Abstract
Teaching is complex and requires teachers to make informed decisions about the lessons they design and teach. Research suggests that the quality of novice teachers is linked to their initial preparation (Green et al., 2018). This study focused on one aspect of initial teacher education - namely, lesson design. This study therefore focused on equipping pre-service teachers to deal with the complexity in the classroom by preparing them to design powerful and purposeful lessons. In 2020, a colleague and I piloted a course in which we taught final year student teachers a new way of designing lessons, drawing on the body of scholarship dubbed the science of learning and the literature on competencies required for a fast-changing world. The science of learning, an amalgamation of research in education, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science, provides evidence that helps us understand how people learn and how to support learning. A core premise of the course and this study was that such a course would serve the student teachers well in dealing with the complexities of teaching. The aim of the study was to explore what the student teachers had learnt from the implementation of the course. The research thus pursued the question: What do student teachers learn from the implementation of a teacher education course, which focuses on a lesson design approach that foregrounds principles derived from the literature on the science of learning and competencies for a fast-changing world? The course was designed, and its implementation planned before the COVID-19 pandemic. When the COVID-19 lockdown occurred in South Africa (in March 2020), all teaching had to be moved abruptly online. This situation prevailed for the entire year of implementing the course (excluding two months before the national lockdown). In light of this, the study sought to address an ancillary research question: What lessons can be learnt from the emergency remote teaching experience due to COVID-19 that can enrich the teaching of the course going forward?
Ph.D. (Education)