Contextualising learning in Advanced Certificate in Education (Environmental Education) courses : synthesising contexts and experiences
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Le Roux, Cheryl , Loubser, Callie , Schudel, Ingrid J , O'Donoghue, Rob , Shallcross, Tony
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:21224 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7167 , http://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC32180
- Description: We report on experiences in the Advanced Certificate in Education (Environmental Education) courses of two South African universities, namely, Rhodes University and the University of South Africa. We focus specifically on the whole school approaches which were influenced by a project between these two universities and Manchester Metropolitan University. We illustrate how contextual profiling influenced the perspective or entry point from which the whole school message was approached in the ACE (EE) courses. Through illustrative examples from these two courses, we report on two different approaches to contextual profiling, starting by problematising an approach that relies solely on a priori contextual profiling. We then illustrate how this approach can be complemented by contextual profiling within courses and within context through situated learning processes.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Cultivating a scholarly community of practice
- Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , Ellery, Karen , Olvitt, Lausanne L , Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/294353 , vital:57214 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC15102"
- Description: In the field of Environment and Sustainability Education we are seeking ways of developing our teaching and supervision practices to enable social changes in a rapidly transforming field of practice where global issues of truth, judgement, justice and sustainability define our engagements with the public good. This article explores the process of cultivating a scholarly community of practice as a model of supervision that not only engages scholars in an intellectual community oriented towards socioecological transformation, but also extends and enhances dialogue with individuals on the technical and theoretical aspects of their postgraduate studies.
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- Date Issued: 2010
Mapping epistemic cultures and learning potential of participants in citizen science projects
- Authors: Vallabh, Priya , Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , O'Donoghue, Rob , Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/128939 , vital:36192 , https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.12701
- Description: The ever-widening scope and range of global change and interconnected systemic risks arising from people–environment relationships (social‐ecological risks) appears to be increasing concern among, and involvement of, citizens in an increasingly diversified number of citizen science projects responding to these risks. We examined the relationship between epistemic cultures in citizen science projects and learning potential related to matters of concern. We then developed a typology of purposes and a citizen science epistemic‐cultures heuristic and mapped 56 projects in southern Africa using this framework. The purpose typology represents the range of knowledge‐production purposes, ranging from laboratory science to social learning, whereas the epistemic‐cultures typology is a relational representation of scientist and citizen participation and their approach to knowledge production. Results showed an iterative relationship between matters of fact and matters of concern across the projects; the nexus of citizens’ engagement in knowledge‐production activities varied. The knowledge‐production purposes informed and shaped the epistemic cultures of all the sampled citizen science projects, which in turn influenced the potential for learning within each project. Through a historical review of 3 phases in a long‐term river health‐monitoring project, we found that it is possible to evolve the learning curve of citizen science projects. This evolution involved the development of scientific water monitoring tools, the parallel development of pedagogic practices supporting monitoring activities, and situated engagement around matters of concern within social activism leading to learning‐led change. We conclude that such evolutionary processes serve to increase potential for learning and are necessary if citizen science is to contribute to wider restructuring of the epistemic culture of science under conditions of expanding social-ecological risk.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Students’ engagement with learning theory
- Authors: Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6093 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008615
- Description: This paper reflects on a module on ‘Teaching and Learning Interactions’, presented as part of the Rhodes University Advanced Certificate in Education (Environmental Education).The module is designed to help students use theoretical logic to enhance (not replace) their practical logic of how teaching and learning takes place. Data was analysed from three teaching and learning activities in the module. After the first participatory activity on water and sanitation, students narrated what teaching and learning had taken place using language available from their prior experiences. In a second activity students were introduced to explanations of learning, provided by learning theorists. In the third activity students analysed a case study, using a variety of questions relating to teaching and learning. They then had to consider these same questions in the light of a participatory on-course teaching and learning activity. The paper reflects on how students have used understandings of the nature of reality, the construction of knowledge, the use of language, situated learning, action competence and social change, in order to narrate their teaching and learning experiences on the ACE(EE) course. Through this, the paper trials a reflexive approach to the teaching of learning theory in environmental education.
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- Date Issued: 2005
The effectiveness of schools-based National Arbor Week activities in greening of urban homesteads : a case study of Grahamstown, South Africa
- Authors: Parkin, Fiona , Shackleton, Charlie M , Schudel, Ingrid J
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6645 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006885
- Description: Arbor Day, or Week, is a well-established greening initiative worldwide, focusing on tree planting and the benefits thereof. Frequently most effort is targeted at institutions such as schools and community groups. Yet there has been limited assessment of the success of Arbor Day, or Week, activities both at the schools, or the wider dissemination in neighbouring communities and suburbs. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of school-based Arbor Week activities on learners’ home-based practices regarding tree planting and urban forestry. Learners from three schools in Grahamstown, South Africa, with good Arbor Week participation, were assessed on their tree planting knowledge. The learners’ parents were also interviewed to determine whether the information obtained by the learners at school was taken home. A control group consisting of people with no children or very young children was also assessed. This study found that Arbor Week activities were, for the most part, successfully taught in the case study schools, and most of the learners stated that their knowledge of trees and their benefits came from their school activities. However, many learners could not remember the activities in which their schools partook the previous year. Whilst most learners were aware of the importance of trees, few had encouraged tree planting at home. However, over one-fifth of adults claimed that their knowledge of the benefits of trees was as a consequence of Arbor Day activities when they were young. Numerous constraints to tree planting were provided by learners and both the adult groups, the two most frequent being limited space and falling leaves making their yards untidy. External organisations should become more actively involved and provide much needed support systems if greening initiatives are to reach the wider community.
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- Date Issued: 2006