MANAGING behaviour in science lessons can be one of the trickiest things to master as a new teacher. Recommendation 3 from the EEF Improving Behaviour in Schools guidance report looks at the use of classroom management strategies to support good classroom behaviour.

This becomes even more critical when we introduce hazardous substances and procedures into the classroom mix. As I discussed in a recent article on risk assessment, students’ behaviour is one of the most significant hazards during chemistry practical work.

Challenging behaviour, pupil disengagement, bullying and aggression are all aspects of student behaviour that can make practical work high risk. As such, teachers need to have clear strategies close at hand, and students must be trained in how to work in labs. We need to support our students in developing their skills and knowing how to respond when things don’t go as expected.

Central to effective behaviour management is a school culture that students buy into, so they are, ultimately, meeting our expectations. Consistency of reward and sanction helps embed this culture. Whole-school systems help to ensure this consistency, and free up teacher time so they can focus on teaching and learning.

1. Support the right kind of motivation

Whole school rewards systems are an efficient way of reinforcing appropriate behaviour. However, be aware that students catch on to the ‘game’ of the rewards system quickly. Well-behaved, hard-working students can sometimes be under-rewarded by these systems. We can tend to have higher expectations of them, and so it’s harder for them to excel and earn the rewards. And when poorly behaved students have a good lesson, they’re often rewarded for showing improvement. This can lead to a perverse inverse relationship between overall effort and behaviour, and rewards. Essentially, over time, we want our stud

2. Set the example

There are extra expectations on students in practical lessons. The behaviours and norms in a lab will be different to in an English classroom. These additional requirements need to be explicitly articulated and modelled for students. For example, if we expect students to wear eye protection at all times during a chemistry practical, we should be doing the same. Have a clearly defined set of rules as a starting point, such as the CLEAPSS Lab rules poster. In my school, we have these displayed in all labs as a useful touchstone for everyone entering the department.

ents’ locus of motivation to move more towards an intrinsic motivation, and away from external rewards and sanctions.

3. Introduce classroom drills

It’s important to train students in the why and how of appropriate behaviour in the lab. I don’t shy away from the idea that they need to be trained. Drilling classes at the start of the year, or when first meeting a new class, is often critical. Regardless of the year group, we practise the moves required to get ready for practical work (eg move stools under, clear benches and floor, ensure uniform and hair is appropriate, put eye protection on). Positive reinforcement for those getting the moves right works well, and getting the students to peer assess speeds up the compliance. A useful rule of thumb is to highlight four positive behaviours for every one negative.

4. Manage movement

The mass movement of students around the lab is a potential source of poor behaviour. Minimise bottle necks, carefully distribute resources around the lab, and orchestrate when and where students move. Microscale chemistry practicals can help when all equipment and materials can be distributed to groups in a separate tray. Use a visualiser to demonstrate techniques and expected outcomes to prime students before they carry out the practical for themselves. Consider how much you want to achieve in a particular practical. Breaking larger practicals up into smaller tasks over multiple lessons can reduce the chance of students’ working memories getting overloaded, which can lead to disengagement.

5. Ensure equal access

Be cautious about using practical work as a reward, or removing practical work as a punishment. Practical work is a fundamental part of learning chemistry, and all students should have equal access to this part of their education. Sometimes, though, you must pause or completely stop practical work if the students’ behaviour would lead to the risk being too high. At this point, use the external support from department heads and colleagues. Sometimes, having a second member of staff in the room can be helpful. On occasions, you may need to remove a student from the classroom so the majority can carry out the practical work. Follow your department and school rules, and ensure you follow up with the student and tutors/parents afterwards.

SUPPLIED

TWO robotics teams from a Cape Town school for children from under-resourced communities have won through to South Africa’s national World Robotics Olympiad (WRO) finals.

A record 89 teams and 227 students competed in the WRO Western Cape regional competition in Cape Town, hosted by non-profit school Christel House South Africa, based in the suburb of Ottery.

Christel House offers no-fee scholarships to students from some of the most under-resourced communities in Cape Town and helps to transform their lives through a character-based and career-focused education model. Technology forms the bedrock of the school’s curriculum, with programmes like coding and robotics growing from strength to strength each year.

Two teams from the school won through to the national finals in Gauteng, where winners of each category stood a chance to represent South Africa at the WRO international event in Dortmund, Germany, in November 2022.

First held in 2004, the World Robot Olympiad takes place across 90 countries and brings together young people from all over the world to develop their creativity and problem-solving skills through challenging educational robotics competitions.

The official WRO theme for 2022 is “My Robot My Friend” and focuses on how the combination of robotics and artificial intelligence can improve robot-human interaction by making it safer and more user-friendly. The competition tasks teams to program their robot to do certain tasks while navigating through pre-determined courses. The team that completes the course the quickest and most accurately scores the highest. Teams participate across various skill levels in several categories. This year, the Robo Sports category included doubles tennis for the first time.

