Analysing the professional development of teaching and learning at UWC form a political ethics of care perspective (Bozalek)
5 elements of ethics of care:
- Attentiveness: Identifying that there is a need that should be met, understanding the needs of others. “Transmission-type” teaching means not being attentive to, nor caring about, students learning needs
- Responsibility: Acting in some way to addressing the identified needs (“not doing” something is a moral failure), this goes beyond formal obligation / duty. Teaching isn’t an obligation or a duty. It means going beyond what is expected of you.
- Competence: Care work must be done well and the care needs must be met. Even if you care, and do something about it, the intended outcomes must still be met.
- Responsiveness: The receiver of care must respond. There is the possibility of abuse of power in the relationship
- Trust: Not the same as dependency or reliance. Allowing someone to take care of something that one values. There should be a choice of who we trust. Trust grows iteratively as the dynamic is reinforced through behaviour.
All of the above are not regarded in isolation, but are integrated as “Integrity of care”. Whole process must fit together and requires more than good intentions. Requires a deep and thoughtful knowledge of the situation and of all actors situations, needs and competencies.
“Care” as a concept is integrated into UWC (graduate attribute 2): “Students must aspire to contribute to social justice and care”
Care: an activity that includes everything we do to maintain, continue, repair our world so that we can live in it. It includes our bodies, our selves and our environment. “Care of the self” is also an important aspect of care. Responsibility of others might drive us so hard that we neglect ourselves.
Resources (time, money, human expertise) is required to deliver good care. If we think about what it means to be a good teacher (who cares about student learning), it is a resource-intensive business.
How do you resist your own will to gain power?
How do you differentiate between what someone wants and what someone needs?
Presence and absence: How a research-led SA university (re)presents teaching and academic staff development in its own public self-description (Jeff Jawitz)
Used the institutional website to generate a sense of the university’s self-representation.
Academic staff development is the knowledge and practice around teaching and learning within the context of higher education
Presence: what is there and what could be there, but also understand as absence being what is lacking
Discourse: a broad level of representation, positioning of text
Genres: ways of regulating the text / images / events (e.g. website), an action in terms of how the discourse is represented
Styles: using language to self-identify with a particular way of occupying a social role
3 clicks into website, and only public-facing documents
Order of discourse: neoliberalism
Prime location
UCT positioned in terms of it’s physical and geographical location. Primary discourse on the site = higher education is about position. Distances itself from the real world of Cape Town.
Research-led, Best in Africa
Positioning within Africa
Limited explicit reference to teaching and learning, graduates are products
Teaching and learning is positioned as a way of managing difference. Texts around teaching and obfuscated by structure. Staff development is about skills development, which is aimed at managing difference among students.
Who is the author of the most public representation of ourselves (i.e. our websites)? What are we about? The answer to that is contested, few people agree what we’re here for and what image is presented to the world.
The public website shows people what is valued at the university. For example, UCT spends a lot of time positioning itself in terms of its history and location, rather than what it is for. Websites are dominated by a marketing discourse, and not part of a teacher’s remit.
Reflecting on the knowledge management practices of a university of technology (Prof. Desere Kokt)
Knowledge is a public good
How knowledge is generated, stored, and distributed calls on universities, as “holders of knowledge” to change how they manage that knowledge in order to benefit society
What are our knowledge resources? What are our knowledge management practices?
“Knowledge” has different meanings depending on the social and cultural contexts in which it is used
Knowledge stored and disseminated through ICTs
Types of knowledge (?):
1. Organisational knowledge
2. Advanced knowledge
3. Innovative knowledge
Four critical aspects of good knowledge management strategies:
1. Effective organisational communication
2. Well-functioning ICT system
3. External knowledge sharing
4. Continuous training for staff
Many staff believe that knowledge management is the sole remit of “management”
Knowledge shared between academics at the same hierarchical level, but often not up and down the hierarchy
Creating opportunities to publish ODL research (Jean Mitchell)
Currently, Progressio: South African Journal of Open and Distance Learning Practice is one of only three accredited ODL journals
There is more academic publishing than ever before, putting a strain on publishers, editors and reviewers. Also, the increase in volume often means a decrease in quality of submitted papers.
Successful publication depends on:
- Quality of research and writing
- Enthusiasm, knowledge, dedication and intuition of the editor
- Expertise and insight of the reviewers
(Mis)framing higher education in South Africa (Bozalek and Boughey)
How to make HE more inclusive?
