Seminars
Seminar 1
Date: 5 March 2012
Topic: Supporting Self-Study of University Teaching and Learning for Professional Growth
Presenter: Professor Anastasia P. Samaras, Professor of Education at George Mason University, Virginia, USA
“What is the nature of our progress and development as academic staff invested in studying professional practice?” and “How do we as Faculty assess our personal professional development within a teaching and Learning collaborative?” These are the questions that underpinned the Scholars of Studying Teaching Collaborative (SoSTC), a research initiative practicing self-study research within a multi-discipline learning community. The Seminar demonstrated that: teachers move towards higher mastery when they research something they care about; critical friends help in that process; enacting the self-study methodology reaffirms a commitment to improving teaching in a transparent and documented process with peer review; learning to appreciate and transfer insights from other disciplines to one’s own enhances insight through a creative synergy; and Universities and schools benefit when they promote a multi-discipline and collective space for teachers to study their professional practice.
Seminar 2
Date: 16 May 2012
Topic: Supplemental Instruction (SI): A Tool for Enhanced Academic Development
Presenters: Annah Bengesai, Academic Development Officer, School of Engineering (College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science); and Suri Moodley, Academic Development Coordinator, College of Health Sciences; Dr Vino Paideya, Lecturer, School of Chemistry and Physics; and Dr Veena Singaram, Academic in the Teaching and Learning Office
Chair: Dr Rubby Dhunpath
This seminar presented an alternative approach to conventional models of teaching and learning, which has the potential to improve student retention throughput and quality. Supplemental Instruction (SI) is a peer assisted learning programme that targets ‘high risk’ courses rather than ‘high risk’ students to facilitate deeper understanding of course content while promoting the development of meta-cognitive skills. The seminar demonstrated that SI:
- Provides a social learning space offering opportunities for deep-learning, reflection and meaning making; and
- Equips students with critical competencies that are required to navigate higher education and the workplace.
Seminar 3
Date: 17 July 2012
Topic: Supervising Quality Doctorates
Presenter: Professor Eli Bitzer, Centre for Higher and Adult Education, Stellenbosch University
South Africa aims to increase its doctoral output fivefold by 2025. Where knowledge production plays an increasingly important role, knowledge and capacity development for research at higher education institutions is imperative. At the same time, research is to be seen as relevant to the multiple needs of societies within a developing country such as South Africa. In order to improve research output of higher education institutions it also seems imperative that retention and success rates of doctoral candidates have to improve. One way of achieving these objectives could be to develop the knowledge, experience and skills of present and future supervisors. This interactive seminar was intended to contribute to a discussion of quality doctoral education by introducing to participants the complexity and challenges of doctoral education contexts, issues related to quality doctorates and to suggest a generic framework for doctoral supervisors to support their candidates towards quality doctoral work.
Seminar 4
Date: 25 July 2012
Topic: Student Evaluations of Teaching: Do they matter?
Presenter: Dorothy Spiller, Head: Teaching Development Unit, University of Waikato, New Zealand
This seminar explored the findings and implications of a New Zealand research study which investigated academics’ perspectives on student evaluations and the extent to which they impinge on academics’ thinking and practices at all stages of the teaching and learning cycle. The researchers were interested to find out whether academics perceived student evaluations as primarily institutional compliance measures or whether they also used them to enhance teaching and the student learning experience. The research study investigated the factors that influence academics’ views of evaluations and makes recommendations to strengthen the use of student evaluations for professional development and authentic dialogue with students about their learning. Seminar participants were invited to reflect on their own perceptions of and engagement with student evaluations.
Seminar 5
Date: 21 September 2012
Topic: Education and Development in Africa: Lessons of the Past 50 Years for Beyond 2015
Presenter: Emeritus Professor Kenneth King, School of Education and School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
This presentation, based on joint work with Simon McGrath (University of Nottingham), proceeded through three stages. First, he revisited some of the historical shifts in debates about education, development and aid as a way of generating key questions about the current state and possible future directions of these major debates. Second, he briefly examined some of the perennial education and development debates of the past 50 years, highlighting the very great difficulty of resolving key educational tensions. Finally, he drew these together to insist on the complexities that these perspectives generate and what this means for the next round of international targets post-2015 as regard to higher education.
