Host teachers’ mentoring role towards supporting the development and training of pre-service teacher training: implications for teaching practice
- Authors: Majiba, Nolonwabo Happiness
- Date: 2023-01
- Subjects: Mentoring in education , Teachers -- Training of
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29625 , vital:78416
- Description: The focus of the study was on host teachers’ mentoring role towards supporting the development and training of pre-service teachers. Spending time in the workplace and providing pre-service teachers with an authentic context within which they can demonstrate the integration of theory and practice, is a crucial component of the teacher training programme. Teachers who are hosting pre-service teachers in schools during teaching practice sessions fulfil the roles of mentors towards supporting the development and training of pre-service teachers. Despite the different meanings and/views attached to mentoring, the most important role of host teachers as mentors is to guide pre-service teachers in their professional learning development. The study is guided by Vygotsky’s Constructivist theory to highlight the important role of host teachers (mentors) as “knowledgeable others”. The study employed a qualitative approach within the interpretivist paradigm. Purposive sampling was used to sample four urban primary schools in the Buffalo City Education District of the Eastern Cape Province. Eight teachers who had past experience hosting pre-service teachers and third- and fourth-year education students were selected as participants. Semi-structured interviews and document reviews were used to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analyze tape-recorded data. Despite the importance of this crucial component of teacher training, the findings of the study revealed various gaps in the mentoring process, which are as follows: (i) host teachers are experiencing difficulties with the mentoring of pre-service teachers due to lack of formal and/or informal training; (ii) lack of commitment amongst pre-service teachers who seemed to perceive teaching practice as a matter of compliance to merely get an assessment score to pass the qualification; (iii) host teachers regard pre-service teachers as relief teachers who end up taking full workloads in the absence of host teachers. Based on the findings, the study came up inter alia with the following recommendations: (i) Mutually agreed policies between lecturers and host teachers (mentors) outlining to the roles, objectives and responsibilities of host teachers and the authority to fulfil their roles and responsibilities effectively. (ii) Host teachers (mentors) to undergo proper and goal- oriented induction and orientation workshops to make them more conscious of the complexities of teacher training; pre-service teachers’ needs and their own needs. The study also came up with the following recommendations for further research: (i) the study was concluded on a small scale comprising one district in four schools, future studies may contribute by conducting a similar investigation on a larger scope and even taking a comparative dimension between districts and among schools. (ii) future studies may narrow the focus of the study to a single aspect like time constraints in the implementation of school experience. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-01
- Authors: Majiba, Nolonwabo Happiness
- Date: 2023-01
- Subjects: Mentoring in education , Teachers -- Training of
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29625 , vital:78416
- Description: The focus of the study was on host teachers’ mentoring role towards supporting the development and training of pre-service teachers. Spending time in the workplace and providing pre-service teachers with an authentic context within which they can demonstrate the integration of theory and practice, is a crucial component of the teacher training programme. Teachers who are hosting pre-service teachers in schools during teaching practice sessions fulfil the roles of mentors towards supporting the development and training of pre-service teachers. Despite the different meanings and/views attached to mentoring, the most important role of host teachers as mentors is to guide pre-service teachers in their professional learning development. The study is guided by Vygotsky’s Constructivist theory to highlight the important role of host teachers (mentors) as “knowledgeable others”. The study employed a qualitative approach within the interpretivist paradigm. Purposive sampling was used to sample four urban primary schools in the Buffalo City Education District of the Eastern Cape Province. Eight teachers who had past experience hosting pre-service teachers and third- and fourth-year education students were selected as participants. Semi-structured interviews and document reviews were used to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analyze tape-recorded data. Despite the importance of this crucial component of teacher training, the findings of the study revealed various gaps in the mentoring process, which are as follows: (i) host teachers are experiencing difficulties with the mentoring of pre-service teachers due to lack of formal and/or informal training; (ii) lack of commitment amongst pre-service teachers who seemed to perceive teaching practice as a matter of compliance to merely get an assessment score to pass the qualification; (iii) host teachers regard pre-service teachers as relief teachers who end up taking full workloads in the absence of host teachers. Based on the findings, the study came up inter alia with the following recommendations: (i) Mutually agreed policies between lecturers and host teachers (mentors) outlining to the roles, objectives and responsibilities of host teachers and the authority to fulfil their roles and responsibilities effectively. (ii) Host teachers (mentors) to undergo proper and goal- oriented induction and orientation workshops to make them more conscious of the complexities of teacher training; pre-service teachers’ needs and their own needs. The study also came up with the following recommendations for further research: (i) the study was concluded on a small scale comprising one district in four schools, future studies may contribute by conducting a similar investigation on a larger scope and even taking a comparative dimension between districts and among schools. (ii) future studies may narrow the focus of the study to a single aspect like time constraints in the implementation of school experience. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, 2023
