Faculty Brochure - University of Johannesburg

Transcription

Dynamic
knowledge making
for 21st century
education
2016/2017
DYNAMIC KNOWLEDGE-MAKING FOR 21ST CENTURY EDUCATION
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FACULTY OF EDUCATION
CONTACT INFORMATION
PHYSICAL ADDRESS
Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
Cnr Kingsway & University Road
Auckland Park
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Soweto Campus
Chris Hani Road
Soweto
Gauteng
South Africa
Enquiries Directed to the Dean of the Faculty
Breggie Theunissen: Executive Secretary to Prof Sarah Gravett, the Dean of the Faculty
Tel: +27 11 559 5532
Email: breggiet@uj.ac.za
General Enquiries
Auckland Park Kingsway Campus
Tel: +27 11 559 3251
Soweto Campus
Tel: +27 11 559 5562
Email: eduqueries@uj.ac.za
www.uj.ac.za/edu
Heads of Departments, Directors and Chairs
Education Leadership and Management: Dr Clive Smith
Educational Psychology: Dr Helen Dunbar-Krige
Education and Curriculum Studies: Dr Joseph Divala
Science and Technology Education: Prof Piet Ankiewicz
Childhood Education: Prof Nadine Petersen
Centre for Education Practice Research: Prof Elizabeth Henning
Centre for Education Rights and Transformation: Prof Salim Vally
South African Research Chair: Education and Care in Childhood: Prof Jace Pillay
South African Research Chairs Initiative: Integrated Studies of Learning Language, Mathematics
and Science in the Primary School: Prof Elizabeth Henning
Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies: Prof Michael Cross
Head of Faculty Administration: Ms Sarita Rademeyer
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FACULTY OF
EDUCATION
Dynamic knowledge making
for 21st century education
www.uj.ac.za/edu
MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN 4
QUICK FACTS ABOUT 5
THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION
FACULTY LEADERSHIP 6-7
TEACHING AND LEARNING 8
PROGRAMMES
SNAPSHOTS OF 9-25
TEACHING, RESEARCH AND
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
NATIONAL RESEARCH 26-27
FOUNDATION (NRF) RATED
RESEARCHERS
DISTINGUISHED VISITING 29-30
PROFESSORS
POST-DOCTORAL 30-31
RESEARCH FELLOWS
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MESSAGE
FROM THE
The Faculty of
Education at
the University of
Johannesburg (UJ)
offers academic
programmes on the
Soweto Campus (SWC),
and on the Auckland
Park Kingsway (APK)
Campus. The Centre
for Education Rights
and Transformation
(CERT), a research
centre, is situated in the
research village on the
Auckland Park Bunting
Road (APB) Campus.
In addition, the Faculty
offers a foundation
phase (elementary
school) teacher
education programme
in Siyabuswa, which
is a rural area of
the Province of
Mpumalanga in South
Africa, in collaboration
with the University of
Mpumalanga. This
programme is one of
our initiatives towards
advancing teacher
education in South
Africa.
Three academic
departments are
housed on the SWC,
namely Educational
Psychology, Education
Leadership and
Management, and
Childhood Education.
The Campus is also
the home of two
prestigious National
Research Foundation
Research Chairs.
FACTS ABOUT THE FACULTY
The Faculty is a leader in the country in primary school teacher education. The
Funda UJabule School situated on the Soweto Campus – a “teaching school”
– enables practice-based teacher education. This is unique in the country.
Childhood Education is also one of the flagship programme areas at the UJ.
The postgraduate programmes in educational psychology and education
leadership and management offered at the Soweto Campus are in high demand
and attract high numbers of postgraduate students.
Though the Departments of Educational Psychology and Education Leadership
and Management are officially situated on the SWC, these departments also
have staff members on the APK Campus. In addition, two academic departments
are situated on the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus, namely Education and
Curriculum Studies, and Science and Technology Education. The focus of the
programmes at the APK Campus is mainly secondary school teacher education.
Science education is one of the strongest programmes at this site. Higher
education as field of study is also gaining prominence with foci on higher
education policy and leadership and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
The Faculty’s research is underpinned by social justice issues. Large scale, cuttingedge research on mathematical cognition in childhood, research in pre-service
teacher education and research in educational support for learners who struggle
are particular strengths. The National Research Foundation Research Chair in
Education and Care in Childhood testifies to the status of the Faculty’s research
on vulnerable children. Recently, the Faculty’s leadership role in childhood
education research was confirmed through the National Research Foundation
Research Chair, which was awarded to the Faculty. The focus of the Chair is
Integrated Studies of Learning Language, Mathematics and Science in the
Primary School.
• Number of students: 3 938.
• Number of permanent full-time academic staff: 69.
• The Faculty is housed on two campuses: The Soweto
Campus and the Auckland Park Kingsway Campus.
• Two schools are associated with the Faculty: UJ
Metropolitan Academy (secondary school) and Funda
UJabule School (primary school).
• The Faculty houses two educational research journals:
Education as Change and the South African Journal of
Childhood Education.
• The Faculty consists of five academic departments and
two research centres.
• The Faculty offers undergraduate teacher education
programmes for primary and secondary schools as well
as postgraduate programmes.
AC A DE
MI C E X C E L L E N C E
The various programmes of activities in the Faculty of Education bear testimony
to it living up to its quest of “dynamic knowledge-making for 21st century
education” in South Africa and beyond.
PROF SARAH GRAVETT | Dean: Faculty of Education
Email: sgravett@uj.ac.za
http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Faculties/edu/about/DeansOfficeStaff/Pages/ProfSarahGravett.
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FA C U LT Y
Prof Sarah Gravett: Executive Dean
Prof Sarah Gravett was appointed as the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Johannesburg (UJ) at the beginning of 2007. Her postdoctoral research
focused initially mainly on transformative learning in higher education, dialogic teaching
and the design of learning environments. In recent years her research focus has shifted to
teacher education. She has led several research projects in this area, including a project
on the preparedness of novice teachers for the teaching profession, the establishment of
teaching schools in South Africa. Currently, she is leading a project on the development
of mentor teachers. She views her involvement in establishing a school at UJ’s Soweto
campus as the most meaningful achievement of her academic career. Some of her awards
include The South African Association for Research and Development in Higher Education
Teaching Fellowship and the medal of honour from the Education Association of South
Africa honouring her for outstanding service to Education in South Africa.
Prof Juliet Perumal: Vice-Dean: Research and Internationalisation
Prof Juliet Perumal is Professor in the Department of Education Leadership and
Management at the University of Johannesburg. She leads the following research
projects: Women leading in disadvantaged education communities, and Critical leaderful
practices. She has published in the fields of language and gender, critical and feminist
pedagogies, transformative curriculum, democracy, educational leadership and qualitative
research methodologies.
Email: julietp@uj.ac.za
Dr Joseph Jinja Divala: Head of Department of Education
and Curriculum Studies
Dr Divala is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education and Head of Department of
Education and Curriculum Studies. He obtained his qualifications from Stellenbosch
University, University of the Witwatersrand as well as University of Malawi.
Dr Divala is active in Initial Teacher Education for Senior Phase and Further Education and
Training in Philosophy of Education and Postgraduate Education and Research (MEd and
PhD) in Curriculum and Transformation and Philosophy of Education.
