The aim of this paper is to introduce to the education community to a newly developed 'Learner Centred Learning-By-Designing Extended Cyberhunts' (LCLBDEC) strategy for teaching and learning in schools. The main focus of the strategy is to enable learners to become designers of an educational tool which assists them to learn during the design process, and also can be used by other learners or students to get a better understanding of a topic. It is suggested that the strategy assists learners to clarify misconceptions that they might have and that it allows them to address aspects in the curriculum when there is not enough time to do so in class. During the initial stages of the strategy, learners are exposed to teacher designed Cyberhunts, a strategy that can be used to introduce learning by design to novices. As the learners become more computer literate, they become the designers instead of the teacher. Learners search for information online on a topic or theme and then are not only required to create questions on as many different cognitive levels as possible, but also to compose a complementing memorandum. The strategy is not meant to be in competition with WebQuests and other similar approaches, but should be seen as an additional information communication and technology (ICT) strategy to complement those that already exist.

This article seeks to address what it means to be an ‘engaged’ university and, in so doing, to contribute to current discourses – in a fast growing field – about how to collaborate with communities for meaningful social transformation. As a group of researchers from the faculty of education in a South African university, we share our thinking and the theoretical notions that underpinned our planning and executing of a 3-year engagement with a rural secondary school. In asking ‘How might dialogic engagement of the university community and the community the university serves, enable agency towards active citizenship in the context of education?’, a collaborative engagement project between and within a school-community and the university was initiated. In this conceptual article, we unpack and discuss a critical university and school-community engagement with, and interpretation of, three key concepts that underpinned it: dialogic engagement, community and active citizenship. We conclude with a discussion on how we put these three key elements into practice. It is therefore argued that to be truly engaged requires constant dialogue, reflection, and the intentionality and commitment of all parties towards collaboration that is aimed at promoting mutual learning through socially just processes. Such university and school-community engagement is key in addressing complex social issues requiring collaborative intervention to enable social transformation.

While a humanising pedagogy can be a mechanism to facilitate (re)humanisation in the South African education context, a diversity of perspectives related to the concept prevails. This is to be expected given the variety of lived experiences and histories in South Africa. This project attempted to develop and extend shared understandings of the concept of a humanising pedagogy through a process of enacted reflexivity and transformative learning. A participatory mode of inquiry using metaphor drawings was used as a means of deconstructing the complex phenomenon of a humanising pedagogy-this included self-study by four teacher educators (authors of this paper) to facilitate shared understandings of its praxis. Such processes have the potential to catalyse the kind of transformative learning that continues to inform praxis.

The study aims to explore and analyse the perceived experiences of Slovenian pre-service teachers with their mentors during their teaching practicum, by using the 'Mentoring for effective teaching practice instrument (METPI)'. Conclusions were based on 105 responses using paper and pencil, collected from Slovenian preservice teachers in their 4 th year of study. The initial set of 62 items was shortened to 36 items for inclusion in the models. From two concurrent SEM models, it was concluded that students found their experiences related to Hudson's five-factor model, consisting of personal attributes of their mentor, modelling, pedagogical knowledge, system requirements and feedback, to be satisfactory, while their experience pertaining to Information and Communication Technology as a new, additional factor with reference to their mentor, was unsatisfactory. Several recommendations are made related to the dimensions, especially pertaining to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools.

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