The newspaper headlines in July 2020, reflected the context of COVID-19 and the challenges in the education sector in South Africa. Pre-service teachers completing a Biological Sciences for Educations Research and Service-Learning module conducted their Service-Learning in their home contexts, which under normal times, they would do so in the…

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of a multifaceted public health approach. Promoting health literacy and safe behaviour to reduce disease spread can be an effective social vaccine. However, the role of science teachers as part of a social vaccine is unclear. Similarly, their responses to health crises and the factors affecting such…

This paper reports on how a team of final-year pre-service teachers experienced a lesson study approach, as a program-specific form of student support. Guided by Bandura's social learning theory, this purposive qualitative case study reveals how the pre-service teachers' engagement in the lesson study approach triggered feelings of commitment,…

Teacher training requires teachers to learn not only the academic content they must teach but to learn how to teach. In the modern world where changes are constant and the teaching demands are many, pre-service teachers must learn skills but they must also learn certain attitudes and beliefs that will allow them to be successful and effective in…

This article argues that the Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 left learners and teachers alike awash in feelings of helplessness, loss, and anguish. While online learning literacy and pedagogy have improved over the course of 2020 and 2021, and interesting and important innovations have…

Developing science identity in pre-service science teachers is important as it influences their perceptions about science teaching and learning. Pre-service teachers' science identity can be developed in their specific modules where they obtain content knowledge. Grounded in the notion of pre-service teachers' learning agendas, and identity…

This article draws on Felix Guattari's proposition of subject and subjected groups to explore the interplay between individual and group subjectivity within the higher education context in South Africa. The exploration is specifically orientated towards considering the pedagogical possibilities of the concept of fabulation. Schizoanalysis is…

In this article we report on pre-service teachers' mathematical engagement regarding the total surface areas of geometric solids. Despite several attempts at improvement, the poor performance of South African learners in mathematics persists. This is attributed to instructional approaches. In the study reported on here we explored how pre-service…

This article reports on a study that explored the management of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning. In particular it focuses on the use of ICT in the pre-service teacher's classroom in the South African context. The study was interventionist in that pre-service teachers were trained how to use ICT in teaching…

Background: There is a concern in South Africa that pre-service teachers do not have the required knowledge to teach mathematics in primary school and to develop learners' number sense. In this study, pre-service teachers taught the mental strategy of bridging through ten through a structured teaching sequence from the Mental Starters Assessment…

During work integrated learning (WIL), pre-service mentoring helps prepare final-year education students for the workplace. The pre-service teacher is placed alongside a mentor teacher, and the higher education institution (HEI) stipulates the timeline and the requirements. This study follows a wide-ranging research project, identified by the…

Initial teacher education should mould well-rounded teachers proficient in scientific investigations, and advocate sustainability amid global ecosystems' degradation. The research sought to explore pre-service science teachers' views concerning scientific investigations and sustainable development goals, and synergy between skills and different…

Research suggests that there is not enough integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) into subject teaching by graduate teachers across a variety of school settings. This points in part to the inadequacy of preservice teacher preparation. Hence, this research explores the question of how preservice teachers develop the…

Background: Scholars have identified the benefits of using African languages and bilingual approaches in South African education; at the same time, the dominance of language ideologies and systemic constraints work against the full implementation of bilingual education. Objectives: This article tracks the early responses of the pre-service and…

This paper stems from a broader study that foregrounded an existing mentoring programme against the backdrop of low teacher retention in the South African schooling system. It works from the premise that beginner teachers are exiting the teaching profession within the first three to five years of teaching. This research suggests that one way of…