Email: jdivala@uj.ac.za
Dr Helen Dunbar-Krige: Head of Department of Educational Psychology
Following her first degree in Social Sciences and a Teacher’s Diploma at the former Rand
Afrikaans University (RAU), Dr Dunbar-Krige taught in secondary school before completing
her professional training in Educational Psychology. She then worked as an educational
psychologist in school and private practice before joining RAU (now the University of
Johannesburg) in 2000. Her current research interests include ethics in professional
practice and problem-based learning.
Email: helenk@uj.ac.za
Prof Piet Ankiewicz: Head of Department of Science
and Technology Education
He oversees the Science Education, Technology Education, Mathematics Educations
and Learning Technologies units. He has a keen research interest in the implications of
the philosophy of technology for classroom pedagogy, teachers’ pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK), initial teacher education, curriculum development and evaluation, and
continuing professional development.
Email: pieta@uj.ac.za
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Dr Clive Smith: Head of Department of Education Leadership
and Management
A former high school principal, he obtained his Master’s and PhD in Organisation
Change and Leadership at the University of Oregon in the USA on a Fulbright
scholarship. His research methodological interests are in participatory
action research, case study and interpretive, especially ethnographic and
phenomenological, research.
Email: csmith@uj.ac.za
Prof Nadine Petersen: Head of Department of Childhood Education
She oversees the curriculum integration of childhood teacher education with
teaching practice in the university teaching (laboratory) school. The main foci of
her teaching and research are on service learning (SL) in teacher education and
on beginning student-teachers’ learning.
Email: nadinep@uj.ac.za
Prof Elizabeth Henning: Director: Centre for Education Practice
Research and SA Research Chair
Prof Elizabeth Henning holds a South African Research Chair in Integrated
Studies of Learning Language, Science and Mathematics in the primary school.
She is the current Director of the Centre for Education Practice Research. She
leads research in mathematical cognition and language in the early years of
school as well as primary school children’s learning of science concepts and
reading of science texts.
Email: ehenning@uj.ac.za
Prof Salim Vally: Director: Centre for Education Rights
and Transformation
Prof Salim Vally, the Director of the Centre for Education Rights and
Transformation, worked formerly as a teacher, trade unionist and until recently, a
senior researcher at the Wits Education Policy Unit (EPU) where his work spanned
over a 15-year period. He was a visiting fellow at Columbia and York Universities.
He works closely with community organisations, social movements and trade
unions.
Email: svally@uj.ac.za
Prof Michael Cross: Director: Ali Mazrui Centre for
Higher Education Studies
Prof Cross is author and co-author of several books, book chapters and numerous
articles in leading scholarly journals. He is currently a Research-focused Professor
in Higher Education at the University of Johannesburg. He has also served as
member of education evaluation teams in Africa, Europe and USA.
Ms Sarita Rademeyer: Head of Faculty Administration
Ms Sarita Rademeyer is the Head of Faculty Administration and responsible for
the administration of the academic life cycle of students across various disciplines
from the initial teacher education programmes through to doctoral studies.
Email: saritar@uj.ac.za
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CHAIRS
National Research Foundation (NRF) South African
Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI): Education and Care
in Childhood
The NRF Chair in Education and Care, awarded to Prof Jace Pillay in 2013,
testifies to the leadership status of the Faculty’s research initiatives on
vulnerable children in the school sector.
Prof Pillay’s research focuses on assessing factors of vulnerability (risks,
pathology) and factors of protection (resiliency, assets, strengths) that are
prevalent in the education and care of orphans and vulnerable children
(OVC) as embedded in their families/caregivers, schools and communities.
The ultimate goal is to utilise the findings of the targeted assessments to
design focused interventions that can be implemented to reduce the factors
of vulnerability and enhance protective factors in OVC through culturally
appropriate, evidence-based, authentic interventions with their families/
caregivers, schools and communities.
Email: jacep@uj.ac.za
National Research Foundation (NRF) South African
Research Chairs Initiative (SARChI): Integrated Studies
of Learning Language, Mathematics and Science in the
Primary School
The aim of this NRF Research Chair is to bring together current theories of
conceptual development, reading, language development and writing in the
primary school years.
Evidence from South African research, as well as regional and international
assessments in which South African learners have participated, shows
unequivocally that there is cause for concern about the competence of children
and youth in reading and writing, as well as mathematical competence and
understanding of science. ‘There is a realisation that early learning, including
the learning of specific discourses of learning areas, is crucial in the primary
school years, when the foundations of concepts are laid. South African research
of learning and literacy in childhood has not explored children’s learning at
the interface of language, literacy, mathematical competence and science
understanding. There is a need for small descriptive studies and large-scale
studies that can yield usable results for policy’, says Professor Elizabeth
Henning, the chair holder.
Chair: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Prof Brenda Leibowitz’s main role at UJ is to support the scholarship of
teaching and learning among academics. She is convener of both the Teaching
Advancement at University (TAU) Fellowships Programme and of the South
African Universities Learning and Teaching (SAULT) Forum and is a rated
researcher and team leader for a National Research Foundation (NRF) funded
project, “Context, Structure and Agency”.
Her research areas cover various aspects of teaching and learning in higher
education, with an emphasis on social justice. These include professional
academic development, academic literacy and social inclusion. She specialises
in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the use of this to encourage
academics to innovate and reflect on their work. She has been invited to talk on
the scholarship of teaching and learning at various institutions in South Africa
and in Africa.
Email: brendal@uj.ac.za
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SOUTH AFRICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM
RESEARCH
TEACHING
INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION
Bachelor of Education (BEd) in
Foundation Phase Teaching (Grade R-3)
Bachelor of Education (BEd) in
Intermediate Phase Teaching (Grade 4-7)
Bachelor of Education (BEd) in Senior
Phase and FET Teaching (Grade 7-12)
Postgraduate Certificate in Education
(PGCE)
CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES
Advanced Diplomas
POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMMES
Postgraduate Diplomas
BEd Honours
Master of Education Degree (MEd)
Doctor of Education in Educational
Psychology (DEd)
Doctor of Philisophy in Education (PhD)
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TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENT OF CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Inquiry teaching
and learning in
Science Education
Funda UJabule learners
Department of Childhood Education
a trailblazer: the first teaching
school in South Africa
The Funda UJabule (which translates to: “learn and be joyful”) School in
Soweto opened its doors to the children of the area in 2010. The School
was founded as a teacher education and research school – i.e. a teaching
school. The full integration of teacher education within a teaching school is
pioneering in South Africa.
UJ primary school teacher education programmes are rooted in knowledge
of how children learn and develop. The curriculum and the studentteachers’ involvement in the school reflect the focus of child study. Studentteachers do structured observations, work as classroom assistants and take
up limited teaching responsibilities at the school.
In addition, service learning is infused into the primary school teacher
education programmes through students’ involvement at the Funda
UJabule School. The service learning activities inform and draw on students’
practical and situational learning. These include sport activities associated
with international events, anti-bullying campaigns, the design of interactive
games using coursework literature to facilitate the teaching of reading and
storytelling, food gardening projects and reading and literacy festivals,
which are open to the wider Johannesburg and surrounding communities.
