Teaching and Learning Unit (Book chapters)

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Browsing Teaching and Learning Unit (Book chapters) by Title

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    Catalytic power of a pandemic: on enacting agency in professional higher education spaces through communities of practice
    (HELTASA (Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa), 2022) De Klerk, Danie
    This chapter critically interrogates the agential metamorphosis the author experienced over an 18-month period during the Covid-19 pandemic, by means of numerous diverse communities of practice (CoPs). As a mid-career academic occupying a middle-management leadership position in a faculty, at a large, research-intensive public university in South Africa, the author first outlines the numerous professional tensions that characterise the dual roles he holds in the faculty. Underpinned by Social Realist principles and Archer’s (1995, 2000, 2005) notions about morphogenesis, the chapter explores the temporal interplay between structures (in the form of CoPs) and agency (in the form of the author’s agential metamorphosis). The chapter postulates that the Covid-19 pandemic served as a catalyst in this interplay, according the author unique opportunities to become part of numerous diverse CoPs that evolved organically during this time. Synergistic with this evolution, was that of the author’s awareness of his own agential potential and the intentionality with which he came to enact agency in the professional spaces he occupies. By linking the CoPs to four professional meta-identities, the chapter allows for critical reflections on how each CoP contributed in unique but interconnected ways to the author’s agential metamorphosis, catalysed by the pandemic. The chapter concludes by making recommendations on how higher education stakeholders can use CoPs and critical reflection about agential potential as ways of eliciting and enacting agency in their own professional spaces.
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    Narrowing the geographical divide: a critical reflection of an accordance of the Covid-19 pandemic for collaborative professional learning and development
    (HELTASA (Higher Education Learning & Teaching Association of Southern Africa), 2022) Fontaine-Rainen, Danny; De Klerk, Danie; Frade, Nelia; Ramrung, Arthi
    Globally, Covid-19 has disrupted practices within higher education forcing us to relook at how we engage, what we do and how we do things. The pandemic has changed how we teach and how our students learn. It has also changed the way we, as professionals working in higher education, do our work including how we interact with each other. While much has been taken away from our lived experiences and daily realities because of the need to live carefully and safely for ourselves and others, there are some very real, innovative, and genuine accordances that Covid-19 has promoted that provide current realities and future possibilities that are quite different from our past experiences. In this critical reflection we explore how we – four individuals from different universities across South Africa working together on the Student Learning Scholarly Project (SLSP) of the Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) – are communicating, collaborating, and learning in ways where, among other things, geography no longer matters. In spite of our physical separation, we are able to work together in ways that create and maintain momentum, generate a plethora of new ideas for consideration and action, and in many ways, produce more materials and products to enhance the student experience of higher education in South Africa. We will consider and reflect on what this different way of working means to us, both individually and collectively and what it means for higher education for the now and for the future.
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    Reflections from implementing a faculty strategy for academic professional learning during a global pandemic
    (HELTASA (Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa), 2022) Krull, Greig; De Klerk, Danie; MacAlister, Fiona
    Joining a new institution is challenging; doing so eight weeks before the advent of a pandemic was extremely challenging. Two new online learning specialists, together with the support of their manager, in a faculty’s Teaching and Learning Centre at a South African university, reflect upon personal experiences that highlight the challenges and accordance of supporting professional learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. The two online learning specialists had to establish personal relationships with each other, their manager and the broader institutional community, in addition to building networks with the academics they needed to support. The faculty team had to work with the central support unit, as well as with faculty teams in other faculties to support academics in their transition to remote teaching and learning. Adopting an ethic of care philosophy, the team conceptualised and implemented various professional learning interventions for academics, while they themselves grew accustomed to the faculty and institution. In a short space of time, many academics in the faculty and institution looked at the team for advice, guidance and reassurance. Fortuitously, the period enabled the team to form/join support networks and communities of practice, both within the faculty and the institution. These experiences laid the foundation for a faculty support strategy for the future, and the design of short courses to further support the professional learning of academics and their capacity to develop and implement pedagogically sound blended and online offerings.
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    Road to success programme: a case study
    (African Sun Media, 2022) de Klerk, Danie; Maleswena, Tshepiso; Spark, Linda
    This case study outlines a scholarly approach to implementing Peer Advising in the Faculty of Commerce, Law, and Management at the University of the Witwatersrand.