Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Spaces: Shaping Futures and Envisioning Unity in Diversity and Transformation
Lungi Sosibo, Eunice Ivala (Eds.)
by Daniela Gachago (Cape peninsula University of Technology, South Africa)
Interesting and of sound quality.
Dr. Chaunda L. Scott
Oakland University
The transformation of teaching methods and curricula to address a changing socioeconomic world and redress social and economic injustice is central to the success of higher education systems. While the chapters in this volume focus on southern Africa, “Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Spaces” provides important and useful case studies, ideas, and recommendations for educators and policymakers around the globe. The history of colonization and apartheid, and the efforts at de-colonization, in southern Africa, makes the knowledge currently being produced there especially important and useful to educators everywhere. I recommend this innovative and useful volume to educators and policymakers who are endeavoring to achieve equity and inclusion and improve the quality of education available to all students.
The strong points of “Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Spaces” include
• • its multifaceted, intersectional approach that includes sex/gender as well as race/culture and socioeconomic status
• • attention to the need to decolonize both knowledge and the educational system itself and to consider how to incorporate indigenous knowledges and pedagogies in HE
• • concern with analyzing both equity of access and equity of outcomes and how HE institutions reproduce and can reduce social inequities
• • discussion of a variety of pedagogical strategies such as bilingual instruction, code-switching, peer assessment, ICT, blended learning, curriculum as process
• • discussion of the need for HE institutions to attend to students’ economic and social environments because these affect their academic success
• • discussion of the need for HE institutions to attend to students’ social and life skills as well as academic skills and knowledge
• • discussion of institutional practices and policies such as education funding (of individual students and HE institutions), teacher professional development, policies and support systems regarding gender-based violence, the curriculum development process
Dr. Diana L. Swanson
Professor Emerita, Department of English
Northern Illinois University
Higher education in post-apartheid South Africa was always likely to attract academic interest, and yet there remains a dearth of research on creating teaching and learning spaces suitable for students from diverse backgrounds. Using examples from higher education institutions across the Southern African Developing Community (SADC) region, this volume explores the ways teaching and learning spaces are being used to advance the transformation agenda of higher education in these regions, and provides concrete recommendations for the future.
The book is sure to appeal to academics from a variety of disciplines - from African, African American and ethnic studies to education and sociology. It will be of particular interest to teacher trainers, administrators and policy-makers working in higher education, and anyone else with a stake in managing cultural diversity in education.
Editors
Review Committee
Acknowledgements v
Dedication
Introduction
Foreword
Contributors
Preface
THEMES & CHAPTERS
THEME 1: How institutions of higher education utilise teaching and learning spaces to promote multilingualism as a central element of the curriculum
1. Language Needs of Grade R Practitioners in Linguistically Diverse South African Classrooms
NOMAKHAYA MASHIYI
2. Bilingual Instructional Strategy in Selected English First Additional Language FET Writing Classrooms in South Africa
NOMALUNGELO NGUBANE & BERRINGTON NTOMBELA
THEME 2: The funding models used to make higher education accessible to students from diverse backgrounds, as well as how funding promotes sustainable teaching and learning environments for students
3. Mapping Higher Education Funding for Teaching and Learning in Ghana
FREDUA KWASI-AGYEMAN, PATRÍCIO LANGA & PATRICK SWANZY
THEME 3: The ways in which higher education institutions create effective learning environments and provide support systems for non-traditional students
4. Understanding safe and inclusive learning space at a South African university
NOSISANA MKONTO
5. Key Considerations for Effective Learning in Rural Multi-Grade Classrooms
MOTHOFELA RICHARD MSIMANGA
6. Inequalities and marginalisation during COVID-19: Psycho-social effects on underprivileged university students
ZILUNGILE LUNGI SOSIBO
7. Mapping a model for peer assessment: Narratives of academics in a South African teacher education institution
VUSI MSIZA, NOSIPHO MBATHA & THABILE ZONDI
8. First-year students’ expectations of university studies: Views of students from diverse schooling contexts
SUBETHRA (SU) PATHER, EMMANUEL EKALE ESAMBE & NOSISANA MKONTO
9. Utilising opportunities and creating sustainable learning spaces through teacher professional development: Case of Western Cape Province
LYNNE JOHNS & ZILUNGILE LUNGI SOSIBO
THEME 4: The quality of physical and online infrastructure provided by universities and how these are being utilised to provide conducive teaching and learning spaces for students
10. More than Delivery: Designing Blended Learning with and for Academic Staff
DANIELA GACHAGO, IZAK VAN ZYL & FAIQ WAGHID
11. The possibility of Including Herders in Lesotho’s Education Provision through the use of Information and Communication Technologies
SELLOANE PITIKOE & SEKITLA DANIEL MAKHASANE
THEME 5: The intersection of race, class and gender and how these factors affect teaching and learning spaces for students from diverse backgrounds
12. We don’t deal with paper work; we do counselling’: Gender-Based Violence support services at a South African university
SADHANA MANIK
THEME 6: How higher education institutions promote decolonisation of the university curriculum
13. Curriculum and academic development in an era of transformation in South Africa
EMMANUEL EKALE ESAMBE, SIYA SABATA & THEMBINKOSI MTONJENI
14. Re-thinking South African higher education calls for epistemic freedom: Beyond abyssal line and towards the field of knowledge
MLAMULI NKOSINGPHILE HLATSHWAYO
15. Towards Enablers of Decolonisation of the Curriculum in Universities in South Africa
NTOKOZO LWANDLE & ADDISALEM TEBIKEW YALLEW
16. Teachers’ views on knowledge progression in the development of Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement for Life Sciences
FLORAH TEANE
Eunice N. Ivala is Associate Professor and Coordinator in Educational Technology at the Centre for Innovative Educational Technology at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa. Her research focus is on information and communication technology (ICT)–mediated teaching and learning in developing contexts. She has published/co-published more than 60 research papers and edited/co-edited two conference proceedings and three books. In 2018, she won an award for excellence in e-Learning from Global Learn Tech for the impact of her research on educational and individual practices.
Zilungile Sosibo is Associate Professor of Education in the Faculty of Education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology. She is also Head of Department of the SP&FET Department. Her research focus is mainly on Assessment and Evaluation, and Diversity and Transformation in Higher Education. She has published extensively in both areas.
Emancipation, Disadvantaged learners, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Social Justice, Critical Race Theory, Gender Equity, Disability, Universal Learning, Differentiation
