Produced from experiences at the outset of the intense times when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began in March 2020, this collaborative paper offers the collective reflections and analysis of a group of teaching and learning and Higher Education (HE) scholars from a diverse 15 of the 26 South African public universities. In the form of a theorised narrative insistent on foregrounding personal voices, it presents a snapshot of the pandemic addressing the following question: what does the ‘pivot online’ to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL), forced into urgent existence by the Covid-19 pandemic, mean for equity considerations in teaching and learning in HE? Drawing on the work of Therborn (2009: 20–32; 2012: 579–589; 2013; 2020) the reflections consider the forms of inequality - vital, resource and existential - exposed in higher education. Drawing on the work of Tronto (1993; 2015; White and Tronto 2004) the paper shows the networks of care which were formed as a counter to the systemic failures of the sector at the onset of the pandemic.
In the last 20 years, the South African higher education has changed significantly, influenced by global trends national development goals and pressure from local educational imperatives, in the context of a digitally networked world. Shifts in technology enhanced pedagogical practices and in discourses around information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had varying degrees of influence in higher education. This paper takes a rearview of a 20‐year journey of technology enhanced learning in South African higher education. An analysis of literature view is presented chronologically in four phases: phase 1 (1996–2000), phase 2 (2001–05), phase 3 (2006–10) and phase 4 (2011–16). In phase 1 technology was used predominantly for drill and practice, computer‐aided instruction, with growing consciousness of the digital divide. In phase 2 institutions primarily focused on building ICT infrastructure, democratizing information, policy development and research; they sought to compare the effectiveness of teaching with or without technology. During phase 3 institutions began to include ICTs in their strategic directions, digital divide debates focused on epistemological access, and they also began to conduct research with a pedagogical agenda. In phase 4 mobile learning and social media came to the fore. The research agenda shifted from whether students would use technology to how to exploit what students already use to transform teaching and learning practices. The paper concludes that South Africa's higher education institutions have moved from being solely responsible for both their own relatively poor ICT infrastructure and education provision to cloud‐based ICT infrastructure with “unlimited” educational resources that are freely, openly and easily available within and beyond the institution. Although mobile and social media are more evident now than ever before, teaching and learning practice in South African higher education remains largely unchanged.
It is now widely accepted that the transmission of disciplinary knowledge is insufficient to prepare students leaving higher education for the workplace. Authentic learning has been suggested as a way to bring the necessary complexity into learning to deal with challenges in professional practice after graduation. This study investigates how South African higher educators have used emerging technologies to achieve the characteristics of authentic learning. A survey was administered to a population of 265 higher educators in South Africa who self-identified as engaging with emerging technologies. From this survey, a sample of twenty one respondents were selected to further investigate their practice through in-depth interviewing using Herrington, Reeves & Oliver's (2010) nine characteristics of authentic learning as a framework. Interrater analysis undertaken by five members of the research team revealed both consistencies and differences among the twenty one cases across the nine elements of authentic learning. The highest levels of authenticity were found for the elements authentic context and task, and the lowest for articulation. Furthermore, there was a moderate correlation identified between levels of authenticity and the role played by emerging technologies in achieving the authenticity, showing a potentially symbiotic relationship between them.
The recent student protests in South African Higher Education have highlighted both the opportunities and challenges of blended/online learning in higher education. This article describes two lecturers' attempts at continuing teaching online during the 2016 campus closure at a large University of Technology in South Africa. Using Tronto's Ethics of Care lens and in particular her moral characteristics of care, namely attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and solidarity, we reflect on the ethics of our practices when moving towards more open educational practices. Recommendations on academic staff development that promotes ethical open practices conclude the article.
Literature argues that for post-conflict pedagogies to facilitate student engagement across difference it requires emotional engagement with the subject. However, how to achieve such emotional engagement, without falling into the trap of sentimentality, is an area that is under-researched. This paper reflects on conversations with South African students in a final year pre-service teacher-training programme, who developed digital stories as a vehicle for student engagement across difference. Applying 'critical emotional reflexivity' (Zembylas 2011) as an analytical framework, we found that students described the digital storytelling process as opening up different ways of being with/for the 'Other' and allowing them to start questioning cherished beliefs and assumptions about the 'Other'. However, they had difficulties in placing themselves in a bigger historical and sociocultural context. Furthermore, the specific set-up of the project made it difficult to track lasting social change within students, the fourth element of Zembylas' theoretical framework. Findings also confirmed the potential of digital stories to lead to sentimentality and 'passive empathy' (Boler 1999), characterised by pity from the part of the privileged observer and resentment from the subjugated storyteller. We recommend adding a historical-political analysis of previous students' stories to the digital storytelling process in order to help students deconstruct positions premised on the existence of clearly differentiated identities and to consciously create spaces where a reflection on the emotions students encountered while sharing and listening to their stories can be facilitated.
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