Collaborating for Professional Development in Sobantu Schools
Drs. Ruth Farrar and Rebecca Corwin will narrate a slide presentation of their role in the Sobantu Project 2006, where 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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Keywords:
Professional Development for Educators, Education Faculty Collaboration, School-based Professional Development, Teaching and Learning
Stream:
Learning Technologies: What They Do and How They Work
Presentation Type:
30 minute Paper Presentation in English
Paper:
A paper has not yet been submitted.
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Dr. Ruth Farrar
Professor, Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education
School of Education
Graduate Programs in Reading, Bridgewater State College
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA
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Professor Ruth D. Farrar began her career as a secondary school English teacher. She received the degree of Master of Education with a Specialty in Reading and the degree of Doctor of Education in Reading, Language, and Cognition from Hofstra University in New York. Ruth has taught reading, literacy, and language arts to students of all levels from kindergarten through graduate school and in a variety of settings from urban to rural, including both public and private. As a reading diagnostician and clinician she worked in New York City with young people faced with at-risk situations and later at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School with adolescents who were enrolled in an alternative program. She was K-8 literacy coordinator for grades K-8 in Manchester, MA and has taught reading and literacy education at Hofstra University, Nassau Community College, Salem State College, and Rivier College. She is currently a faculty member and coordinator of the Graduate Programs in Reading at Bridgewater State College. She is also director of Learning Assistance Services in Study and Research, a college-sponsored program that provides traditional and innovative models of academic support and tutoring for all students in all content areas.
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Dr. Rebecca Corwin
Associate Professor, School of Education,
Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Bridgewater State College
Bridgewater, Massachusetts, USA
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Dr. Rebecca Corwin began her teaching career as a teacher of elementary school mathematics. She was awarded the degree of Doctor of Education at the Harvard University School of Education. For ten years she taught mathematics in the Boston (MA) Public Schools and has taught mathematics education for Harvard University, Lesley University, and Bridgewater State College. She implemented and directed a graduate teacher training program housed within a Boston public elementary school. The recipient of a National Science Foundation grant, she has conducted a variety of workshops and learning experiences in mathematics education and in qualitative and quantitative research methods. Rebecca has developed mathematics curricula and numerous materials for children and for teachers. She is the author of several publications, including Talking Mathematics: Supporting Teacher’s Learning (Heinemann, 1990).
Ref: LS7P0014