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2023-01
Assessment of the implementation of state-led continuing professional teacher development (CPTD) in the Gert Sibande education district of Mpumalanga province of South Africa
- Mthethwa, Nokuthula Varsity, Mammen KJ
- Authors: Mthethwa, Nokuthula Varsity , Mammen KJ
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of , Mentoring in education , Action research in education
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29171 , vital:77529
- Description: The study sought to assess the implementation of state-led Continuing Professional Teacher Development CPTD in Gert Sibande District in Mpumalanga Province. The factors that triggered the interest in this study were the absence of reported research on the assessment of state-led CPTD in Gert Sibande as well as personal observations of teachers inadequacies in quality teaching competences despite having attended a series of CPTD activities. The pragmatism paradigm, a mixed method research approach, and concurrent triangulation design were adopted. Senge 's Learning Organisation and Wenger’s Social Learning theories informed the study. For quantitative data collection, the two samples were: 200 teachers from 100 randomly selected schools with grade 6 (one Maths and one English teacher per school) and 200 relevant SMT members (one Principal and one Head of Department per school). The return rates of questionnaires were 59.5 percent for teachers and 61.5 percent for SMT representatives. For qualitative data collection, the sample consisted of one principal and one teacher of Mathematics or English from one randomly selected school out of the selected 100 schools; four Curriculum Managers and four subject advisors from the district office. Different interview schedules were used for samples from each of the interviewee cohorts. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed descriptively and thematically, respectively. The study found that teachers were not consulted at the design stage of CPTD programmes and consequently, it did not address teachers needs and never earned their buy-in. The study also found that the traditional in-service training using transmission mode was predominant as opposed to the contemporary job-embedded approach. This resulted in teachers failing to gain job-embedded knowledge and confidence despite attendance of several CPTD sessions. Teachers expressed unhappiness with the short duration and bad timing of CPTD activities such as the 2-hour quarterly workshops and the use of weekends and holidays for CPTD. The majority of teachers recommended the use of in-school CPTD to facilitate job-embedded activities. As a way forward, the thesis presents a framework for the productive use of CPTD which focuses on the use of job-embedded professional development. , Thesis ( Ph. D.) -- Faculty of Education, 2017
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mthethwa, Nokuthula Varsity , Mammen KJ
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Teachers -- Training of , Mentoring in education , Action research in education
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/29171 , vital:77529
- Description: The study sought to assess the implementation of state-led Continuing Professional Teacher Development CPTD in Gert Sibande District in Mpumalanga Province. The factors that triggered the interest in this study were the absence of reported research on the assessment of state-led CPTD in Gert Sibande as well as personal observations of teachers inadequacies in quality teaching competences despite having attended a series of CPTD activities. The pragmatism paradigm, a mixed method research approach, and concurrent triangulation design were adopted. Senge 's Learning Organisation and Wenger’s Social Learning theories informed the study. For quantitative data collection, the two samples were: 200 teachers from 100 randomly selected schools with grade 6 (one Maths and one English teacher per school) and 200 relevant SMT members (one Principal and one Head of Department per school). The return rates of questionnaires were 59.5 percent for teachers and 61.5 percent for SMT representatives. For qualitative data collection, the sample consisted of one principal and one teacher of Mathematics or English from one randomly selected school out of the selected 100 schools; four Curriculum Managers and four subject advisors from the district office. Different interview schedules were used for samples from each of the interviewee cohorts. The quantitative and qualitative data were analysed descriptively and thematically, respectively. The study found that teachers were not consulted at the design stage of CPTD programmes and consequently, it did not address teachers needs and never earned their buy-in. The study also found that the traditional in-service training using transmission mode was predominant as opposed to the contemporary job-embedded approach. This resulted in teachers failing to gain job-embedded knowledge and confidence despite attendance of several CPTD sessions. Teachers expressed unhappiness with the short duration and bad timing of CPTD activities such as the 2-hour quarterly workshops and the use of weekends and holidays for CPTD. The majority of teachers recommended the use of in-school CPTD to facilitate job-embedded activities. As a way forward, the thesis presents a framework for the productive use of CPTD which focuses on the use of job-embedded professional development. , Thesis ( Ph. D.) -- Faculty of Education, 2017
