discussion revealed that relational dimensions and interdependence shape professional development experiences in rural schools. The purpose of this chapter was to review literature on the professional development experiences of PUPTs in rural schools.
The literature also shows that teachers in rural schools view their professional development as driven by relational dimensions and personal agency.
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With this view, activity is mediated by instruments in a broad sense, which are created and transformed during the actual development of activities and which carry within them a certain culture – the historical remains of their development. In the context of my study, the PUPT constitutes the subject that can only act in the practice of object education through the use of mediating psychological and/or material tools and artifacts. Thus, by continuously working on the object (teaching practice), the object is transformed into a result (enhanced practice) and the subject is also transformed.
In the context of this study, the object teaching practice provides direction and focus of the activity and the subject-object relationship is mediated. The object is the target of the activity within the system and in this context the object is teaching practice. The existence of an activity is motivated by transformation of the object into an outcome.
Therefore, the object (teaching practice) provides the objective of the activity in the system and is achieved through. As the subject transforms the object, so the properties of the object permeate the subject and also transform it. Vygotsky (1978) called these “auxiliary stimuli” and Wartofsky described them as “.. the artifact is to cultural evolution what the gene is to biological evolution.
Thus, it is these psychological and material tools and artefacts that enable the achievement of object teaching practice and its transformation into an outcome. The implication of this study is that an activity can only be performed in the presence of the triad - the subject, mediating tools and artefacts and the object. Through the mediation of tools and artifacts, the subject acts on the object to transform it into an outcome (Cole & Engestrom, 1993).
In this study, the wider community (WCE) creates rules that inform the subject about the object (i.e. the focus of activity) and the desired outcome, the subject's position in the community, the way in which they behave and interact, negotiate and renegotiate . as a member of the community as well as the manner of execution on the object. This section illustrated how the different elements of the activity system within the CHAT framework can be understood in the context of this study.
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In this section I highlight and describe the procedures followed in conducting the study, providing answers to questions such as: What did I do. Critical to qualitative research design is flexibility, which allows the direction of the research to be adjusted based on ongoing experiences while generating and reflecting on the data (Gomm, 2004; Henning, 2005). The value of the multi-method approach lies in the complementary nature of data generated through multiple methods (Cohen, Manion et al., 2000.
This provides a multifaceted view of the phenomenon, but not necessarily implying closeness to the truth. Given the location of the study in the interpretive/qualitative framework, the sample size had to be characteristically quite small. However, upon my return to the schools for data generation five months later, three of the ten teachers were on leave and one had transferred to another school.
The meaning of the event to the photographer makes it valuable to capture, and that meaning is known only to them (Barthes, 1993). Participants explained the significance and significance of the photographs, the “in” the photograph (Smith & Woodward, 1999) that awaited verbal release. Teachers and poll workers are the main victims of the witch hunt (Daily News Political Reporter, 2008:3).
These interview reports had to be viewed in the context of the prevailing political climate. After describing the challenges and experiences of collecting data, the next section discusses how the data was analyzed. Social consent refers to participants providing necessary consent and reporting to the researcher, which allows for the smooth conduct of the study.
Committee to the DoE and to maintain constant liaison and follow-up with the DoE to ensure prompt release of the Ethics Clearance Certificate. Limited transferability of findings due to the paradigmatic location of the study poses another limitation.
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This is a Catholic community and most of our students are Catholics from Catholic families in this community and beyond." The surrounding community lived on peasant farming and with good rains they had no trouble providing for their children's education. The entire parent body has been very supportive of the school and the education of their children. There was no ability stream in the school and class sizes were between 55 and 60 students.
That's the hard part, and these days with so many social problems in families, people can't call you, you can't call them. The general education level of the parents around the school was higher than around Zim School 5. The location of the school was not served by public transport, despite the well-maintained dirt road.
The road to the school was tarred throughout up to 1 kilometer from the school. Next to the school was a feeding primary school from which SA School 2 drew the majority of the learners. The school itself is not very well resourced, but I think that is the legacy of this country, more schools are not well resourced, so Yes.
SA Teacher 3 complained that the limited textbooks were problematic given the class size and student indiscipline in the school. Most of the road to the school was paved, except for the remaining 15-20 kilometers away from the highway. You are called to class at 8:00...” The community around the school had a very weak economic base and lived mainly on grants, although some worked in the city.
The childhood experiences, with many prosperous, prominent and respected teachers within the family, lead him to the conclusion that teaching was 'the'. While all Zimbabwean teachers had various extrinsic and intrinsic reasons for entering teaching, for the SA teachers it was mainly extrinsic convenience reasons as it was difficult to get 'the job'. Where educators outnumber learners in the school (PPN), it is the UTE that is affected and they will ask you to leave.
This confirms the expectations and preferences of the students of Zim Teacher 2 when she said "these children are very grateful because they know that I go out of my way to get learning resources..." The sentiments expressed by the Zimbabwean teachers reflect the commitment to the profession, i which can mean the existence of three factors: career commitment, job satisfaction and quality of work life, all of which are related to professional development.
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