Abstract
M.Ed. (Psychology of Education)
The political upheavals of decades before the advent of democracy left far reaching consequences to the South African education system. The culture of teaching and learning suffered a severe blow since schools were the battlegrounds of the oppressor and the oppressed. Whilst learners developed an academic attitude, teachers lost sight of their professional ethos. The oppressor’s ultimate aim was largely to create a black labour force mentality that is denied opportunities to creativity and critical thinking approach.
A different approach to the training of student teachers was necessary if the integrity of the teaching profession was to be retained. This includes the inculcation of a perspective in which aspirant young student teachers embrace the teaching profession with more positive attitude to their practice. It is significant that diverse institutions such as the University of Johannesburg, with its education faculty, began to conceptualise a framework based on the educational excursion for first year B.Ed Students. The Golden Gate Educational excursion became an outdoor learning experience for realisation of the faculty framework.
The framework expresses the commitment to the education and training of caring, accountable, critically reflective educational practitioners who would be able to nurture and support learning in a diverse educational context. The educational excursion curriculum was therefore, tailored to serve both conceptual framework and the professional development.
This research report attempted to articulate the views of first year B.Ed students on the professional development after the Golden Gate educational excursion. A generic qualitative study situated within an interpretive research paradigm was applied in the study. Observations, interviews and feedback evaluation forms were vital in the collection of data.
B.Ed first year students were the participants in the research process. The premise for the study of their professional development is deduced from Bronfenbrenner’s ecosystemic model. The central view is that development cannot be fully understood unless we view it in relation to various systems in which people are involved. It is therefore, viewed within the social context. Within the social context, students accumulate experience that determines how they attach and construct meaning to reality around their environments. The accumulated experiences as well as their personal reflection on the professional practice provide a learning experience that result in new paradigm about the teaching profession.
Feedback evaluation forms completed by first year B.Ed. students served as a reflective exercise on detailed aspects of the excursion. Their views were well articulated and triangulated with interviews and observation data in form of pictures attached in the addendum. The evidence clearly showed a positive change of first year B.Ed. students’ views about teaching profession after Golden Gate excursion.