Research conducted during the past five years on student-teachers’ learning
at the school, reveals that their involvement with the same children over
four years supports the development of a strong understanding of the
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DEPARTMENTS
development challenges and
milestones of the primary
school child. Student-teachers
report that their involvement
in the teaching school allows
them to experience the full
complexity of what teaching
involves.
Prof Umesh Ramnarain (Department of
Science and Technology Education) is
collaborating with Prof Fouad Abd-El
Khalick from the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, on inquiry teaching
and learning in Science Education. Joint
research will provide much insight into
the quality of new science textbooks
that have accompanied curriculum
reform in school science in South Africa.
South African classrooms are
characterised by diversity and
complexity in terms of intrinsic factors
such as science teaching self-efficacy,
professional science knowledge, science
teaching interest and motivation and
extrinsic or environmental factors that
include resource adequacy, school
ethos, and professional support for
teachers. Prof Ramnarain has made
significant contributions to deepening
understanding of factors that impede
the implementation of inquiry teaching
and learning in science classrooms
particularly in underpriviledged schools.
In November 2014, at the International
Science Education Conference in
Singapore, Prof Ramnarain presented
a paper on the extent to which South
African physical sciences teachers at
historically disadvantaged township
schools enacted a science content
storyline in their chemistry lessons.
The overall findings show that learners
in such classes have experiences
that can be regarded as fragmented,
disconnected and incoherent, and it
can be inferred that these experiences
limit their conceptual understanding in
chemistry, leading to poor achievement
in the subject. The significance of
this research was recognised by
the international science education
community when his paper won the
Springer Best Paper award.
Email: uramnarain@uj.ac.za
UJ Metropolitan Academy learners
Learning technologies
research project at the UJ
Metropolitan Academy
The HP National Education Technology Assessment project (HP
NETA) is an ambitious data analytics effort that endeavours to
assist nation and state-level educational leaders by providing
insights about the impact of learning technologies in formal
schooling environments.
From quizzes, tests and grades, to formative assessments,
surveys, and real-time interactions with learning software,
data is collected, analysed, and presented in ways that help
improve teaching and learning. At the same time, it also
allows for teachers to become better versed in the use of new
technologies for teaching and learning purposes.
Only three pilot sites were identified in the world, namely, San
Carlos Middle School – Silicon Valley, USA; Ramjas School – New
Delhi, India; and the University of Johannesburg Metropolitan
Academy. The Hewlett Packard Company – Global Education,
donated equipment (hardware and software) and made research
funding available over a period of two years. Other partners
include the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
Meraka Institute, RSA and the Greaves Foundation, USA.
The principal researcher in the HPNETA project, Dr Jaqueline
Batchelor, leads a team of researchers from the Department
of Science and Technology Education to better understand
innovative ways of utilising learning outcome data that emerge
for the various pilot initiatives to impact teaching and learning in
the classroom.
Email: jbatchelor@uj.ac.za
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TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Learning interactions research
The research of Prof Gert van der Westhuizen (Department of Educational Psychology) focuses on studies of
learning in school and professional development settings and more specifically on learning interactions. He
collaborates with Prof Harm Tillema from the University of Leiden. Their collaborative work is clarifying the
elements of knowledge construction in collaborative inquiry, and how learning interactions play out in the
professional preparation of teachers.
Email: gertvdw@uj.ac.za
The Department of Educational Psychology integrates
professional education of postgraduate students
and community engagement
The Department of Educational Psychology is
involved in two community engagement projects
close to the University’s Auckland Park Kingsway
Campus under the leadership of Dr Tumi Diale and Dr
Helen Dunbar-Krige.
These projects are linked to academic courses in
career development and psychological assessment.
Students learn about the different tests and then
administer the tests under supervision of registered
psychologists in the practice of a school setting.
In the first project, Dr Diale and the postgraduate
students in Educational Psychology assist with
the selection of learners into Grade 8 at the UJ
Metropolitan Academy (UJMA). The Faculty
of Education is the guardian of the UJMA – a
Mathematics and Science focused secondary school
that serves children from disadvantaged backgrounds
who have the potential to excel in mathematics
and science. A total of 450-500 Grade 7 learners
from different primary school are assessed during
this process. Although only a 100-110 learners are
admitted into the school, parents are given a report
of the child’s potential. In addition, Dr Diale gives a
presentation feedback session to parents on their
children’s strengths and on how to better support
them academically. The students also conduct a full
career assessment for 60-65 Grade 11 learners in the
school and parents and learners are given feedback
on the possible career fields to consider, based on
aspects such as their aptitude, interest, personality,
values and narrative self-reports.
In the second project, Dr Dunbar-Krige is involved
in a primary school, namely the Piet van Vuuren
Primary School. This school mainly serves children
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from disadvantaged communities. At this school,
student counsellors are involved in the screening,
identification, assessment and recommended support
of learners who experience learning and language
difficulties.
Email: tumid@uj.ac.za
Students involved in a community project at a school that
serves children from disadvantaged backgrounds
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
Intersecting discourses of
Social justice and equity
curriculum and critical feminist
in funding public schools
educational leadership
and women leadership in
Prof Juliet Perumal’s research combines her expertise
education
in the discourses of curriculum and critical feminist
educational leadership. This is most evident in the two
large scale projects: Women leading in disadvantaged
education contexts, and the critically leaderful schools
that she has been the principal investigator.
She proceeds from the contention that despite women’s
exclusion from other areas of public social engagement,
teaching is a women-dominated profession. Thus, the
appointment of women to school leadership posts
necessitates educating women to unlearn the myths
about their lack of abilities and capabilities, and to ensure
that they assume school leadership roles confidently and
competently.
Assuming leadership in educational contexts in South
Africa ravaged by the scourge of HIV/AIDS, poverty,
gender violence and other social maladies call for
extraordinary leadership skills among women educators.
The research highlighted inter alia:
• the challenges of immigrant and refugee teachers
leading in foreign education contexts
• the personal and professional stresses associated with
curriculum change and the intensification of emotional
labour
• reliance on faith to navigate teaching in debilitating
• dangerous and demanding school communities
• countering negative cultural stereotypes about women
in positions of leadership
• problematising servant leadership in relation to race
and gender
• exploring the socio-political factors that frame female
principals’ experiences in cultural climates that cast
them as outsiders
• acknowledging the invaluable role male colleagues
play in promoting and practicing nurturance
pedagogies
• the imperative to create educational communities of
practice premised on caring and collaboration so that
gender inclusivity, student diversity and social cohesion
do not remain rhetorical slogans and theoretical
abstractions but rather become part of our lived reality.
Prof Raj Mestry combines his expertise
in financial management and education
leadership in two research projects he
is leading: social justice and equity in
funding public schools, and women
leadership in education.
The research on social justice and equity
in funding public schools was conducted
in collaboration with Dr Yusuf Sayed of
Sussex University (United Kingdom). This
research focused on critically interrogating
various State policies in order to assess
whether the post-apartheid government
had succeeded in addressing social justice
and equity in public schools. One of the
major findings of this study revealed that
inequalities based on race and class,
and socio-economic status in particular,
continued to be reproduced in a system
that was only superficially egalitarian and
democratic. Although progress has been
made towards a just distribution of public
funds through various policies, significant
inequalities persist, attributed largely to
the social legacy of apartheid and new
emerging discourses.
