Browsing by Subject "Teachers"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Open Access
    Health status of primary school educators in low socio-economic areas in South Africa
    (BioMed Central, 2015-02-25) Senekal, Marjanne; Seme, Zibuyile; de Villiers, Anniza; Steyn, Nelia P
    Background: Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) are major health concerns in South Africa. According to the life cycle approach NCD prevention strategies should target children. Educators are important external factors influencing behaviour of learners. The objective of this study was to assess the prevalence of selective NCD risk factors in educators of primary school learners. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used to assess the body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC), blood glucose (BG), cholesterol (BC), blood pressure (BP), perceived health and weight, and parental NCD history of 517 educators in the Western Cape of South Africa. Results: The sample included 40% males and 60% females; 64% urban and 36% rural, 87% were mixed ancestry, 11% white and 2% black. Mean age for the total group was 52 ± 10.1 years, BMI 30 ± 1.2 kg/m2 (31% overweight, 47% obese), diastolic BP 84 ± 10.0 mmHg, systolic BP 134 ± 18.7 mmHg (46% high BP), BG 4.6 ± 2.3 mmol/L (2% high BG), BC 4.4 ± 0.9 (30.4% high BC) and WC 98 ± 14.1 cm for males (38% high WC) and 95 ± 15.3 for females (67% high WC). BMI was higher (p = 0.001) and systolic (p = 0.001) and diastolic (p = 0.005) BP lower in females. Rural educators were more obese (p = 0.001). BMI (p = 0.001) and systolic BP (p = 0.001) were lower in younger educators. Correct awareness of personal health was 65% for BP, 79.2% for BC and 53.3% for BG. Thirty-eight percent overweight/obese females and 33% males perceived their weight as normal. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrated a number of characteristics of educators in the two study areas that may influence their risk for developing NCDs and their potential as role models for learners. These included high levels of obesity, high blood pressure, high waist circumference, high cholesterol levels, and high levels of blood glucose. Furthermore, many educators had a wrong perception of their actual body size and a lack of awareness about personal health.
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    Open Access
    Motor learning: an analysis of 100 trials of a ski slalom game in children with and without developmental coordination disorder
    (Public Library of Science, 2015) Smits-Engelsman, Bouwien C M; Jelsma, Lemke Dorothee; Ferguson, Gillian D; Geuze, Reint H
    Objective Although Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is often characterized as a skill acquisition deficit disorder, few studies have addressed the process of motor learning. This study examined learning of a novel motor task; the Wii Fit ski slalom game. The main objectives were to determine: 1) whether learning occurs over 100 trial runs of the game, 2) if the learning curve is different between children with and without DCD, 3) if learning is different in an easier or harder version of the task, 4) if learning transfers to other balance tasks. Method 17 children with DCD (6-10 years) and a matched control group of 17 typically developing (TD) children engaged in 20 minutes of gaming, twice a week for five weeks. Each training session comprised of alternating trial runs, with five runs at an easy level and five runs at a difficult level. Wii scores, which combine speed and accuracy per run, were recorded. Standardized balance tasks were used to measure transfer. RESULTS: Significant differences in initial performance were found between groups on the Wii score and balance tasks. Both groups improved their Wii score over the five weeks. Improvement in the easy and in the hard task did not differ between groups. Retention in the time between training sessions was not different between TD and DCD groups either. The DCD group improved significantly on all balance tasks. CONCLUSIONS: The findings in this study give a fairly coherent picture of the learning process over a medium time scale (5 weeks) in children novice to active computer games; they learn, retain and there is evidence of transfer to other balance tasks. The rate of motor learning is similar for those with and without DCD. Our results raise a number of questions about motor learning that need to be addressed in future research.
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    Open Access
    Navigating the digital landscape: teachers' digital repertoires in an under-resourced Cape Flats primary school
    (2025) Dudley, Mark; Mckinney, Carolyn
    This small case study examines the digital repertoires of two teachers in a Cape Flats Primary School as they attempt to take hold of digital resources and integrate them into their daily teaching practices. It draws on the interconnected socio-material theories of spatiality, assemblage and affect to provide a framework within which their entanglement with digital technology in an educational setting can be observed, described and analysed. The research focuses on the simultaneous array of challenges and opportunities which the teachers navigate in the process of acquiring, using and adapting a range of resources across various semiotic modes in the classroom space. This space is conceptualised in the study as a dynamic ecosystem where social, material and affective factors dovetail. It is also here where the digital repertoire emerges in situ, lying at the intersection between the teachers' skills, knowledge and experiences with technology and the material resources, infrastructure and cultural practices that exist within their school domain. The notion of the digital repertoire offers this study a dynamic lens through which to view the complexities, contradictions and tensions that arise as the teachers struggle to align their literacy practices and pedagogical approaches with their developing repertoires. This study challenges neoliberal ideas in which technology is viewed as a panacea for a South African education system uniquely skewed along the lines of social class, race, ethnicity, income, age and gender. It is critical of the kinds of deterministic thinking that currently influence digital intervention policies and strategies in South African education precisely because such determinism sacrifices socio-material context in favour of technical skills. In contrast, drawing on findings from the research, this study advocates for an approach to the integration of technology in classrooms that recognises the dynamic interplay of human agency, material resources and social contexts in shaping teachers' digital repertoires. The findings of this study therefore emphasise the need for personalised, context-aware and participatory professional development that empowers teachers to critically evaluate and meaningfully integrate technology into their teaching practice.
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    Role distance, identity and self : a pilot study among white teachers in state schools
    (1986) Fisher, M R; Burns, R
    In the face of negative criticism from the neo-Marxists' school of sociological analysis, Hargreaves (1981) suggested that the ethnographers should adopt what he termed a 'split-level' model. This approach entailed a close scrutiny of societal controls and structures in which education took place so as to give meaning to the 'situational structures' where teachers and pupils interacted in classrooms. He advocated that ethnographers locate their work within some context. This investigation will follow Hargreaves' advice but the model will be modified somewhat. There will be a focus upon the 'structural societal relations'; this focus will also encompass an investigation of the saturation of these relations by an ideology which permeates the provision of education. The proposed modification of Hargreaves' model happens where the shift from 'societal structures' to 'situational structures' occurs. The writer proposes that an intermediate stage needs to be inserted, at the level of the school, as a mediating agency of the structural relations.