Christel House and the WRO Western Cape committee also hosted a special robotics workshop, which introduced 50 students from under-resourced areas to the world of robotics and coding. The workshop was facilitated with the help of WRO Olympiad winning teams, who guided them in coding and building their own robots for the first time.

Robotics, coding and other ICT programmes form a key part of Christel House SA’s intervention to equip students for the world of work and ensure that they find gainful employment. In line with global technology trends, the school acknowledges that coding will become a basic literacy requirement in the digital age and that understanding the fundamentals of technology will be essential to securing a job in the future.

Funding for robotics equipment, training and competition fees remain a significant barrier for many underprivileged schools across South Africa. With the support of Dell Technologies in South Africa, Christel House SA is committed to widening the impact of its programmes to help more young people bridge the digital divide.

Doug Woolley, general manager of Dell Technologies South Africa, says: “Dell is a leading innovator in fields such as artificial intelligence, and we believe that Christel House’s commitment to equipping South Africa’s youth with the most sought-after skills in the world today plays an essential contributing role in the future of our country.”

Cedric Esterhuizen, WRO Western Cape vice chair and head of the robotics department at Christel House, says: “Through this outreach programme, we managed to expose students to robotics who would otherwise not have had the opportunity. It was tremendous to see all the interaction and the smiles on the students’ faces.

“Robotics offers an opportunity to follow a career path that students haven’t considered before and allows them to make a contribution to an ever-changing technological world.”

Gadget

WeThinkCode has partnered with some of South Africa’s most recognisable businesses, to place over 400 students as ICT interns during their work placement period.

The software developer training academy has collaborated with the likes of Momentum Metropolitan, Outsurance, BBD, BCX, FNB, StructureIT, DealX, MediClinic and Old Mutual to launch the Job Placement Drive – a platform that seeks to connect SMEs and corporations with unemployed youth.

The initiative enables the academy to provide a reliable pipeline of tech talent to businesses facing challenges with ICT skills shortages and struggling to access talent from traditional channels.

The annual placement initiative, which starts this month, kicked off with a Partner Expo Week last week, to call on all businesses looking for tech talent to engage with potential candidates.

Each year, WeThinkCode trains hundreds of talented young South Africans to become highly-skilled software developers in a two-year programme.

The course provides digital skills, including fundamental programming knowledge and practical software development experience in Python; software engineering practices, such as unit testing; and test-driven development and exposure to the Java ecosystem and object-oriented design.

According to the organisation, this year, 425 students will go through the matching process to find suitable job placements within South African corporations and SMEs in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

“We are delighted that so many of our business partners have made repeat recruitments from our student body,” says Nyari Samushonga, CEO of WeThinkCode.

“Their confidence in the quality of our students and the effectiveness of our home-grown curriculum motivates us to go to great lengths to recruit exceptional talent from communities that are not usually associated with software developer pipelines.”

WeThinkCode was launched locally in 2015 and welcomed its first coding students in May 2016.

The academy says it seeks to eliminate the digital skills shortage by developing 100 000 coders in Africa over the next 10 years.

To date, the organisation says over 700 young people have graduated and maintain a 90% permanent placement rate post-graduation.

“The Job Placement Drive is a win-win for both the SMEs, which need additional resources for their digital projects, and the students, who need vital on-the-job experience,” adds Samushonga.

“In the context of South Africa’s current 63.5% youth unemployment rate and the local tech skills shortage, WeThinkCode acts as a bridge between talented young people and the economy.”

For more information on partnering with WeThinkCode and to apply to join the Job Placement Drive, visit the WeThinkCode website.

ITWeb

PULENG MOTSHOANE

SOUTH Africa’s government has ambitious plans for doctoral education. The country aims to increase its output to 5,000 doctorates annually by 2030. In 2013, the figure stood at 2,051; by 2019 it was up to 3,445. It also wants 75% of all academics employed at universities to hold a PhD by 2030. In 2019, that figure was just 46%.

There are several reasons for the drive to prioritise postgraduate education. One is a response to the rise of the so-called “knowledge economy”: universities want to improve their research output and see doctoral graduates as a good group to help achieve this aim.

One of the key requirements for a university to produce PhD graduates is to address the supervision capacity by developing emerging supervisors.

When embarking on a PhD, candidates make several choices. What is their central research question? What methodology will they use? And, crucially, who will be their supervisor? A supervisor is a university staff member whose role is to guide and support postgraduate students studying towards a master’s or a doctoral degree. At the doctoral level students are allowed to choose their supervisors based on their expertise in the field of research.