The research study on women leadership
is jointly undertaken with Prof Michele
Schmidt from Simon University of
Canada. This study deals with women
leadership in education and highlights the
obstacles and barriers that female school
leaders experience in their day-to-day
engagement with relevant stakeholders.
The findings of this study revealed that the
larger structures of government and policy
had failed to protect women leaders who
usually suffered triple jeopardy, namely,
race, class and gender in their work
environment.
Email: rajm@uj.ac.za
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TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND CURRICULUM STUDIES
Teacher education, curriculum literacy and classroom instructional
practices
Professor Maropeng Modiba’s research focuses on
two related areas, namely teacher education and
curriculum literacy as captured by studying classroom
instructional practices. The research focus is
interdisciplinary and at the interface of school subject
content, and cultural and educational domains of
inquiry. Her work focuses beyond her country, South
Africa, to countries such as Zimbabwe, Kenya and
Swaziland. She has published on teacher professional
practice, education and culture, and, in general,
on the sociology of education. Her most recent
co-authored chapter appears in the book: Framing
Peace: Thinking About and Enacting Curriculum as
Radical Hope: A Book Series of Curriculum Studies.
Email: mmodiba@uj.ac.za
Research snippets from the Department of Education
and Curriculum Studies
Prof Leila Kajee holds research interests in
language and literacies in education: critical and
sociocultural theories, literacy as social practice,
identity, multimodality and multi-literacies, digital
literacy and online learning.
Email: lkajee@uj.ac.za
Dr Nazreen Dasoo has held the UNESCO/
UNITWIN Chair for the last 10 years. She also codirects an International Research Consortium in
Values Education with Prof Andy Furco from the
University of Minnesota. She has delivered keynote
addresses and has been an invited speaker in
the area of Values Education. Her work in Values
Education has been translated into Spanish for
Dr Joseph Divala’s current research focuses on
‘Citizenship identities in schools: an exploration of
social change in global neighbourliness’. The main
objective of the project is to map the cartography
of current understandings and perceptions of global
citizenship by sketching the landscape of global
neighbourliness through inquiry in schools.
Email: jdivala@uj.ac.za
The SOTL@UJ – Towards a Socially Just Pedagogy project is a teaching initiative with a difference under the
leadership of Prof Brenda Leibowitz. Begun in 2014, it aims to encourage a critical and supportive learning
community among academics who come together across faculties and disciplines to debate approaches
towards research on teaching and learning. The group has grown to approximately 30 members, although
its Blog postings and seminar series reach a larger group of 60 academics. The project sports an active blog
(http://sotlforsocialjustice.blogspot.com), a seminar series and all active participants have their own research
project in which they investigate how to teach at university level in order to advance social justice, and how to
teach justly. The project aims to have research outcomes (a series of studies on how to advance social justice
through teaching at university level) as well as teaching outcomes (the learning about research and social
justice of team members, as well as the enhanced learning of their students).
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
The Centre for Education Practice Research
Partner in the University of Johannesburg Childhood Education
Flagship Programme
• Research in the Department of Childhood Education and the Funda UJabule School
• Home of the a SARChI Chair: Integrated Studies of Learning Language, Science and
Mathematics in the Primary School
Department of
Childhood Education
UJ
Flagship:
Childhood
Education
use at the Universidad Mayor in Santiago, Chile.
Her other interests lie in pre-service and in-service
teacher professional development and assessment
for learning.
Email: ndasoo@uj.ac.za
SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
The SOTL@UJ
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CENTRES
TEACHING
RESEARCH
CEPR
with
NRF
Chair
Funda
UJabule
School
with partner
schools
Figure 1. The UJ Childhood Education Flagship: The intersect of teacher education, research, and
community engagement
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TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
CENTRES
CENTRES
Research projects in learning and
conceptual development in the
childhood years:
Research project collaboration through
funded projects:
• Mathematical cognition
• Standardised interview test development
for numeracy of Grade 1 children (in four languages)
• Science concept development in the primary
school years (Grades 1-7)
• Reading of science texts in the middle school
years (Grades 4-7)
• Academic language competence in the middle
school years
Research projects in teacher education
and development:
Figure 2. The CEPR: Home of the SARChI Chair, research and development of education practice,
research capacity development, and a research journal
Historical overview of the
Centre for Education Practice
Research (CEPR)
The Centre for Education Practice
Research was founded in 2007. It was
the first research centre in the Faculty
of Education and soon became a nexus
for activities that are associated with
research of “education as it happens on
the ground”. It was the editorial home of
the journal, Education as Change, until
2013 and currently it is also the home of
the South African Journal of Childhood
Education.
As one of its main briefs the CEPR
initiated the annual Winter School,
which is a research methodology
development project. This initiative has
been complemented by workshops on a
wide range of topics, including capacity
development in academic writing and
supervision of students.
Various research projects have been
funded through the CEPR as conduit,
forming a network of research with
project leaders, supervisors and students.
In recent years, this collaboration has
been happening mostly with researchers
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and students in the Department of
Childhood Education, where it is a
partner in the UJ Flagship of Childhood
Education.
The research on mathematical cognition,
with the development of standardised
assessment instruments for learning in
the primary school remains one of the
Centre’s main research and development
briefs.
The most recent addition to the
awards for research in the CEPR has
been a South African Research Chair
(National Research Foundation and the
Department of Science and Technology)
to the Director of the Centre, Elizabeth
Henning. In this and other research
programmes, the CEPR is assisted by
three Distinguished Visiting Professors
from Harvard University, the University of
Duisburg-Essen and Helsinki University as
well as a number of visiting scholars.
The Centre is located at the Soweto
Campus within walking distance from the
University teaching school, the Funda
UJabule School, which also serves as one
of the main research sites of the Centre.
• Teacher knowledge of child development
• Student-teachers’ learning in the “teaching
school” on campus
• Mentoring in pre-service teacher education
• Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for
mathematics education
• Teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge for
literacy education
• Teachers’ knowledge for teaching ‘reading to
learn’
• Science concepts development of children in
the foundation phase
A teacher conducting a test with a learner
• The University of Helsinki
• The University of Duisburg-Essen
• Harvard University
Visiting research associates from Canada,
Germany, Finland and the USA conduct
collaborative research in the Childhood Education
flagship programme.
Three Distinguished Visiting Professors have been
appointed to this programme:
Prof Annemarie Fritz-Stratmann (Duisburg-Essen):
Mathematical cognition – and assessment and
remediation
Prof Catherine Snow (Harvard University): Reading
education for learning
Prof Jari Lavonen (Helsinki University): Teacher
education and science learning
Teacher education film production
As part of development of teacher education
materials, the Centre produces films that capture
some of the research.
The first film is #Taximaths: how children make
their world mathematical .
In 2016 another film is being produced:
#Taxiscience: How children learn to see their world
scientifically.
Taximaths logo
17
TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
CENTRES
CENTRES
The Centre for Education Rights
and Transformation (CERT) integrates
Research and social action
Anchored in the ideals of social justice, CERT’s vision and mission speak
to:
• Combining rigorous academic research and scholarship with social action
• Creating synergy between research, teaching and community engagement
• Making a positive contribution to knowledge creation and social transformation
In 2015, CERT had eight active research and development projects in the broad fields
of schooling, post-school and community education.