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Assuring the quality of mentoring in Malawi's 1+1 model of initial primary teacher education programme: implications for teacher development
- Authors: Mwanza, Alnord Levison Dave
- Date: 2014-09
- Subjects: Mentoring in education , Total quality management
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/24632 , vital:63385
- Description: Teacher education has been the focus of numerous studies across the world. The debates revolve around what models or approaches to teacher development produce high quality teachers as measured by their ability to promote student learning. This has given rise to a continuum of models. At the one extreme there are those who advocate practice first and theory later; at the other there are those who recommend theory first and then practice. In between there is a combination of a variety of approaches. The models of teacher development, however, continue to grapple with the problem of how to balance theory and practice. In Malawi, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) (MIE, 2006) came up with what they see as a balance between theory and practice when they introduced the 1 year of theory and 1 year of practice, a model referred to as the 1+1. The focus of this study was on the one year of practical teaching where mentoring is critical; hence the particular attention to examine and understand how its quality was assured from the perspective of fitness for purpose and fitness of purpose. The study was anchored mainly in the post-positivist paradigm and the methodology used was the mixed-methods approach. A mixed methods sequential explanatory design comprising a survey followed by a case study was employed. For the survey, four sets of semi-structured questionnaires whose Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficients, α, were 0.971, 0.827, 0.859 respectively were developed using the Tailored Design Method; these were pilot tested and then administered through a drop-and-pick strategy to a census sample of 804 respondents comprising 92 school mentors, 92 school head-teachers, 4 Teacher Training College mentoring coordinators and 616 student teachers. A total response rate of 96percent was obtained. The case study design phase comprised six one-on-one face-to-face structured interviews; five focus groups; five non-participant observations; and a review of ten documents employing interview schedules, observations and document checklists as instruments for data collection. A total of 27 participants, three of whom did not participate in the survey phase, were involved in this phase. Quantitative data collected from either phase was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 while content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. As a mixed-method study, some of the qualitative data was quantitized and some of the quantitative data was qualititized; and integration of data was made during the following stages: research questions formulation, data collection, data presentation, and discussion and interpretation. The study revealed several weaknesses in assuring the quality of mentoring in the 1+1 IPTE model. First, the norms and standards for mentoring designed by the Ministry of Education were not used to guide the mentoring process. Instead, they were designed to fulfil accountability requirements of the Ministry of Education and Teacher Training Colleges rather than self-improvement. Hence, the study revealed that all the 92 schools had, therefore, no policies, practice codes and standards for monitoring mentoring casting doubt on the functioning of internal quality assurance. The study further revealed that 12 of the school mentors (13percent) had lower academic qualifications than their seventy-two student teachers they were mentoring; 35 of the school mentors (38percent) were at the entry grade of their teaching career; two of the mentors (2percent) (mentoring over twelve student teachers) were within the first three years of teaching, which means that they, themselves, were in need of being mentored; and all the school mentors had full time teaching responsibilities. As such, some student teachers indicated that they were not being assessed at all by their school mentors. This situation regarding mentors raises concerns over the subject knowledge levels of the mentors, the role model functions of the mentors and their competency to effectively mentor student teachers, as well as concerns regarding the quality of the mentoring programme and its outcomes. Findings from the study also revealed little or no monitoring of mentoring in schools as schools had no structures and systems for monitoring mentoring; and heavy workloads and financial constraints prevented college lecturers from monitoring mentoring in primary schools. However, on a positive note, the study revealed that 99percent of school mentors were trained for their mentoring roles and were receiving regular training which was provided regularly on a term-basis. Based on the above findings, the 1+1 Initial Primary Teacher Education model in Malawi is undermined by weak mentoring practices which have the potential to widen the theory and practice gap, and potentially impact on the quality of teachers produced. It is further recommended that the mentoring practices move away from the technicist approach and focus on the actual processes of mentoring; that norms and standards for school mentor selection and support are developed; that there should be more workshopping, seminars and conferences for mentors; and that schools should be assisted to develop collegial-emancipatory quality assurance systems for mentoring. A rainbow model for assuring the quality of mentoring in the 1+1 IPTE mode is finally recommended. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, 2014
