Peer Review

Being a Teacher: Section Two - Being a teacher in South Africa

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Reviewed:: Jan 28, 2017 by Teacher Education

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Being a Teacher: Section Two - Being a teacher in South Africa. This section is not as strongly rooted in South Africa as its title suggests. It addresses the basic question of what it means to be a teacher in a broader social setting.

This module is an attempt to dispel much of this uncertainty, to help you understand and cope with a degree of uncertainty, and to help you to develop some of the special competences needed to meet the challenges of being a teacher. As you study this module, it may be helpful to think of yourself as undertaking a ‘journey’, moving towards a clearer understanding of the world of teaching as you answer questions that increase your practical competence and professional confidence.

In this section, the key questions will therefore focus on the personal and public contexts in which teaching takes place in South Africa. The section begins by stepping back to question our ‘common-sense’ view about the need for teachers, before going on to explore what motivates teachers to take up teaching as a career.

SAIDE, the South African Institute for Distance Education has established this collection of materials by creating the website OER Africa to promote the development and sharing of OER on the African continent.

Type of Material:

Tutorial as part of a collection of learning materials and other resources related to education in South Africa.

Recommended Uses:

Can be implemented as part of a lesson, lecture, assignment. The material would be useful to anyone planning to teach abroad, especially in South Africa or via distance education. The resources might be of interest to current teachers interested in learning about international education or graduate students developing research on international education.

Technical Requirements:

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Identify Major Learning Goals:

What it means to be a teacher in a broad social setting. Dispel the teacher uncertainty and increase practical competence and confidence. Develop the special competencies needed to meet the challenges of being a teacher.

Target Student Population:

Aspiring teachers and those teachers who want to improve want to better understand the social context of being a teacher.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Desire to learn more about teaching and learning

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: While the title is about teaching in South Africa, the first paragraph states that this chapter is not limited to South Africa, but addresses teaching in a much broader context. 'The basic question of what it means to be a teacher in a broader social setting.' Thus, this material can be applied to teacher education world-wide. The content is provided by teachers with real-world experiences.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The PDF download has all the material rather than the web page. This file includes narrative and several activities built into each section making it easy to integrate into a lesson or even a self-study.
Concerns:: This package was written in 2010. While it seems to still be relevant, societal changes and challenges are constant.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The material itself is easy to read and use.
Concerns:: When the user first comes to the website, they may think that the page is all the information provided, but it is simply an overview. The PDF download needs to be more evident.

Other Issues and Comments:: Note that this site is part of the African Teacher Education OER Network and other parts have been submitted to MERLOT as well.
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