Post-school education
• Globalisation and education
• Industrial change, technology and skills in post-school education
• Transformation from School to Work: Secondary Education and Youth Development
Schooling
• Comparative histories of education in South Africa
• Privatisation of schools
• Education rights, social justice and transformation
Community Education
• Community education challenges in urban, peri-urban, and deindustrialising poor
and working class communities.
• CERT has also initiated reading clubs and volunteer literacy groups in Soweto,
Eldorado Park, Evaton and Freedom Park.
Public intellectual engagement and community involvement has been a constant
preoccupation and a key activity of CERT staff. Community engagement occurs
through research and advocacy projects, close relations with civil society and
community organisations, and serving on ministerial committees appointed by the
Basic and Higher Education Ministries.
CERT has four full-time staff, namely, Prof Linda Chisholm, Prof Salim Vally, Dr Mondli
Hlatshwayo and Ms Yoemna Saint. In addition, CERT hosts two postdoctoral fellows.
Prof Enver Motala (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University) is a research associate
and Professors Steven Klees (University of Maryland), Leon Tikly (University of Bristol),
Aziz Choudry (McGill University), Carol Anne Spreen (New York University) and Derrick
Alridge (University of Virginia) are visiting professors.
Email: svally@uj.ac.za
Centre for
Education Rights
and Transformation
18
THE ALI MAZRUI CENTRE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION STUDIES
It is with great pleasure that we confirm the establishment of a new centre in the Faculty, named “The Ali
Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies”.
The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ihron Rensburg, suggested that the Centre should be named after a top
African scholar in higher education in Africa with recognised international stature both nationally and
internationally. After scrutinising the biographies of the many African scholars who have made a significant
impact in the field of higher education in the continent, the name of the late Ali Mazrui appeared most
suitable.
The choice of the name rests on the following attributes that characterised his academic career:
• His international standing as a distinguished scholar both nationally and internationally.
• His Pan-African philosophy that acknowledges the need for African unity rooted in solidarity (supporting
or applauding what the neighbour is doing) and empathy (identifying with and imitating the neighbours’
behaviour).
• His views on the value of academic freedom in the university context as well as his commitment
to decolonisation of modernisation, and to sustainable development translated in the equation
“Development equals modernisation minus dependency”. Mazrui elaborated on these values as
follows: A society without the will to create a sustainable university is a society without the will to
maintain sustainable development. A fundamental starting point is a readiness by the society to award
a university a charter, which guarantees institutional independence and also guarantees the members
academic freedom.
In his own words, his ideas on higher education and culture remain inspiring “as lenses of perception, as
a source of motivation, as a standard of judgment, as a criterion of stratification, as a basis of identity, as a
means of communication, and as a framework of consumption and production”. These ideas have already
reverberated across our institutional vision, mission and goals at the University of Johannesburg.
We would like the Centre to be a hub for critical intellectual engagement for African scholars across the
continent. We envisage the day where, through postgraduate scholarships, sabbatical grants, visiting
scholars and other scientific fellowships, we will promote mobility and engagement among African scholars
through large intercontinental, multiple partnered and multi-year scholarship development and research
projects. The research network we established last year at the colloquium on Knowledge and Change in
African Universities was just the beginning.
Email: mcross@uj.ac.za
Representatives from different universities in Africa at the African Universities Network workshop
19
TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
TEACHING
RESEARCH
INSTITUTES
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Towards establishing
university teaching schools in
South Africa
The Integrated Strategic Planning Framework for
Teacher Education and Development in South Africa,
promulgated in 2011, proposes the establishing of
university teaching schools in South Africa. Before
the dissemination of the Framework, the UJ Faculty
of Education founded a public school on its Soweto
Campus. One of the objectives for establishing the
school was to develop an integrated practice site
for the preservice education of teachers. Based
on the work UJ had already done at its school, the
Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET),
supported by European Union funding, commissioned
researchers from the Faculty to conduct research on
establishing teaching schools in South Africa. The
DHET commissioned research, under the leadership
of Prof Sarah Gravett, has now been concluded.
Participants at a seminar hosted by the Education Leadership Institute
The Education Leadership Institute (ELI)
The Education Leadership Institute (ELI), which operates under the auspices of the Department of Education
Leadership and Management and the leadership of Prof Pierre du Plessis, strives to be an agent of
transformative educational leadership in Soweto and South Africa. The ELI serves as a physical and virtual
convener of school leadership initiatives to create communities of practice that collaboratively and innovatively
solve real problems and improve learning and teaching. The ELI is also directly involved in the training and
development of school principals.
The partnership with Gauteng West District started in 2013 when they joined the School Management Team
(SMT) Capacity Building programme hosted by ELI and Mathew Goniwe School of Leadership & Governance.
Gauteng West matric class of 2014 achieved best district results nationally and in 2015, they were nudged out
of first place by Sedibeng District by 0.2%. UJ/ELI aims at sustaining this result and to shift Gauteng West from
best to excellent over time.
In July 2015, a team comprising two Faculty staff members plus the Gauteng West District Director and a
district official attended the Harvard Institute for School Leaders (HISL) in Boston. The course brought school
leaders from urban contexts together with Harvard faculty and top experts in the field to examine best practices
and research-based techniques that support student achievement. The programme provided an in-depth
exploration of the leadership skills necessary to enhance and sustain learning outcomes.
2015 ended on a high note for ELI. After almost four years of work in producing a case book on leadership and
management experiences in schools we work with, Pearsons have undertaken to publish the book later this
year. This achievement represents an outcome commensurate with our purpose and objectives. To date, ELI’s
footprint is clearly imprinted on the landscape of the education sector. On the strength of its growth path and
strategic plan, ELI can contribute a wealth of knowledge that will guide school leaders in their roles of improving
learning outcomes, and ultimately, in the achievement of national goals.
The research findings highlight challenges and
successes experienced by UJ in establishing a
teaching school. After four years of implementation,
UJ participants concluded that integrating a teaching
school with teacher education has indeed the
potential to strengthen teacher education significantly.
However, the programme designers and university
staff initially underestimated the complexity of uniting
the world of the university and the world of the school
classroom.
The research also highlights that currently there is
no clear notion in the teacher education sector of
how university teaching schools could add value to
teacher preparation in addition to the schools in
which student-teachers are placed for work-integrated
learning (school practicum). The research recommends
that prior to establishing teaching schools, much
deliberation is required about the purpose and means
of integrating teaching schools in teacher education.
Another main thrust of the research was to explore
possible models for the governance of teaching
schools.
A PhD student and staff member, Ms Sarita
Ramsaroop, has also recently completed a teaching
school related study with the title: “The potential of
teaching schools in South Africa to enable learning for
the teaching profession”.
Making a difference in
mathematics where it matters
- both in the primary school
and teacher education
The Faculty of Education has partnered with a
South African non-profit company called Numeric
to provide immersive and high-impact teaching
internships for aspiring Mathematics teachers.
Numeric specialises in the training of Mathematics
coaches and the provision of teaching internships
for students for teaching at the Grade 4-9 level.