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014-09
- Authors: Mwanza, Alnord Levison Dave
- Date: 2014-09
- Subjects: Mentoring in education , Total quality management
- Language: English
- Type: Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/24632 , vital:63385
- Description: Teacher education has been the focus of numerous studies across the world. The debates revolve around what models or approaches to teacher development produce high quality teachers as measured by their ability to promote student learning. This has given rise to a continuum of models. At the one extreme there are those who advocate practice first and theory later; at the other there are those who recommend theory first and then practice. In between there is a combination of a variety of approaches. The models of teacher development, however, continue to grapple with the problem of how to balance theory and practice. In Malawi, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) (MIE, 2006) came up with what they see as a balance between theory and practice when they introduced the 1 year of theory and 1 year of practice, a model referred to as the 1+1. The focus of this study was on the one year of practical teaching where mentoring is critical; hence the particular attention to examine and understand how its quality was assured from the perspective of fitness for purpose and fitness of purpose. The study was anchored mainly in the post-positivist paradigm and the methodology used was the mixed-methods approach. A mixed methods sequential explanatory design comprising a survey followed by a case study was employed. For the survey, four sets of semi-structured questionnaires whose Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficients, α, were 0.971, 0.827, 0.859 respectively were developed using the Tailored Design Method; these were pilot tested and then administered through a drop-and-pick strategy to a census sample of 804 respondents comprising 92 school mentors, 92 school head-teachers, 4 Teacher Training College mentoring coordinators and 616 student teachers. A total response rate of 96percent was obtained. The case study design phase comprised six one-on-one face-to-face structured interviews; five focus groups; five non-participant observations; and a review of ten documents employing interview schedules, observations and document checklists as instruments for data collection. A total of 27 participants, three of whom did not participate in the survey phase, were involved in this phase. Quantitative data collected from either phase was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 20 while content analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. As a mixed-method study, some of the qualitative data was quantitized and some of the quantitative data was qualititized; and integration of data was made during the following stages: research questions formulation, data collection, data presentation, and discussion and interpretation. The study revealed several weaknesses in assuring the quality of mentoring in the 1+1 IPTE model. First, the norms and standards for mentoring designed by the Ministry of Education were not used to guide the mentoring process. Instead, they were designed to fulfil accountability requirements of the Ministry of Education and Teacher Training Colleges rather than self-improvement. Hence, the study revealed that all the 92 schools had, therefore, no policies, practice codes and standards for monitoring mentoring casting doubt on the functioning of internal quality assurance. The study further revealed that 12 of the school mentors (13percent) had lower academic qualifications than their seventy-two student teachers they were mentoring; 35 of the school mentors (38percent) were at the entry grade of their teaching career; two of the mentors (2percent) (mentoring over twelve student teachers) were within the first three years of teaching, which means that they, themselves, were in need of being mentored; and all the school mentors had full time teaching responsibilities. As such, some student teachers indicated that they were not being assessed at all by their school mentors. This situation regarding mentors raises concerns over the subject knowledge levels of the mentors, the role model functions of the mentors and their competency to effectively mentor student teachers, as well as concerns regarding the quality of the mentoring programme and its outcomes. Findings from the study also revealed little or no monitoring of mentoring in schools as schools had no structures and systems for monitoring mentoring; and heavy workloads and financial constraints prevented college lecturers from monitoring mentoring in primary schools. However, on a positive note, the study revealed that 99percent of school mentors were trained for their mentoring roles and were receiving regular training which was provided regularly on a term-basis. Based on the above findings, the 1+1 Initial Primary Teacher Education model in Malawi is undermined by weak mentoring practices which have the potential to widen the theory and practice gap, and potentially impact on the quality of teachers produced. It is further recommended that the mentoring practices move away from the technicist approach and focus on the actual processes of mentoring; that norms and standards for school mentor selection and support are developed; that there should be more workshopping, seminars and conferences for mentors; and that schools should be assisted to develop collegial-emancipatory quality assurance systems for mentoring. A rainbow model for assuring the quality of mentoring in the 1+1 IPTE mode is finally recommended. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, 2014
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014-09
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