Background: In South Africa socio-economic problems such as poor health conditions, juvenile delinquency, high rates of school dropout and teenage pregnancy are increasing. Therefore, it is vital to prepare foundation phase (FP) pre-service teachers to fortify children with basic life skills (LS) that will help them to cope with real-world…

This article reports on students' experiences of learning to work together in a childhood teacher education programme at a university in South Africa. We were interested in how students from diverse backgrounds, with little shared understanding of a model or framework for collaborative working, would find their footing and learn how to…

Teacher education for South African foundation phase education requires student teachers to be prepared for teaching science concepts in an integrated programme in a learning area known as life skills. This study examined the challenges faced by university teachers of foundation phase student teachers in the development of science modules/…

This study is about student teachers' conceptual understanding of shapes. While the National Curriculum Statement stipulates that by the time learners exit high school they should have grounded knowledge of basic geometry and know shapes such as polygons and polyhedrons and their properties, this study finds that the majority of student teachers…