Using Fraser’s 3 dimensional theory of social justice (a normative framework)
Social justice: the ability to participate as equals and full partners in social interaction, interact as peers on economic, cultural and political dimensions
Economic: disparity on the disproportional distribution of resources
Political: move away from viewing injustice as located within nation states, as a result of influence on a global level
Who is included / excluded? If you are excluded, then you are reliant on the benevolence of others
Higher education under apartheid -> fractured system, even the physical spaces of universities were designed to limit student gathering, with limited free passage through areas
Historically Black Institutions (HBIs) had to give back all unspent money at the end of the year. Led to spending sprees as the end of the year, no ability to build up financial reserves, and poor ability to manage budgets
Blogging to enhance reflective practice in nursing education (Lorraine Fakude)
Aim: Improve reflective practice of PG students in the nursing education module
Reflection is hard to do, it doesn’t come naturally, students need to develop skills in reflecting, teachers need to help students learn how to reflect.
Also important for students learn how to deal with / receive constructive criticism and feedback
Emphasis should not be on marks as a form of assessment
Using vodcasts for formative and summative assessment in 4th year social work practice at UWC (Dr. Neil Henderson)
VOD = video on demand
Limited literature on the effectiveness of vodcasting in teaching and learning
Student self-report used (in some of the literature) as an indicator of “effectiveness”
Having students create their own materials for vodcasting has been shown to have students engage with content more deeply
Interesting video shown on students interviewing criminals in Pollsmoor.
Rural South African university students’ technological habitus (Prof. Laura Czerniewicz)
Contextualise the study within a broader view of rural education in SA
Continue to suffer from poor resources
These students do worse on national tests than students from urban areas
This ethnographic study looking at one student from a school in the poorest area of the country. His school had 2 computers, which had not been touched by anyone.
Rural background can have a negative impact on university experience i.e. universities are not well prepared to assist students from rural areas
Practice happens in a context, therefore it’s important to understand the context without divorcing it from the practice
Habitus: Ways of acting, feeling, thinking and being…how they carry their history, how they bring this history into their present circumstances, and how they then make choices to act in certain ways and then not others
Different kinds of capital: economic, social, cultural, and symbolic
Habitus + Capital = Context (all of this is relational)
Use of the internet is framed by economics e.g. peers had phones that could access the internet, but no money to buy data
Social capital expanded when at university, changed dynamics within existing relationships
Technology is “not important” at home, because people lack the skills to use it i.e. access is linked to ability
The computer is a valuable artifact: important to have own, didn’t ruin the device through gaming, essential for academic work, but also uses for entertainment. “My laptop, it has to do its job, it must assist me academically and entertain me”
Cellphone is indispensable, about status and friends, concerned about the effects on his studies
Student was able to use multiple devices in multiple contexts, but usually for communicating with others. He still didn’t know how to use Powerpoint and Excel (communicating with others is more important than Powerpoint and Excel)
When he goes home he may not (be able to) use technology because it doesn’t fit within that context. Music however, is one continuity
Coming from a rural background “reminds me that I have to work harder to stay competitive”
Question: Did the research process have a transformative impact on this students’ thinking and reflection? Yes. But, no way to change this.
Social network = Social capital: First-year students’ use of Facebook for cognitive and affective learning (Dr Cheryl Brown)
Digital ethnographies do count as participating in people’s lives i.e. looking at how people use social media is a legitimate form of research
Looking at the role of ICTs in students’ transition into university
For some students, Facebook is an embodied part of their daily experience (3/4 of students used it primarily on their phones). For other students, Facebook was an addictive experience and some students found it exhausting.
Social capital: about group identify and what being part of the group affords you, networks and a shared sense of solidarity, shared experiences
There is pressure on students to have as many “friends” as possible, yet they don’t stop to consider what it means to have that many “friends”, or even what it means to be a “friend”
For some students, Facebook is critical for maintaining relationships
“Facebook is a way of showing people my mindspace”
Students see Facebook as an extension of themselves
Some students spend a lot of time working on status updates in terms of content and timing, in order to maximise responses and engagement with their friends. What to say, when to say it?
Students are aware of the potential for distraction when using social networks, and disable certain features during exams
Students tie an enormous part of their emotional and affective selves to engagement and affirmation on Facebook e.g. one student had a birthday and no-one commented on his wall, which was really hurtful for him. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t get any comments.
Students didn’t want to “friend” teachers, but still wanted to make themselves available for certain types of academic activity. This is going to require us to think out the box when it comes to using public online social spaces for learning.
Epistemological access should work both ways. Is there room for us to be “friends” with students on Facebook? Would it be useful for teachers to see the personal lives of students, and for students to be aware that their teachers can see what they’re talking about / sharing?