Every year in October, students apply for Numeric
teaching internships. Successful candidates
participate in an intensive two-week boot camp
in December during which students are drilled
on content, content delivery and classroom
management techniques. The following January,
students are placed in Numeric partner schools
as interns. Each intern is paired with a group of 22
learners. They meet with these learners twice a week
leading to a cumulative ±100 hours of teaching
time throughout the year. The University, Numeric,
participating schools and parents of learners have
high expectations of coaches as Mathematics
education is at stake. Interns are expected to
produce real and quantifiable results with their
learners over the course of the year.
This initiative was funded in 2015 by an innovative
teaching grant facilitated through the UJ Academic
Staff Development Unit. The course runs over a 12week period and students are tasked with mastering
150 Khan Academy exercises covering a range
of topics in arithmetic and pre-algebra. Students
attend one 90-minute Khan Academy session held
in a computer lab at UJ each week. Students are
expected to work an additional one to three hours
outside of class toward their goal of 150 Khan
Academy mastery exercises. Both the student scores
(students wrote a pre-test and post-test) and the
student self-reports indicate a positive response.
Email: andrew@numeric.org
Though the commissioned research has been
concluded, the teaching school research on the UJ
Childhood Education teacher education model is
ongoing.
Email: sgravett@uj.ac.za
20
21
TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
JOURNALS
STUDENT EXCURSIONS
Journal:
Education as Change
Education as Change (EAC) is an open
access journal and housed within
the Centre for Education Rights and
Transformation. The journal publishes
critical educational articles that
investigate issues of social justice
and equality. EAC is accredited by
the Department of Higher Education
and Training, included on the Web of
Science, Scopus and the Norwegian
list. It is available on the journal website
www.educationaschange.co.za and on
ScieloSA.
Archives are available on the Taylor & Francis
site: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/redc20/
curent
Students during on the activities at the first year excursion
Annual first-year student excursion
Research Journal: South
African Journal of
Childhood Education
The CEPR is the publishing home of the South
African Journal of Childhood Education, an open
access, peer reviewed journal on the “open journals
system”. The journal is published online and in print
by AOSIS Publishers.
The journal is accredited and listed by the following:
• Department of Higher Education and Training
• International Bibliography of the Social Sciences
(IBSS)
• Web of Science (Thomsen Reuters) in the
Emerging Source Citation Index (ESCI)
•ScieloSA.
22
The Faculty has built a tradition of creating a learning
opportunity for selected students in an informal
environment over a weekend or during the April recess,
referred to by the Faculty as an excursion.
Foundation and intermediate phase students
The foundation phase and intermediate phase first-year
groups are involved annually in an education excursion with
the overarching theme: Teach for the future. All activities in
the three-day programme align with this theme and include
a) the Faculty’s conceptual framework and developing
a teaching philosophy; b) simulation games focused on
HIV and AIDS education and food security; c) shoestring
approaches to producing teaching aids; d) music and
arts; e) storytelling, and a movie night – featuring the Ron
Clarke Story where students are led through reflections on
an inspirational teacher’s story. The excursion forms part
of the Teaching Studies 1A modules in the foundation
and intermediate phase programmes and the workbooks/
reflections and assignments that they produce based on
the excursion experience are incorporated into these
modules. Senior tutors are very involved in the excursion
and are appointed for these modules for the year to ensure
that students receive on-going support
as part of their first-year programme. In
2015, the foundation phase excursion
was co-ordinated by Dr Naidoo and the
intermediate phase by Prof Petersen. All
staff are involved in the activities.
A solar energy project and Bushfire dialogues
at the first year excursion
23
TEACHING
RESEARCH
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
STUDENT EXCURSIONS
BEd Senior and FET Phase students
The commitment of the Faculty to supporting
the academic progress and well-being of firstyear students is also evident in the excursion for
first year BEd Senior and FET Phase students to
Achterbergh. All first-year students participate
as well as a large number of staff, master’s
students in Educational Psychology, tutors
and teachers from collaborating schools. The
excursion aims at easing students’ socialisation
into the University culture. It affords students
the opportunity to form support groups, and
staff interact with students on a more personal
level in an informal environment. The excursion
also has a strong social justice and citizenship
education focus. Themes such as sexism,
xenophobia and HIV/AIDS are addressed
through educational games, dramatisation of
cases and “bush dialogues”. The feedback
from first-year students about the excursion has
been consistently exceptionally positive since its
inception.
Visiting Associate Professor, Harm Tillema
from the University of Leiden who attended
the excursion, said the following about the
Achterbergh experience:
“All in all the event over the weekend was for
me a great experience to attend. Learning how
students openly discuss difficult issues, to see
how space was created for opinions and how
students contributed to the whole event was
formidable. I think the Achterbergh meeting was
a full success, made possible by the experienced
staff and the devotion they showed to make it a
success; no doubt helped by the comforting and
scenic setting at which the event took place.”
Excursion for PGCE students
In 2015, the PGCE students and their lecturers
spent a weekend together to focus in an
informal environment on the development of
the students’ teaching repertoire and to assist
students to begin to craft a personal teaching
philosophy. The 2015 programme was organised
with a main focus on teaching methodologies.
Teaching Methodology lecturers worked with
the students to refine their teaching, learning
and assessment skills.
Email: helenk@uj.ac.za
24
ALUMNI AND STUDENT
ACHIEVEMENTS
Students and alumni excel at
National Teaching Awards
The towering gardens at Funda Ujabule school
A solar energy project and Bushfire dialogues
at the first year excursion
Mr Andonis (Tony) Antoniou received the first
prize in the Excellence in Secondary School
Teaching Award. Tony is registered for a PhD
in the field of science education in the Faculty.
His research focuses on professional teacher
development within communities of practice.
This passionate Life Sciences teacher enriches
the lives of children at Mondeor High School.
Apart from his duties as Life Sciences teacher,
he is also the Science Head of Department.
Tony has been a teacher at Mondeor High for
the past 15 years. In his own words: “I love
teaching curious young minds, and I am at my
happiest in the classroom”. He also works hard
to ensure that there is a supportive environment
at school for his colleagues, in which they feel
at home. He clearly knows how to build a nest!
Ms Kira Watson was a student of the Faculty
in 2010, and she won the third prize in the
Excellence in Teaching Science Award. She
teaches Life Sciences at Glenvista High school.
Mr Francois Naude received the first prize in
the Excellence in Secondary School Teaching
category in 2012. Francois is currently an
assistant lecturer and PhD student in the
Department of Childhood Education. He
teaches Natural Sciences in the primary school
teacher education programme and in this
capacity he initiated a service learning project
at the Faculty’s teaching school – building
vertical tower gardens using recyclable
materials. His PhD research focuses on
science concept development of learners in
the foundation phase and he is involved in
producing a Faculty film that focuses on how
children learn to see their world scientifically.
Ms Refiloe Malatji, an alumnus of the Faculty of Education, was
placed second, nationally, at the 2015 National Teaching Awards
in the Excellence in Secondary Teaching category. She is a teacher
at a high school associated with the Faculty of Education, the UJ
Metropolitan Academy. She was the winner in the Gauteng region
in the same category.
