Browsing by Author "Moodley, Sarasvathy."

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Exploring the role of leadership and management in school-based teacher-professional development.
(2014) Moodley, Sarasvathy.; Chikoko, Vitallis.
This study explored the role of leadership and management in school-based teacher professional development (SBTPD) in one primary school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The rationale for doing this research was that generic teacher development initiatives in South Africa do not seem to have yielded the intended results. Greater emphasis on SBTPD seems to be the way forward. However, while all South African public schools are expected to run SBTPD, most of them do not seem to succeed in this regard. This study proposed that the quality of leadership and management in a school has a strong influence on the success or failure of SBTPD. However, there is currently lack of knowledge as to what leadership and management practices are associated with successful SBTPD. The literature reviewed revealed a gap in the leadership and management practices that enable SBTPD. In light of these gaps in literature, a detailed case study of one school with a focus on the role of leadership and management in SBTPD was conducted. The theory of the school as a learning organisation was employed as the guiding theoretical lens through which this study was undertaken. As such, this study explored how a school expands its capacity to create its future. The theoretical framework illuminated that creating a learning organisation requires a deep rethinking of the leader’s role in order for schools develop the capacity to carry out their mission. In the context of this background and within a qualitative interpretive paradigm, the study drew on the experiences of teachers, the School Management Team and the Staff Development Team in one school. For the purpose of data generation, semi-structured interviews, were conducted which allowed participants to discuss their experiences and interpretations of the role of leadership and management in SBTPD and to express how they interpreted situations from their own point of view. Data generated from the documents reviewed and observations conducted were scrutinised alongside the data generated from the interviews. The study shows that teachers in being prepared for development opportunities were enthusiastic about either receiving or leading SBTPD. The provisions of such school-based teacher professional development opportunities are largely dependent on the creativity and efficiency of the leadership at the school. Such creativity and efficiency of leadership emerged as SBTPD hallmarks that are associated with Malachi Primary School, the research site. Fostering collegial relationships and communication, individual learning, enabling teamwork and collaboration, celebrating and utilising teachers' excellence, 'aha' moments in leadership, a focus on learning, non-positional leadership and an emerging professional learning community through the provision of varied forms of teacher professional development emerged as the hallmarks of SBTPD. The hallmarks revealed that leadership in practising the five learning disciplines: Systems Thinking; Personal Mastery; Mental Models; Building Shared Vision and Team Learning in concert (Senge, 2006) were able to tap into the commitment, proficiencies, initiative and willingness of teachers to learn and develop holistically with the focus on ongoing improvement in learner achievement.
Identifying and meeting the development needs of novice teachers : experiences at one school in Durban.
(2009) Moodley, Sarasvathy.; Chikoko, Vitallis.
This study explored the experiences in identifying and meeting the developmental needs of novice teachers at one primary school in Durban. The researcher’s assumption was that mentoring and teacher development are a norm at schools. It is argued that in order to keep in touch with current educational trends and to maintain a sense of renewal and inspiration teacher development is an important issue within the changing context of education in South Africa. This is evident in the new policy developments such as the National Policy Framework for Teacher Education in South Africa and Occupation Specific Dispensation (OSD). The process of mentoring may be regarded as a form of teacher development, hence mentoring and teacher development cannot be regarded as two separate processes, they occur in relation to each other. Furthermore, novice teachers enter the profession with certain expectations and often experience a gap between the reality of teaching practice and their ideals. In the context of this background and within a qualitative interpretive paradigm this study drew on the experiences of novice teachers and educational managers in one school. For the purpose of data collection, semistructured interviews were used which allowed participants to discuss their experiences and interpretations of mentoring and teacher developmental needs and to express how they regarded situations from their own point of view. Data collected from the document analysis was merged with the data collected from the interviews. The findings indicated that the developmental needs of novice teachers were multifaceted such as: mentoring and induction must take place initially; a yearning to be socially accepted by the serving staff; a need to be heard regarding their experiences and developmental needs; to be informed on how to construct learning area work schedules, lesson plans and assessment tasks to suit the requirements at this school, especially in the initial days of there employment and the management of diversity and strategies to implement inclusive education. The study concluded that although the management and leadership of the school played a meaningful and supportive role in the professional and personal competence of the novice teachers, led by the principal who was encouraging and supportive, there was still room for improvement in the practices of leadership and management in attempting to identify and meet the developmental needs of novice teachers.