Browsing by Author "Collett, Karen"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    A collaborative auto-ethnographic exploration of socially just practices by new academics in two South African higher education institutions
    (South African Journal of Higher Education, 2018) Collett, Karen; Von der Heyden, B; Pott, R; Stander, J
    Challenges experienced in the higher education context require new academics to engage with issues of social justice in their pedagogical practices. This article focuses on such challenges and how these are met by the authors, who are new academics from two higher education institutions in South Africa. Using a collaborative auto-ethnographic approach to analyse and interpret practices from different disciplines and higher education institutions, critical insights into “response-able pedagogies” are highlighted. “Response-able pedagogies” may be described as those which foreground attentiveness, responsibility, curiosity and capability, are used as a lens to examine the pedagogical practices of the authors, as new academics. This lens is useful in that it illuminates ethical dimensions of how a socially just pedagogy might be enacted in disparate South African higher education contexts. Issues of language, academic literacies, resources, employability, cultural diversity, large classes, and student abilities are reflected upon in relation to new academics’ engagement with socially just pedagogies. The article is intended to be a useful resource specifically, but not exclusively for, new academics entering the field of higher education in South Africa.
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    Curriculum leadership practices of senior management in developing a ‘Thinking School’: A case study of a Western Cape primary school
    (University of the Western Cape, 2023) Van Wyk, Chadley William; Collett, Karen
    This research study explored the curriculum leadership practices by senior management which support the development of a selected primary school as Thinking School. A review of the literature shows that many learners in South African primary schools find reasoning and making inferences difficult. There is a need to identify what curriculum leaders do to enable teachers to teach in ways that develop thinking. A school which is an accredited Thinking School provided the site to explore best practices in enhancing thinking. This research is located within an interpretivist paradigm using a qualitative approach and a case study design. Three staff members in leadership positions and a focus group of four teachers from this primary school were purposively selected to participate in the study. Data collection took place through an online digital questionnaire, online focus group interviews, semi-structured individual interviews and documentary analysis.
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    Incubating a slow pedagogy in professional academic development: An ethics of care perspective
    (South African Journal of Higher Education, 2018) Collett, Karen; van den Berg, Carolien; Verster, B; Bozalek, Vivienne
    The current neoliberal impetus in higher education has effects on all aspects of academic life, including professional academic development. These effects include increasing workloads and more casualisation of academic work, particularly teaching and a greater emphasis on quantification of scholarly outputs. The Slow movement provides an alternative way for valuing academic life (Berg and Seeber 2016; Bozalek 2017; Hartman and Darab 2012; Martell 2014; Ulmer 2017), as does the ethics of care, which has been used as a normative framework to evaluate and re-imagine academic development from a different perspective than that of neoliberalism (Bozalek et al. 2014; Tronto 2010). To date, however, there has been little engagement with how Slow pedagogy (Berg and Seeber 2016) might be put into conversation with an ethics of care to re/configure professional academic development. Our paper addresses this gap by diffractively reading the political ethics of care (Tronto 1993; 2013) through the concept of a Slow pedagogy in order to reimagine creative provocations for academic development. Experiences of a group of participants, who attended inter-institutional academic development courses in Cape Town, are drawn upon to illustrate the superpositions of these diffractive readings. The intra-actions in face-to-face and online meetings and artefacts are analysed to see what was helpful for the development and flourishing of the small group of participants using the new insights gained through the diffractive readings. Findings show how a professional development course, informed by elements of care ethics and Slow pedagogy, enhance the sustainability of professional learning communities.
