North-West University (NWU) (Vaal Triangle Faculty), Vanderbijlpark, South Africa, working in the Optentia Research Focus Area. She has twelve years’ experience in Higher Education, and lectured Strategic Teaching and Learning at undergraduate and postgraduate levels to BEd-students, and Research Methodology at postgraduate level to BEd Honours students, and presently acts as a study leader and promoter for Masters’ and PhD students. She has participated in several national and international conferences and has published widely in national and international accredited journals. Her research interests involve the improvement of teaching, learning and assessment practices among pre-and in-service teachers through the explicit teaching of critical thinking across the school curriculum. She has been a board member of the International Association of Cognitive Education and Psychology in South Africa (IACESA) since 1995, and a founder member of Thinking Schools South Africa (2011). She was elected as the IACESA President for the 2015-2017 terms and was Vice-President: Africa, for the International Association for Cognitive Education and Psychology (2013-2017). She was the project leader of an NRF-funded project entitled: Improving the critical thinking abilities of prospective teachers (2010-2013). Presently, she is working in collaboration with 4 PhD and 2 MEd-students on research that centres on enhancing thinking skills among learners at all levels through curriculum-based teaching and learning. She also heads the Schools as Thinking Communities Project at her university, which aims to equip pre-service teachers at her university and in-service teachers at schools in the Sedibeng East and West Districts of the Department of Basic Education, with a repertoire of strategies that will enable them to advance the teaching of thinking. She headed the research in the sub-programme Holistic learner development in diverse contexts together with Prof Mirna Nel in the Optentia Research Focus Area at the NWU (2014-2016). She has written chapters in books, Schools as Thinking Communities (2014) and Life Orientation for South African Teachers (2013) that explored the implementation of cooperative learning for the development of thinking skills, and a chapter in Getting Practical: A guide to teaching and learning (2013) on purpose-driven planning, and how we decide what and how to teach. Her latest publications include three chapters on quantitative research methodology in Navorsing: ‘n Gids vir die beginner navorser. (2016), and a chapter entitled The Development of the Critical Thinker in (Help I am a Student Teacher! (2016). She currently works together with Prof. Mirna Nel who heads the sub-programme Holistic Learner Development in Diverse Contexts in the Optentia Research Focus Area (NWU) on a research project entitled: Developing Advanced Performers for the 21st century. In 2017, she was the editor of a publication entitled, Developing Critical Thinking: A Multi-Dimensional Approach in the Context of South Africa.
Prof Grosser will serve on the IACE Advisory Board as the immediate past president of IACESA. In this regard, she will ensure that IACE upholds the vision and mission of IACESA and continuous to advance cognitive education in ways that are practically relevant and theoretically sound.
