Purpose
The national Teacher Development Community of Practice encourages collaboration between schools, NGOs and other service providers to increase impact and reduce duplication of interventions supporting teacher development. A significant number of CoP members are practising teachers, who use this forum to engage with their own development pathways, reflect on practice, learn from each other and share solutions.
This CoP began in early 2012 as a focus group linked to the Maths and Science CoP, with an interest in describing the qualities of the effective teacher. The work generated so much attention that the group evolved into a stand-alone community of practice to explore teacher training, professional development and class-room based issues.
Key Activities
Three CoP meetings are hosted annually, each exploring a different aspect of a chosen theme. There has been a continued focus on aspects of work-integrated learning in initial teacher education, and on induction and mentorship programmes.
The theme for 2017 was collaborating for impact; one activity in support of collaboration involved the mapping of what each organisation does, in which space, and the skills and products each can offer, to create a common database that everyone can access.
The many aspects of mentorship discussed in this and other communities of practice have been collated into the ‘Mentorship in Teacher Development’ resource on the website. Click here to view this resource.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from this community.
Contact: hassiena@bridge.org.za
Purpose
Teachers Upfront seminars are a platform designed to support, develop and acknowledge the contribution made by teachers. The audience includes a high proportion of teachers as well as academics and representatives of government, funding organisations and NGOs. The dialogues create a positive, solution-focused forum where educators and other role players in education are able to reflect on their work together and to learn from recent developments in education research.
Teachers Upfront seminars are presented by a partnership made up of BRIDGE, Wits School of Education and the University of Johannesburg’s education faculty. The first seminar was held in March 2011. A number of discussions have been published as articles by the Mail & Guardian on http://mg.co.za/tag/teachers-upfront. More articles can be found on NEWS & MEDIA on the main menu.
Key Activities
Each year the Teachers Upfront partners host 3 or 4 seminars on a variety of topics under a central theme. The wide spectrum of role players participating in the seminars has built up a large knowledge repository on issues affecting teachers and teaching.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from the Teachers Upfront seminars.
Contact: hassiena@bridge.org.za
Purpose
This CoP was established in September 2015 to promote collaboration between different organisations with shared aims in relation to exploring alternative models of pre-service teacher education. It provides networking and collaborative advocacy opportunities to schools and organisations involved in implementing student-teacher internship and induction programmes.
Key Activities
Attention is centred on school-based internships where student teachers are paired with experienced teachers and placed in schools during their studies towards a BEd or PGCE qualification through distance learning.
A Pre-Service Internship and Induction Task Team has evolved from this CoP, and focuses on developing the distance learning internship approach with the aim of establishing it as an accepted (and funded) method of teacher development.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from this community.
Contact: hassiena@bridge.org.za
Purpose
Initiated in early 2017, this CoP aims to understand the nature of support provided to teachers in the Western Cape and to find ways to build on this work through collaboration and sharing information for greater impact. The CoP is also working on defining the elements of good quality teaching and learning in order to enhance communication between NGOs, funders and government.
Key Activities
Activities include collating lessons learned, identifying pertinent research and its implications for practice, and learning from presentations by subject matter experts on a range of topical issues.
The CoP actively seeks opportunities for collaboration amongst members and with others who can make sound contributions to the teacher development space.
Link to the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub for meeting highlights, presentations, tools and documented working practice from this community.
Contact: hassiena@bridge.org.za