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    Sympoiesis ‘becoming with and through each other’: Exploring collaborative writing as emergent academics
    (Critical Studies in Teaching & Learning, 2020) Collett, Karen; van den Berg, Carolien; Verster, Belinda
    This paper explores our journey as three female academics as we collaboratively engage in the process of writing for scholarly publication. We read our experience through a Political Ethic of Care, Slow scholarship, and Sympoiesis. Informed by Barad’s (2007) relational ontology of space~time~mattering we explore our process of collaborative writing. We trace our journey as emerging scholars in different environments and through different modalities and material entanglements. The paper contributes to an understanding of how emerging academics find and create opportunities to develop their scholarly practice through collaborative sympoietic relationships. We show how through an engaged and sustained Slow scholarship we were able to claim space and time to enliven our creativity and joy. This empowered us to meaningfully assert ourselves within the context of a neoliberal academic environment and to reimagine how socially just practices of scholarly writing could be realised in the‘belly of the beast’.
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    Teacher perceptions of factors influencing classroom management practices: A comparative case study of two public high schools in the Western Cape
    (University of the Western Cape, 2019) Brown, Mark Jonathan; Collett, Karen
    Teachers in schools located in disadvantaged areas are increasingly required to address poor learner behaviour, which makes teaching and the completion of the curriculum a great challenge to teachers. This raised the need to explore teacher views of the effectiveness of the different classroom management strategies teachers’ use and their value in addressing learner behaviour and achievement. This research therefore focussed on understanding classroom management issue from the perspective of teachers. The broad aim of this study was thus to compare teacher perceptions of the factors that contributed to effective classroom management practices in two public high schools located in a historically disadvantaged community. An eco-systemic theoretical lens is used to illuminate an understanding of the complexity of school systems and factors which influence classroom management (CRM). This relates to a Whole School Development (WSD), an approach in which all elements of organisational life and stakeholders are involved to find a solution for a problem – in this case reducing the complexities of the school system in addition to the factors influencing CRM by involving all stakeholders possible.
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    Teaching thinking in South African schools: Selected school leaders’ perceptions
    (South African Journal of Education, 2021) Green, Lena; Collett, Karen
    In this article we argue that school leaders should ensure that teachers experience a supportive professional learning community committed to collaborative, thoughtful inquiry and be enabled to create similar communities in their classrooms. This study followed on one published in 2017 that explored school leaders’ responses to an introduction to cognitive education. The same participants investigated cognitive education practices (ways of teaching thinking) in their schools, with an emphasis on the factors that facilitated or constrained implementation. Using a qualitative research approach an open-ended research assignment in the form of a report was completed by 32 teachers in school leadership positions. The data was analysed using the guidelines of grounded theory to identify key themes. The findings suggest a possible starting point for leadership initiatives, although cognitive education practices in the participating schools were constrained by a number of structural, contextual and personal factors. Discussion highlights the importance of the development of professional learning communities that focus on cognitive education and identifies a possible leadership direction, namely, building on the progress already made in training teachers to apply Bloom’s taxonomy to assessment tasks. Although our data is from schools in one area of South Africa, our conclusions are likely to have implications for school leadership generally, with particular reference to the development of classroom and professional thinking and learning communities.
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    “Walking the talk”: The influence of an introduction to cognitive education on school leaders
    (University of Pretoria, 2017) Collett, Karen; Green, Lena
    The current emphasis on curriculum leadership implies the need to update school leaders’ pedagogical knowledge. This paper will interest local and international readers because it highlights both essential content and the importance of the pedagogy employed to convey it. The study explored the initial effects of an introduction to Cognitive Education on the understandings of curriculum of school leaders engaged in post-graduate study. Using a qualitative research approach informed by a social constructivist paradigm, it accessed 29 participants’ perceptions of the course content and methodology. Data included participant observer field-notes, questionnaires, and focus group interviews. Data was thematically analysed and key themes identified using ‘content’ and ‘process’ of the short course as initial categories. Findings indicated that new knowledge regarding intellectual (cognitive) development was valued, as were active modelling of cognitive education strategies, engagement with one another as a social community of enquiry, and opportunities for reflection and practice. The process categories reflected several of the characteristics highlighted as important in the professional development and cognitive education literature. Discussion focuses on the importance of the active ‘teaching of thinking’ within the curriculum and on the urgent need to pay attention to how the curriculum is delivered at all levels of education, including the new Advanced Diploma for School Leadership and related leadership development courses.