Research Projects 

Title

Partners

Team members

Brief description

Migrant teachers in South African schools: principals views

n/a

Prof Rian de Villiers

This study aimed to find out about school principals’ recruitment experiences with migrant teachers, their views on the effectiveness of these teachers, and the advantages/disadvantages of employing them.

Teachers as ICT agents of Change" and Exceptional patterns of ICT pedagogical practice
RDP

Prof Vandeyar, Thiru

 

Promoting Conceptual Understanding of Mathematics with Meaning Equivalence Reusable Learning Objects

NRF

Prof Graham, Marien

Under my "research project", you can add the description: Meaning Equivalence Reusable Learning Objects (MERLO) is a pedagogical tool that can be used to improve teaching and learning in classrooms. Prof Marien Graham and her former doctoral student, Dr Lydia Adesanya, introduced MERLO into South African mathematics classrooms and investigated how the MERLO pedagogy transformed the everyday assessment practices of South African mathematics teachers. Before this study, only Australia, Canada, Israel, Italy, Russia, and the Netherlands had implemented MERLO. Prof Graham and Dr Adesanya were the first to introduce MERLO into South African schools. Dr Adesanya was awarded her doctoral degree in September 2021 from the University of Pretoria, and her thesis was based on the MERLO research conducted in South Africa. Ongoing research is being conducted on how to further make use of MERLO to improve teaching, learning and assessment in South African schools.

Pathways to success for engineering students: creating African theories of student success and tailoring interventions

International and national collaborators: Esther Matemba, Zachery Simpson, So Yoon Yoon & Inês Direito

Dr Celeste Combrinck; Dr Helen Inglis; Prof Alta van der Merwe

 

Informing evidence-based teacher professional development in inquiry-based practical work, in resource-constrained South African schools

RDP

Dr Fru Vitalis Akuma, Prof Jenna Koenen

The goal is to arrive at a content and construct valid professional development framework that is also practical and effective in supporting inquiry-based practical work in resource-constrained South African physical science classrooms. We will reach this goal through a step-wise on-going design research process, that will last until 2023.
The case of an assessment course in Distance Education n/a Dr Maryke Mihai  

Exploring in-service chemistry teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge about environmental sustainability education

PhD student Dr Corene Coetzee  

Teaching vertical projectile motion for the first time: The role of teaching experience on pedagogical content knowledge development.

MEd student Dr Corene Coetzee  
Lesson Study as a teacher development model

MEd and PhD students

University of Fukui (Japan)

Dr David Sekao

Lesson Study is a teacher development model which originated in Japan but has since been adopted by numerous countries globally for development of pre- and in-service teachers. It involves teacher action research where a team of teachers identify challenging topics for learners, plan the lesson collaboratively to address the challenges, one teacher teaches the lesson while other teachers observe learner thinking, and then they (teachers) engage in a reflection session to improve their practice. I am currently supervising four masters and four doctoral students whose research focus is on Lesson Study. In addition, I have partnered with the University of Fukui in Japan for research purposes – where they bring their expert knowledge of reflective practice in Lesson Study.

Developing Bachelor of Education (BEd) life sciences pre-service teachers’ identity as prospective Life Sciences teachers in a community of inquiry.

n/a Dr Climant Khoza N/A

Transformation of the mathematics classroom employing digital technology

Impact of pandemic on teaching mathematics

Using videos in teaching mathematics

N/A Prof Johann Engelbrecht N/A

Copyright © University of Pretoria 2024. All rights reserved.

COVID-19 Corona Virus South African Resource Portal

To contact the University during the COVID-19 lockdown, please send an email to [email protected]

FAQ's Email Us Virtual Campus Share Cookie Preferences