Seminar 6
Date: 19 October 2012
Topic: Revisiting the Internationally Agreed Education for All Goals for Education: Making Rights Realities
Presenter: Professor Keith Lewin, Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity, Centre for International Education, University of Sussex
The focus of this presentation, was on the UN member States commitment to Education for All (EFA) at World Conferences in Jomtien in 1990 and again in 2000 in Dakar. These developed six Education for All Goals which have been used to shape investment in education and development assistance from multi-lateral and bi-lateral aid agencies. The targets were set to be achieved by 2015. Professor Lewin’s presentation explored the conceptualisation of EFA, commented on key aspects of progress, identified strengths and weaknesses of the approach adopted, and presented likely scenarios for the evolution of the goals and the framework of EFA.
Seminar 7 (Candid Talk)
Date: 26 November 2012
Topic: Does Assessment Matter in Teaching and Learning?
Panelists: Prof. Kriben Pillay, Dean: College Teaching and Learning, College of Law and Management Studies; Prof. TE Madiba, Nelson Mandela School of Medicine, College of Health Sciences; Prof. Bice Martincigh, School of Chemistry, College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science; Prof. Damtew Teferra, Director: Higher Education Training and Development; Dr Rubby Dhunpath, Director: UTLO; Dr Mary Goretti Nakabugo, Higher Education Training and Development; and Ms Kerry Frizelle, School of Psychology, College of Humanities
Chair: Prof. Mark Schofield, Dean of Teaching and Learning Development, Edge Hill University, UK
The Seminar was premised on the assumption that teachers in higher education are constantly challenged to develop a critical and reflective approach to teaching and learning underpinned by relevant professional practice, scholarship and research. In this UKZN staff were provided with an opportunity to share their views, perspectives and concerns in teaching, learning and assessment with a panel of higher education specialists. The event ran in the style of ‘Question Time’ used by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Audience members were invited to prepare and raise questions on teaching, learning and assessment to engage the panel. The panellists responded to individual questions and took responses and comments from the audience so that a lively, buoyant discussion ensued.
Workshops
UTLO’s much anticipated Seminar Series continued to influence conversations about Teaching and Learning amongst academic and support staff. In addition to 14 seminars, colloquia and workshops hosted, UTLO introduced its ‘Candid Talk’ series in an attempt to make more public discourses around higher education.
Workshop 1
Date: 15 February 2012
Topic: Possibilities and Pitfalls in the Cohort Model of Doctoral Supervision
Presenters: Professor Renuka Vithal (Deputy Vice- Chancellor: Teaching and Learning, UKZN) and Professor Michael Samuel (School of Education, UKZN)
Chair: Dr Rubby Dhunpath
This workshop aimed to assist Colleges/Schools intending to implement a Cohort Model of doctoral research teaching and learning pedagogy as a complementary model to the traditional ‘master-apprenticeship’, one-on-one model of supervision. The workshop demonstrated how this model addressed underproductivity of doctoral graduands in higher education. The model involved drawing on the experiences of supervisors, staff and students as co-producers of knowledge involved in a research pedagogical process. The doctoral graduands that emerge are able to embrace their roles and responsibilities as researchers and knowledge constructors. Rather than the PhD being about individualistic learning, the Cohort Model attempts to infuse multiand interdisciplinary notions of responsiveness to knowledge production in community and as collectives. Using an interactive approach, and concrete exemplars, the workshop provided insights into the pedagogy underpinning the doctoral Cohort Model, identifying strategies and tools to initiating and growing doctoral cohorts in Schools, highlighting possibilities and pitfalls in implementation.
Workshop 2
Date: 26 February – 2 March 2012
Topic: Writing for Academic Publication
Presenter: Chris Kapp and Associates
As part of its mission to promote the scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and support academic publications in teaching and learning and institutional research, the UTLO hosted a five-day Writing for Publication Workshop for novice researchers conducted by the consultancy, Chris Kapp and Associates. The workshop was aimed at academic staff who were novice authors, had a limited publications record and were trying to improve their publication rate. Participants received step-by-step guidance and coaching directly related to publishing articles based on their research. They also received expert peer review and feedback from experienced critical readers and accredited language editors.
