Teacher development in “Ecologies of Practice” (2007 – 2011)
A developed Research Niche Area (RNA) with grants for various projects from the National Research Foundation

In eight projects we aim to:

• Identify teacher learning in practice that qualify as emergent (or in some cases ‘dormant’) “ecologies of practice”
  
• Study, in ethnographic and narrative mode (using survey tools and statistical analyses where required), selected schools in which ecologies have been noted
  
• Conduct multi-faceted analyses of the nature of these practices, focusing on the social semiotics that constitute them as well as the nature of the pedagogy and subject (learning area) knowledge
  
• Explore the intersection of the practice with the discourse of educational and school policy
  
• Identify “keystone species” in the ecologies of practice and
  
• Incorporate these leaders of learning and development in training as practitioner researchers to assess the development of ecologies of practice
  
• Nurture developing ecologies in an action research cycle
  
• Develop custom planned teacher development programmes that are contextually sensitive. Ultimately we aim to replicate the research and development programmes in a way that is less like waterfalls ‘cascading’ (a thinking and practice model that was not successful in teacher development and school reform), and more like activity systems reaching other activity systems in a rhyzomic way. Contact with a working ecology (conceptually also an activity system for purposes of reasoning), we would argue, is the way for transfer/extension to take place. It is for this reason that we focus on a geographic area.
  
• Conduct in-house research capacity building of researchers, including aspiring research managers in the Faculty.
  
• Evaluate learner performance in selected schools/classrooms to investigate links between student learning in classrooms where teachers are part of an ecology.

These overarching objectives will manifest in the different educational disciplines with more than 50 individual studies in the various projects in:

• Language, literacy and Communication
  
• Science and Mathematics Education
  
• Technology Education
  
• Community Service Learning and Values Education
  
• Educational ICT
  
• Educational Leadership and management
  
• Educational Psychology and life orientation
  
• Pre-service teacher learning

Project 1: From ecologies of learning to ecologies of practice

A study of teachers who are online – looking for ways in which they create electronic communities of practice and how these reflect characteristics of ecologies in the online project as well as across the curriculum in schools.

Project 2: Learning to be a teacher – towards learner outcomes in schools

The study will consist of analyses of teacher activities in identified ecologies in order to capture teacher learning in-situ - thus as situated cognition. This project will also inquire into learner experience and achievement in three cohorts across time in selected classrooms and schools.

Project 3: The discourse and performative practice of teachers in language literacy and communication

This will be a comparative study of teachers’ discourse in varying ecologies, but with the focus on the two mentioned learning areas. The aim will be to identify distinctive discourse markers that signify a sense of gemeinschaft and shared learning. The study will also adopt research tools that capture indigenous knowledge that has been crafted into teaching practice and collaboration. In a smaller part of this project an inquiry into will be conducted in one school.

Project 4: The keystone species in the science an mathematics classrooms of two schools

The researchers will capture teachers’ (changing) perspectives and practice in collaborative work with expert tutors who assist them with the genesis and initial care-giving in an ecology of practice. Documenting the emergence of new keystone species.

Project 5: Teachers building practice as community counselors.

Teachers in the Life Orientation learning area link with community sites where Educational Psychologists are trained in practice.

Project 6: Teachers and tools: crafting technology education in practice

A study of a selection of teachers who use the TE workbooks as artefacts in the evolving culture of TE in SA