Event Title

Poster: Collaborating for Professional Development in Sobantu Schools

Location

Moakley Atrium

Start Time

16-5-2007 3:00 PM

End Time

16-5-2007 4:30 PM

Description

As recipient of the 2006 CART FLRG Ruth Farrar will share experiences she had with Rebecca Corwin and Julia Stakhnevich in a collaborative project with faculty from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In the Sobantu Project 2006, faculty from Bridgewater State College (United States) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) collaborated to develop and implement a school-based model of professional development for 50 teachers and principals in Sobantu township schools. The week-long, on-site project featured five courses framed in social-constructivist instructional approaches and strategies: (a) emergent literacy, (b) reading problems, (c) numeracy, (d) enquiry-based learning, and (e) reading and writing across the curriculum. Each daily routine included a 90-minute practicum session when teachers and Sobantu school children explored the dynamics of constructivist teaching and learning. This allowed researchers to examine the challenges teachers and learners face in making ideological and pedagogical shifts from instructional models of transmission to models of transaction. Researchers also considered cultural and linguistic issues as they might inform the critical perspectives of education as social transformation. Participants responded positively to the school-based model and led researchers to contemplate issues of sustainability.

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May 16th, 3:00 PM May 16th, 4:30 PM

Poster: Collaborating for Professional Development in Sobantu Schools

Moakley Atrium

As recipient of the 2006 CART FLRG Ruth Farrar will share experiences she had with Rebecca Corwin and Julia Stakhnevich in a collaborative project with faculty from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. In the Sobantu Project 2006, faculty from Bridgewater State College (United States) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) collaborated to develop and implement a school-based model of professional development for 50 teachers and principals in Sobantu township schools. The week-long, on-site project featured five courses framed in social-constructivist instructional approaches and strategies: (a) emergent literacy, (b) reading problems, (c) numeracy, (d) enquiry-based learning, and (e) reading and writing across the curriculum. Each daily routine included a 90-minute practicum session when teachers and Sobantu school children explored the dynamics of constructivist teaching and learning. This allowed researchers to examine the challenges teachers and learners face in making ideological and pedagogical shifts from instructional models of transmission to models of transaction. Researchers also considered cultural and linguistic issues as they might inform the critical perspectives of education as social transformation. Participants responded positively to the school-based model and led researchers to contemplate issues of sustainability.