Workshop 3
Date: 5 July 2012
Topic: Foundation Provisioning Programme – Planning workshop
Facilitator: Dr Rubby Dhunpath
In 2012, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) revised their Foundation Provision Policy and this workshop was conducted in order to define and reach a common understanding of the new Policy. The workshop included extensive discussions on the Provision models in the new DHET Policy, its implications for Foundation Provisioning and enrolment planning and quality considerations. UKZN representatives, from the various Foundation Programmes, Information Communication Services (ICS), QPA, UTLO and the Deans: College Teaching and Learning, all contributed to the discussion and planning the way forward.
Colloquia
Colloquium 1
Date: 25 June 2012
Topic: Neoliberal Common Sense and the Challenge to South African Universities
Presenter: Professor Carlos Alberto Torres, School of Graduate Education & Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
This colloquium turned the spotlight on neoliberal globalisation and academic capitalism. Torres argued that “neoliberalism has utterly failed as a viable model of economic development, yet the politics of culture associated with neoliberalism is still in force, becoming the new common sense shaping the role of government and education. This ‘common sense’ has become an ideology playing a major role in constructing hegemony as moral and intellectual leadership in contemporary societies. Neoliberal globalisation, predicated on the dominance of the market over the state and on deregulatory models of governance, has deeply affected the university in the context of ‘academic capitalism’.” Does this assessment hold true for South African higher education and what are the associated challenges and implications for transformation?
Colloquium 2
Southern African Research Colloquium (UTLO, UKZN Research Office and IAKS Department)
Date: 23 November, 2012
Topic: Methodologies and Epistemologies for Integrating Indigenous African Knowledge Systems (IAKS)
Southern African academic and research institutions are increasingly designing initiatives to integrate Indigenous African Knowledge Systems (IAKS) into research, teaching and community engagement in line with regional and continental aspirations of an African-led globalisation. These initiatives are also driven by the need to make higher education more relevant to the socioeconomic developmental challenges of a continent, characterised by poverty and social inequalities. The achievement of these goals requires a critical interrogation of the relevance and appropriateness of existing methodologies, epistemologies, knowledge production, teaching, learning and community engagement in higher education.
To bring these debates into the spotlight, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, in collaboration with the National IKS Office (Department of Science and Technology), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), South African Qualification Authority (SAQA) and Institute for African Renaissance Studies, will host a Southern African Regional colloquium focusing, among others on the following sub-themes:
- Integrating IKS in Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning;
- The Impact of Culture and Language on Research, Teaching and Learning;
- The Role of African Intellectuals in the Indigenisation of Higher Education;
- Technologies and IKS Research, Teaching; and
- Research and Teaching into Higher Education.
Symposium
Symposium 1
Date: 3 April 2012
Topic: UKZN’s Response to the Department of Higher Education and Training’s Green Paper for Post- School Education and Training
Presenters: Professor Kriben Pillay, Dean: College Teaching and Learning, College of Law and Management Studies; Professor Fikile Mtshali, Dean: College Teaching and Learning in the College of Health Sciences; Professor Frederick Veldman, Dean: College Teaching and Learning, College of Agriculture, Engineering and Science; Professor Nobuhle Hlongwa, Dean: College Teaching and Learning in the College of Humanities; and Mr Thembani Khumalo, Central SRC President – UKZN.
In 2012, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) released, for public comment, the Green Paper for Post-School Education and Training. The purpose of the Green Paper was to create a policy framework that enables the DHET to shape its strategies and plans for the main pillars of our post-school system (Universities, FET Colleges, NSFAS, the SETAS together with the related quality assurance, advisory and regulatory institutions).
This symposium focused on, among others: coherence, articulation and differentiation between the various postschool sectors; prospects for increased participation in higher education; responsiveness of the post-school sector to socio-economic development; and a critical assessment of the Green Paper in providing an effective regulatory framework for Higher Education.