25
ALUMNI AND STUDENT
ACHIEVEMENTS
Student Athlete
of the year
Anel Oosthuizen at the championship competitions in 2015
1st Year Top
Achievers
Two students in the BEd
Foundation Phase Teaching
were acknowledged at the
University’s 2015 Annual Firstyear Top Achiever ceremony.
Prince JR Mkhwanazi was the
best first-year student in the
Faculty and was placed fifth
in the overall first-year top
achiever. Minehle Cardelia
Nombuso Zikalala took
position 8 to round off the
top 10 first years.
26
Race walker, Anél Oosthuizen, walked
away with the Student Athlete of the
Year title, which recognises the best
overall performance in both the sporting
arena and academic achievement at
the UJ Sports Awards on Thursday, 15
October 2015. Oosthuizen won gold
at the South African Senior Athletics
Championships with a time of 1:38:03
in the 20 km walk – the fastest SA time
in 11 years. She went on to set a new
national student record in the University
Sport South Africa (USSA) competition.
Oosthuizen placed fifth at the Africa
Games and attained a top-20 finish at
the Coruna Grand Prix in Spain. The
second-year Foundation Phase student
balanced these achievements with a
commendable 14 distinctions and an
aggregate of more than 78% since
starting her studies at UJ. Aside from
the student athlete title, Oosthuizen also
finished in the runner-up spot behind
Zinzi Chabangu in the Sportswoman of
the Year category.
NATIONAL
RESEARCH
FOUNDATION
NRF RATED RESEARCHERS
Prof Elizabeth Henning
Prof Linda Chisolm
Prof Elizabeth Henning is the Director
of the Centre for Education Practice
Research at the Soweto campus.
She leads research in mathematical
cognition and language in the early
years of school as well as primary
school children’s learning of science
concepts and reading of science
texts. She is a Fellow of the American
Educational Research Association. She
combines instructional film production
with research.
Prof Linda Chisholm is a former
special advisor to the Minister of Basic
Education, Director of Education
Research at the HSRC, Professor of
Education at UKZN and Director of
the Wits Education Policy Unit. Her
PGCE and MA were completed at the
University of London, and her PhD at
the University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg. Her research focuses
on the historical, contemporary and
comparative aspects of education
policy and curriculum in South Africa
and the region.
Email: lchisholm@uj.ac.za
Prof Raj Mestry
Email: rajm@uj.ac.za
Prof Raj Mestry’s main research
interest is Social Justice and Equity:
Financial Management; Women
Leadership. He served on the South
African Journal of Education’s editorial
board and was co-editor of a special
issue on Instructional Leadership in
the Education as Change journal. In
2012, he was awarded the Research
Medal for his research contribution
to education from the Education
Association of South Africa.
Prof Jace Pillay
Prof Jace Pillay holds a South African
Natiional Research Foundation
Research Chair in Education and Care
in Childhood. He heads a research
team focusing on the educational,
psychological, and social care of
orphans and vulnerable children.
Email: jacep@uj.ac.za
Prof Juliet Perumal
Prof Umesh Ramnarain
Prof Juliet Perumal graduated with a
PhD in Education from the University
of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
She has published in the field of
language and gender; critical, and
feminist pedagogies; transformative
curriculum, democracy; educational
leadership; and qualitative research
methodologies.
Prof Umesh Ramnarain’s research
is on inquiry teaching and learning,
and its uptake in South African
classrooms characterised by diversity
and complexity in terms of intrinsic
and extrinsic or environmental factors.
The knowledge base he has built
has important implications at both
the national and international levels,
especially in terms of inquiry teaching
in underprivileged schools.
Email: uramnarain@uj.ac.za
27
NATIONAL
RESEARCH
FOUNDATION
NRF RATED RESEARCHERS
DISTINGUISHED VISITING PROFESSORS
Prof Chris Myburgh
Prof Brenda Leibowitz
Prof Myburgh has been a tenured
professor in Psychology of Education
since 1989 and is an expert regarding
quantitative as well as qualitative
research methodologies. His focus
areas are especially adolescence,
persons confronted with life
challenges and strategies to facilitate
these persons’ mental health. He
serves on the ethics committees of
the Medical School of the University
of the Witwatersrand and the Faculty
of Education (vice-chairperson) of
the University of Johannesburg.
Prof Brenda Leibowitz is team
leader for a national NRF funded
project, “Context, Structure and
Agency”. She is co-editor for the
journal, Critical Studies in Teaching
and Learning (Cristal). She has
edited several books on academic
development and social justice in
education.
Email: chrism@uj.ac.za
Prof Shireen Motala
Prof Nadine Petersen
Prof Shireen Motala is Director of
the Postgraduate Research Centre:
Research and Innovation Division,
and Associate Professor in the
Faculty of Education, the University of
Johannesburg. Her research interests
and expertise have been in the areas
of education financing and school
reform, access, equity and education
quality and globalisation.
Prof Nadine Petersen’s research focuses
on childhood teacher education and
service learning in teacher education.
She is interested in beginner teachers’
learning and how social justice and care
intersect in educational provision and in
community engagement.
Email: smotala@uj.ac.za
Prof Caroline Long
Professor Caroline Long has a dual
focus on mathematics education
and assessment. In mathematics
education her particular focus is
on the conceptual development of
mathematics, informed by its historical
unfolding. In the area of assessment
Caroline has a specialised focus on
Rasch measurement theory.
Email: clong@uj.ac.za
Prof Gert van der Westhuizen
Prof Van der Westhuizen’s research involves conversation analysis
studies of learning interactions in school and professional learning settings. School studies advancethe understanding of the
generational and social dimensions of learning conversation and
how these play out in interaction settings. Research on learning interactions in teacher education include studies on how knowledge
is used to identify and work with learning needs, and how social
norms of interaction shape learning attainment.
Prof Salim Vally
Prof Salim Vally is the director of the
Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT), an Associate Professor
at the Faculty of Education and a Visiting
Professor at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. He completed his
doctorate at UKZN and studied at Wits
and York universities. He was a Visiting
Lecturer at the Universities of York,
Columbia, Virginia and Fort Hare. His
scholarly interests include educational
and social policy as they relate to human
rights, democracy and socio-economic
justice.
Email: vallys@uj.ac.za
Philomena Essed is Professor of
Critical Race, Gender and Leadership
Studies at Antioch University’s
Graduate School of Leadership
and Change and Distinguished
Visiting Professor at the University
of Johannesburg. Her current focus
is on dignity and ethics of care as
experience and practice in leading
change. In 2011 former Queen
Beatrix of the Netherlands honoured
her work with a Knighthood.
N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba is a
Professor of African, African Diaspora
and Comparative/International
Education at Cornell University in
the Africana Studies and Research
Center. She is the immediate
Past-President of Comparative and
International Education Society
(CIES), a Fellow of the World
Academy of Art and Science,
Chercheur Associé at Université
Félix Houphouët-Boigny (Abidjan,
Côte d’Ivoire), and a Research
Affiliate at the Institute for Higher
Education Law and Governance of
the University of Houston (Houston,
Texas).
Bruce Macfarlane is professor of
higher education at the University of
Southampton, UK and Distinguised
Visiting Professor at the University
of Johannesburg, South Africa.
His publications have developed
concepts related to academic
practice, ethics and leadership.Bruce
is joint editor of Policy Reviews in
Higher Education and a Fellow of
the Society for Research into Higher
Education.
