Re-designing a final year course within a Teacher Education Programme using the Tuning Africa Methodology at a higher education institution in South Africa
Researcher: Melanie Luckay, Teaching Practice Co-ordinator, University of the Western Cape, South Africa, Visiting Researcher at Deusto International Tuning Academy (Short-Term Visiting Scholarship Scheme). Subject area specialist in Science Education and Teacher Education.
The new curriculum for teacher education in South Africa, the Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (MRTEQ) set standards to encourage the active involvement of the learner during teaching and learning process. Standards, in the form of competences have been set, which have to be implemented and monitored by the university. All competences set out by MRTEQ should be constructively aligned with the university’s institutional goals, graduate attributes and programme outcomes. As a result, a final year course in the Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) programme was re-designed to align the university goals with the minimum competence requirements of MRTEQ.
In this paper, guided by Biggs’ (1996) constructive alignment to re-design the course, we propose the development of eight dimensions as key concepts to describe a final year student in the course, namely, (1) subject and pedagogical content knowledge, (2) Social, contextual and inclusiveness, (3) Reflective practitioner, (4) Critically literate, (5) Ethical, socially aware and active, (6) Skilled communicators, (7) Work autonomously and collaboratively, and (8) Professional.