But merely holding a PhD or having spent some years in academia doesn’t make someone naturally able to supervise students. Good supervisors need a variety of skills, research experience and publications.

The South African Council on Higher Education recently released a report on its key findings from a review of doctoral education. It states: There is clearly a need for additional supervisory capacity across the national system, and programmes for training supervisors are in place in most universities.

My own PhD research found gaps in the system, including where programmes for training are said to be in place. I investigated how 20 of South Africa’s public universities support emerging supervisors. My study findings revealed that emerging supervisors were often simply thrown into the deep end with no development or support. Where professional development was available, it was often presented by facilitators without supervision experience.

I identified five areas that could be strengthened. These included whether training for supervisors was once-off or ongoing; how supervisors viewed the purpose of higher education – merely to ensure a certain number of PhD graduates or as a way to build knowledge – and whether supervisors were given the space to apply lessons learnt in workshops. I believe that if these steps were taken South Africa’s universities would have a much stronger cohort of supervisors.

Five factors

For my PhD I surveyed 186 participants, both emerging (novice) and experienced supervisors, and interviewed 54 academics from multiple disciplines. Some of their institutions offered once-off workshops for PhD supervisors. Others presented short courses or developed mentoring programmes.

From this data, I identified five factors that determined the success and value of institutions’ development of PhD supervisors.
The first was how supervisors understood the purpose of postgraduate education. Many supervisors were under enormous pressure to “get students through the system”. They felt this undermined their role in nurturing the next generation of researchers who could contribute to the stock of knowledge.

Some reported that incentives paid to supervisors had perverse consequences. In some cases, experienced supervisors were not willing to work alongside and mentor a novice because they didn’t want to share incentives.

Key performance indicators related to postgraduate throughput rates also led to an understanding of supervision as managing their pathway through the system rather than advising students in knowledge creation processes.
The second factor centred on efficiency, which refers here to the government’s desire for high graduate returns on its subsidy investments in doctoral enrolments.

Many of those I interviewed felt like workshops were a tick-box exercise designed to ensure compliance with institutional regulations. They responded either by not attending workshops, by attending without meaningfully engaging. This “absent attendance” means that making workshops or courses compulsory won’t address their inherent problems.

The third factor was the credibility of course designers and facilitators. Emerging supervisors told me they appreciated being introduced to the wealth of literature on issues of teaching and learning with postgraduates. But the facilitators were often employed in administrative posts and on contract: they had little research or postgraduate supervision experience. This dented their credibility in the supervisors’ eyes.

Supervisors’ own agency was another factor. My PhD supervisor, Professor Sioux McKenna, and I have argued elsewhere that some supervision development initiatives operate from the problematic premise that supervisors can be trained to “fix” low retention and poor throughput rates.

Good supervision is a necessary condition for a successful postgraduate journey. But it alone won’t repair these problems. If novice supervisors are sent off to workshops to develop generic skills and little is done to ensure that the department, faculty and university have a research-rich environment and student-focused administrative systems, structural issues will persist.

Emerging supervisors also said they emerged from training enthusiastic about the possibilities or alternative approaches to postgraduate education they’d discussed – only to have their ideas dismissed by colleagues or thwarted by institutional processes.
The fifth factor related to whether training was once-off or part of ongoing development. Despite their concerns, most participants who had attended supervisor development initiatives indicated that they benefited at least in some way from such support. However, where the support was offered as a once-off training, often just a half-day workshop, they felt there was an underlying message: good supervision was simply a matter of implementing a few skills.

Overall, the people I interviewed wanted flexible, collaborative, supportive – and ongoing – opportunities. There were calls for more discipline-specific interventions and collaborative spaces where emerging supervisors could engage with experienced supervisors rather than being instructed in a generic best-practice of “how to supervise”.

If these calls are heeded and institutions develop training into something beyond a tick-box exercise, the pool of capable supervisors in South Africa can be dramatically expanded.

(Puleng Motshoane, Academic Developer, University of Johannesburg)

THE CONVERSATION

ZEBLON VILAKAZI

WE live in a world characterised by inequality, poverty, economic volatility, globalisation, climate change and ambiguity. In my own country, South Africa, residents have to navigate socioeconomic and political instability, power and water cuts, homelessness, unethical governance and mediocre or no service delivery.

It is a far cry from what the country could be if we brought its best talent and resources to bear for the benefit of humanity.

Innovation will be key to any positive changes – and research-intensive universities have a central to play in that innovation. As the University of the Witwatersrand (or Wits, as it’s commonly known) turns 100, my colleagues and I have been thinking a great deal about the inventions and breakthroughs that have emerged from the university in the past 100 years – and what is coming next.

