Browsing by Author "Geofroy, Stephen"

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    Adventures in building a learning community: Experiences in reformulating a course in educational foundations [PowerPoint presentation]
    (2013-07-02) Geofroy, Stephen; Joseph-Alleyne, Gail; Mohammed, Jeniffer; Pierre, Phaedra
    The aim of the course, "Education and the Development of Social Competencies," is to explore what is involved in the process of developing social competencies relevant to the demands of effective citizenship in Trinidad and Tobago (or in the Caribbean today). This paper explores the rationale in revisiting the course and for undertaking departures from that which existed previously. One central concern was that students should engage in intensive practical experiences in groups, the requirements of building a learning community. Building learning communities in schools, in disciplinary groupings, and generally among educators appears to us as essential to being effective or socially competent in our space, whether envisaged on the national, regional, or international level. The key research question is: How comfortable are students and lecturers with the efforts at building community traced over the years 2010 to 2012, in reference to the course "Education and the Development of Social Competencies"? Data comprised lecturers' and students' comments, test and assignment scores, and group evaluations, where students assessed each other. This article discusses the reflections and experiences of three cohorts of students and lecturers as the journey into building a learning community unfolded
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    Social sciences teachers’ perceptions of transformatory learnings and the transfer of transformatory learnings from an initial in-service professional development programme at The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago, 2013-2014
    (School of Education, The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, 2016) Barras, Dyann; Bitu, Benignus; Geofroy, Stephen; Lochan, Samuel; McLeod, Lennox; Ali, Shahiba
    This paper investigates how social sciences teachers, upon completion, perceive their capability to transfer transformatory learnings gained on an initial in-service Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme (2013-2014) at the School of Education, The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Using a phenomenological approach, experiences of 14 teachers from various disciplines within the social sciences were investigated through semi-structured interviews in two concurrent focus group sessions. The research questions investigated what learnings on the programme they perceived as transformatory and what were their perceptions on transferring transformatory learnings in their schools. Findings revealed that the main transformatory learnings on the programme occurred through an expansion of pedagogical content knowledge, becoming a reflective practitioner, sharing a community of practice, and sharpening their professional identity. In the transfer of transformatory learnings, participants declared an enhanced pedagogical practice, a piquing of interest, a feeling of empowerment, and other factors that facilitated the learnings. They mentioned certain barriers to implementation such as the emphasis their schools placed on teaching to the test and the challenge of access to educational technology.
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    When Bad is Cool: Violence and crime as rites of passage to manhood.
    (CARIBBEAN REVIEW OF GENDER STUDIES, 2010-01) Plummer, David; Geofroy, Stephen
    Modern society has brought greater opportunities for peer groups to play relatively greater and increasingly unsupervised roles in the lives of young men as they grow up. At the same time social and economic circumstances have created pressures for adults, who previously played a central role in guiding and mentoring young people, to become less important in their lives. The increased influence of peer groups has a strong impact upon the codes of masculinity that many boys aspire to and plays a central role in policing which masculinities are considered acceptable. A potent combination of obligations for boys to act like real men and of pressures to eschew roles that have become discredited as soft, gay or feminine seems to be driving young men towards dangerous, risk-taking hyper-masculinities. The net outcome of these processes is for violence and crime to be increasingly seen as premiere ways of proving one’s manhood in front of those who matter most to boys: their peers.