classroom - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

Understanding how the brain works can transform how school students learn maths

SCHOOL mathematics teaching is stuck in the past. An adult revisiting the school that they attended as a child would see only superficial changes from what they experienced themselves. Yes, in some schools they might see a room full of electronic tablets, or the teacher using a touch-sensitive, interactive whiteboard. But if we zoom in on the details – the tasks that students are actually being given to help them make sense of the subject – things have hardly changed at all. COLIN FOSTER, Reader in Mathematics Education, Loughborough University We’ve learnt a huge amount in recent years about cognitive…

Mar

2024

By TAMIKA WORRELL

Generative AI in the classroom risks further threatening Indigenous inclusion in schools

SCIENCE, TECH AND INNOVATION

IT is well documented that Australian teachers face challenges incorporating Indigenous perspectives and content in their classrooms. The approach can sometimes be somewhat tokenistic as if the teacher is “ticking a box”. We need a more culturally responsive teaching workforce. Generative AI is advancing at a fast pace and quickly finding a place within education. Tools such as ChatGPT (or Chatty G as the kids say) continue to dominate conversations in education as these technologies are explored and developed. TAMIKA WORRELL, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Critical Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University, Macquarie University There are many concerns around academic…

May

2023

By ANNA ADIMA

Children’s book revolution: how East African women took on colonialism after independence

LITERATURE

AS independence from British colonial rule swept across East Africa in the early 1960s and freedom was won in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, parents and teachers worried about what their children were reading. Most children’s books on the market were dominated by European writers like Enid Blyton. One of Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiongo’s most stringent criticisms of colonialism was the explosive effect of this “cultural bomb” in the classroom, as missionaries taught African students Western cultures and foreign histories. This, according to Kenyan publisher Henry Chakava, was producing a new breed of black Europeans, who began to despise their…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Online and in the classroom, COVID-19 has put new demands on teachers

EDUCATION

NHLANHLA MPOFU, Associate Professor, Rhodes University AS a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools were on lockdown in South Africa from March 2020. They only partially reopened in June, despite teacher unions’ concerns about the timing and lack of adequate protection for teachers and learners. The unions’ objections about having to work in conditions that posed a risk to health were understandable. But they have been less vocal about the teachers’ need to be equipped with the skills and infrastructure to teach during a pandemic. The unpredictability of the pandemic and the restrictions on social interaction remain in place. No…