Glimpses into Primary School Teacher Education in South Africa

This book explores the current landscape of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in primary schools in South Africa. Considering recent policy directives and initiatives, it highlights the dilemmas of ITE for the primary school and gives a thorough account of innovations and initiatives to improve ITE. The book presents what works best for quality preparation of teachers in the Global South, where many children rely on their teachers and school life to break the cycle of poverty. Chapters draw on evidence from workplace learning, pre-service study, and primary school teacher education policy to highlight examples of promising change in teacher education in South Africa, addressing the clichés of "theory versus practice" head-on. This book successfully brings out the challenging aspects of teacher education for childhood learning which has otherwise been regarded as the softer option for a career in education. This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of teacher education, African education, educational policy, international education, and comparative education.

Introduction Chapter 1: How we teach is what we teach Catherine Snow Chapter 2: Mentor teachers matter in the ecosystem of the school practicum Refilwe Ntsoane, Gadija Petker, and Elizabeth Henning Chapter 3: Disparate understandings of the nature, purpose, and practices of reflection in teacher education Maureen Robinson and Nicoleen Rousseau Chapter 4: Lessons from large-scale reading studies for initial and continuous teacher development Brahm Fleisch, Janeli Kotzé, Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, and Stephen Taylor Chapter 5: Executive functions in the South African early grade learner Caroline Fitzpatrick, Andrew Ribner, and Lara Ragpot Chapter 6: A school-university partnership for teacher education in Soweto, Johannesburg Sarah Gravett and Nadine Petersen Chapter 7: How a rural school was developed to become a practice learning site for pre-service teachers Lindiwe Jiyane and Coert Loock Chapter 8: Teacher educators of numeracy: ‘Signifying’ standards of pedagogy Makie Kortjass, Ramasego Mphahlele, Hayley van der Haar, Lyn Webb, Corin Mathews, and Elizabeth Henning Chapter 9: Theory-based early numeracy programme adapted to learners’ pre-knowledge: The ‘Meerkat Maths’ programme Eurika Jansen van Vuuren, Moritz Herzog, and Annemarie Fritz Chapter 10: Student teachers’ mathematical knowledge gains through a problem-solving instructional approach Kathleen Fonseca Chapter 11: Film as teacher education genre: Developing student agency in the production of #Taximaths Lara Ragpot Chapter 12: Where schools and universities (can) meet in work-integrated teacher learning Carisma Nel and Sarita Ramsaroop Chapter 13: Border-crossings of indigenous knowledge in science teacher education Josef de Beer and Washington Dudu Conclusion

Sarah Gravett is a Professor of Education and Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Elizabeth Henning is a Professor of Educational Linguistics at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. She is also a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and Editor of the South African Journal of Childhood Education.