Dialogic talk, in which different ideas are considered, promotes conceptual understanding in science, and is in line with South Africa's school curriculum. The problem is that dialogic talk is difficult to facilitate and may run counter to cultural norms. As a result, classroom talk is often not dialogic. This paper reports on the nature of…

The traditional transmission-based school curriculum in South Africa has been replaced by an outcomes-based school curriculum since 1998. In this article we report on a comparative study on the mathematical knowledge and skills of two cohorts of first-year students: the last cohort to be exposed to a transmission curriculum in Grades 10-12 and the…

The current study seeks to examine how teachers plan teaching sequences to teach chemical bonding in the senior secondary phase of schooling. The study employs a learning demand tool as interpretive framework. A mixed method was used to guide the collection of data. Data were collected through a survey instrument with 227 practising physical…

In South Africa teachers are faced with the introduction of yet another revised curriculum. Higher education institutes are developing programmes to help teachers through the transition. This article describes such an intervention. The research addresses the question: how could mathematical reasoning cartoons be used as a tool to support teacher…

With evolutionary biology relatively recently introduced into the South African school curriculum, the need arose to explore practising teachers' knowledge of the subject. A number of anticipated as well as unanticipated cognitive and affective barriers to the understanding of evolutionary biology were identified from a questionnaire with…

Drawing on an academic literacies approach, this article explores the representations of technical communication by non-content expert tutors teaching the Technical Communication for Engineering course at a South African university. The course is offered to all first year engineering students as a developmental academic literacy course. It is…

The potential of science to transform lives has been highlighted by a number of scholars. This means that critical socio-scientific issues (SSIs) must be integrated into science curricula. Development of context-specific scientific knowledge and twenty-first-century learning skills in science education could be used to address SSIs such as…

Beliefs help shape how teachers perceive effective mathematics teaching. Providers of professional development, be they local or from other countries, need to be cognisant of such perceptions. This paper seeks to answer the question, "What do South African teachers perceive as effective and ineffective teaching for developing conceptual…

It is a known fact that South African learners underachieve in mathematics. One possible factor that might have an influence on their mathematics achievement is the conceptual knowledge of mathematics teachers. In order to facilitate conceptual understanding, mathematics teachers themselves must possess profound mathematical knowledge. One key…

We describe and use an analytical framework to document mathematics discourse in instruction (MDI), and interpret differences in mathematics teaching. MDI is characterised by four interacting components in the teaching of a mathematics lesson: exemplification (occurring through a sequence of examples and related tasks), explanatory talk (talk that…

The development of problem solving skills is a shared goal in science, engineering, mathematics and technology education. In the applied sciences, problems are often open-ended and complex, requiring a multidisciplinary approach as well as new designs. In such cases, problem solving requires not only analytical capabilities, but also creativity…

The importance of teaching science process skills in science education is well documented in the literature. Yet the issue of process skills had also been associated with debates on validity of a process approach to science education. This research was conducted to explore views of science teacher educators in initial teacher education programmes…

Recently, the South African Institute of Physics undertook a major review of university physics education. The report highlighted the necessity for further transformation of the teaching of physics, particularly in relation to the teaching of under-prepared students. In this article we examine how physics lecturers in South Africa reported how…

Recognition of the critical role of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) in science in the new South African national curriculum for schools affirms the importance of IKS, particularly in the natural, physical and life sciences, as they are included in its policy. This paper explores the question of how teachers implement IKS in their science…

Academic development (AD) programmes for students not complying with the entrance requirements of mainstream programmes in science have been running at a number of universities in South Africa. In this study we contribute to the debate on criteria for the success of AD programmes, specifically in the context of research-intensive universities in…