Philip Hallinger is Professor of
Educational Management at
Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok
Thailand) and Distinguished Visiting
Professor at the Faculty of Education
in the University of Johannesburg
(South Africa). His research focuses
on principal instructional leadership,
problem-based learning, leadership
development, and international
studies in educational leadership
and management.
Catherine Snow is an expert on
language and literacy development
in children, focusing on how oral
language skills are acquired and
how they relate to literacy outcomes.
Snow has chaired two national
panels: the National Academy of
Sciences committee that prepared
the report “Preventing Reading
Difficulties in Young Children,”
and the Rand Reading Study
Group that prepared “Reading
for Understanding: Toward
an R&D Program in Reading
Comprehension.”
Annemarie Fritz-Stratmann’s
research priorities are focused on
Development of screening and
testing for children with difficulties in
learning arithmetic from preschool
to grade 6, training concepts for
children with difficulties in learning
arithmetic for the preschool and
early primary school age and
planning and problem solving
behavior of children. Her research
interests are also in Tests for the
detection of the planning and
problem-solving behavior of
children, Children with special
needs and Gifted and high-yielding
children.
Elias Mpofu is professor of
rehabilitation counseling at the
University of Sydney, Australia.
Formerly professor of rehabilitation
services at the Pennsylvania State
University, he is also affiliate
professor of rehabilitation
psychology at the University
Wisconsin-Madison, and Graduate
Faculty at the University of Kentucky.
Professor Mpofu’s research interests
coalesce around communityoriented services; - their design,
implementation and evaluation in
local and international community
settings.
Email: gertvdw@uj.ac.za
28
29
DISTINGUISHED VISITING PROFESSORS
Kerry J Kennedy is a graduate of
Stanford University (MA, PhD), the
University of New England, Australia
(MLitt) and the University of New South
Wales, Australia (MEd, BA DipEd).
His areas of research interest are
curriculum policy and theory, classroom
assessment and civics and citizenship
education. He is currently Editor of
Curriculum Perspectives, the journal
of the Australian Curriculum Studies
Association, Co-Editor of Educational
Studies and the Series Editor for the
Routledge Series on Schools and
Schooling in Asia and Routledge’s Asia
Europe Education Dialogue Series.
Timothy Teo is Professor of Education
and Associate Dean at the Faculty
of Education, University of Macau
(China SAR). His research interests are
multi-disciplinary and they include
both substantive and methodological
areas. Timothy is chief editor of two
international journals, The Asia-Pacific
Education Researcher (TAPER) and
International Journal of Quantitative
Research in Education (IJQRE) and sits
in the editorial board of over 10 international journals.
Jari Lavonen is a Full Professor of
Physics and Chemistry Education at
the Department of Teacher Education,
University of Helsinki, Finland and a
Distinguished Visiting Professor within
the Faculty of Education, University
of Johannesburg. His main research
interests lie in science and technology
teaching and learning, teacher
education and ICT use in science and
technology education.
Hsin-Kai Wu is a professor in Graduate
Institute of Science Education at
theNational Taiwan Normal University,
and a principal investigator in the
Centre for Technology-Infused Learning
Environments. Her research interests
include chemistry education, scientific
modeling, learning technology, and
inquiry learning. Her work has been
published in Journal of Research
in Science Teaching, Science
Education, Computers & Education,
and International Journal of Science
Education.
POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOWS
Dr Nevensha Sing holds a PhD
in Higher Education and a MEd in
Leadership and Policy Studies from the
University of the Witwatersrand. She
has worked as a lecturer, tutor, writing
centre coordinator, mentor, and an
independent contractor. Her research
interests include Student Experience,
Vulnerability, Support, and Retention.
She is also interested in internationalisation, globalisation, partnerships and the
marketisation of higher education.
Dr David Balwanz has fifteen years
of research and evaluation, program
design and program management
experience in the field of comparative
and international education.His recent
research has focused on secondary
education and youth development in
middle-income countries. For his postdoctoral fellowship, David is conducting
research on community-run programs
operating in townships in Gauteng
which support the ‘holistic development’ of secondary school aged youth.
30
Dr Felix Omal holds a PhD degree
from the University of the Witwatersrand with focus on the role of university
councils in South Africa. He specializes
in politics of higher education at the
Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education
Studies. His academic work focuses on
developing critical African perspectives
to university governance in a globalizing world.
Dr Loïse Jeannin is passionate about
adult education and teacher professional development in multicultural
environments. Her Ed.D dissertation
with Walden University (United States)
was on Professional development needs
of faculty members in an international
university in Thailand. Loïse conducts
postdoctoral research on inclusive/
multicultural education and teacher
professional development in international universities.
POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH FELLOWS
Dr Mani Rajbhandari, Research
interests; Educational Leadership,
Leadership Readiness, Leadership
Maintenance, Leadership Behaviour,
Leadership on Climate and Culture
in Educational Settings.
Dr Asamenew Demessie Bireda is
currently, a post-doctoral research
fellow within the faculty of Education
at University of Johannesburg and
his research revolves around resilience among orphans and vulnerable
children. His research interest areas
fall under developmental psychology
(child & adolescent development);
counseling (career development);
social psychology (identity development and interpersonal relationships) and Higher Education (Open
Distance Learning, student support,
and research supervision).
Since her first year as an
undergraduate at the University of
California, Los Angeles (UCLA) the
focus of Dr Genevieve Richards
life’s work has been on the
improvement of socioeconomic and
academic opportunities for students
in marginalized communities all over
the world. However, at the heart of
every endeavor is the motivation to
find solutions that will academically
and socially engage students and
the community of people who serve
them.
Dr Nic Spaull is currently conducting
research on early grade reading and
language within the SARChI Chair on
Integrated Learning. Nic has been
involved in a number of research
projects for local and international
organizations including the South
African Presidency, the Department
of Basic Education, UNICEF, the EU,
UNESCO and SACMEQ. In 2016
he was a recipient of the Thomas
J Alexander Fellowship from the
OECD.
Dr Florence Taiwo Ogunyemi
is a teacher, researcher, and an
advocate of child’s rights and early
childhood education. She had all
her university education at Nigeria’s
premier university – University of
Ibadan, Nigeria. Her doctoral thesis
is titled “Epistemological Relevance
of Constructivism in Early Childhood
Education in Nigeria”. Dr Ogunyemi
has a number of publications
on children’s education issues in
national and international outlets.
Dr Sarah Godsell completed her
Honours degree on the history of the
small town Rooiberg in 2008, with a
focus on the dynamics of the town
after the life-force of the town, the tin
mine, closed down. Her current work
is interested in how history is learnt
by education students, and what this
means for how these future teachers
understand the concept of history,
and so how they will work with it in
our primary school classrooms.
Dr Nicky Roberts research interests
include: School improvement and
cost-effective systemic change
in education, Early mathematics
learning (ECD and Foundation
Phase) with a focus on the
integration of mathematical thinking
and big ideas in mathematics into
rich language learning (using story
telling), The use of technologies
(particularly m-learning to reach and
support carers and teachers of young
children), and Special educational
needs in mathematics. Nicky’s
current research is in mathematics
education and technology enhanced
learning.
31
32

Faculty Brochure - University of Johannesburg

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