Great innovations have emerged from the work done by Wits researchers that have shifted the dial in sectors ranging from health to computing to quantum and nuclear physics. These rich seams of knowledge continue to inform policy and daily decisions and are the foundation of cutting edge research the institution continues to produce.

100 years of changes

On 1 September 1939, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. World War 2 was underway. Barely three months later, the first radar set was tested on Wits University’s campus. Britain and its allies were looking for a way to detect enemy aircraft and ships. A group of scientists – among them Sir Basil Schonland, Director of the Bernard Price Institute of Geophysical Research and another Wits engineer, Professor Guerino Bozzoli – came together to harness the power of radio waves.

Almost a century on, the science of sensors has taken several quantum leaps. Professor Andrew Forbes and his team at Wits are encrypting, transmitting, and decoding data quickly and securely through light beams. He has just secured R54 million for the Wits Quantum Initiative which explores theoretical and experimental quantum science and engineering, secure communications, enhanced quantum-inspired imaging, novel nano and quantum-based sensors and devices.

The university has also come a long way on its computing journey. In 1960 it was the first university in South Africa to own an IBM mainframe computer. Today, in partnership with IBM, we’re the first African university to access a quantum computer.

As the Chair of the National Quantum Computing Working Group in South Africa, this is an area where I see immense potential for Africa. Classical computing has served society incredibly well. It gave us the Internet and cashless commerce. It sent humans to the moon, put robots on Mars and smartphones in our pockets.

But many of the world’s biggest mysteries and potentially greatest opportunities remain beyond the grasp of classical computers. To continue the pace of progress, we need to augment the classical approach with a completely new paradigm, one that follows its own set of rules – quantum computing.

This radically new way of performing computer calculations is exponentially faster than any classical computer. It can run new algorithms to solve previously “unsolvable” problems in optimisation, chemistry and machine learning, and its applications are far-reaching – from physics to healthcare.

Innovative healthcare is sorely needed across the African continent. Here, too, Wits has been able to play a vital role in the research, teaching and learning, clinical, social and advocacy spheres. It was the first university to lead COVID-19 vaccination trials in South Africa.

Our researchers also developed technology to improve the accurate testing for tuberculosis. And the Pelebox, an invention to cut down the time that patients spend waiting for medication in hospitals.

Elsewhere in the institution, researchers have connected the brain to the internet, used brainwaves to control a robotic prosthetic hand and developed an affordable 3D printed bionic hand.

Difficult questions

Research intensive universities in South Africa need to ask the difficult questions about their role in a changing society.

How do we serve as a catalyst for social change? How do we best use our intellectual dynamism and work with the public and private sectors to effect positive change? How do we create new, relevant knowledge and translate it into innovation? How do we best develop critical thinkers, innovators, creators and the high-level skills required to advance our economy, and the future world of work?

How do we quantify our social impact and ensure that it is contextually attuned? How do we influence policy change?

These questions are at the heart of the university’s strategy today. And they’re no doubt being considered across the higher education sector as universities work to harness their collective talent and the resources at their disposal to craft a new future and transform society for the benefit of all humanity.

(Zeblon Vilakazi, Vice-Chancellor and Principal, University of the Witwatersrand)

THE CONVERSATION

GAUTENG Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi annonced on Sunday that parents who applied will be receiving placement offers for Grade 1 and 8 pupils from Monday.

Lesufi addressed the media at Hoërskool Menlopark on Sunday on the placement process for the 2023 Grade 1 and 8 Online Admissions in Gauteng.

Lesufi said there will be no need for a parent to access the system to accept an offer because the child would be placed at the mentioned school.

“Tomorrow we are releasing what we call ‘ happy SMS’s’. A happy SMS means as a parent you are going to get an SMS that says amongst the 764 000 people that have applied for spaces in our schools you were fortunate to be placed so tomorrow we are releasing those SMS’s to all parents,” said Lesufi.

“Placement offers will be released to parents via SMS from 3 October 2022 – 30 November 2022. Placement offers must be accepted within 7 days. When schools reach full capacity, applicants will receive placement offers from schools with available space.”

The placement period runs from 4 October until 30 November.

A total of 764 062 applications were submitted and processed for both Grade 1 and 8.

“There will be no need for a parent/guardian to access the system to accept an offer in that regard, because the child would be placed at the mentioned school.”

Lesufi said the department followed a strict criteria to place pupils.

“Parents and guardians are reminded that the placement offers are based on the following criteria considered in order of priority, home address within the school’s feeder zone, sibling(s), previous school, work address within school’s feeder zone, home address within 30km radius, home address beyond 30km radius. Not at a first come first served basis.”

According to Lesufi, the demand for space in schools is overwhelming, adding that there are over 1,000 additional classes currently being built in the province.

INSIDE EDUCATION