Dr Dianna Moodley, Research Coordinator in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), was recently awarded the Best Oral Presentation at the 33rd Barcelona International Conference on Education, Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts, themed: Excellence in Research and Innovation.

Her paper, titled Academic Terrorism: The new (ab)normal in post-Covid Higher Education in South Africa, addressed how the pandemic has compelled Higher Education Institutions around the world to resort to Emergency Remote Learning (ERL).

She exposed findings from her recent research, that this abrupt ‘pivot to online’ learning has exacerbated existing challenges in Higher Education, particularly in South Africa.

Drawing on student experiences and perceptions of ERL, she exposes a perturbing finding that Teaching and Learning under ERL has regressed into impersonal methodologies, devoid of any notion of pedagogy as the science and art of teaching.

More unsettling, she highlighted, was that ERL has alienated and disengaged students from learning as a collaborative process. This increased transactional distance between students and academics, she claims, has desensitised the latter to the peculiar challenges that students encounter in the virtual classroom. Her presentation culminated in a graphic transdisciplinary display of the lived realities of students engaged in ERL, advocating for ‘critical humanising pedagogy’, an approach that centres the needs of students in the teaching and learning process.

The DUT Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Innovation and Engagement, Professor Sibusiso Moyo, congratulated Dr Moodley on the award and for sharing students’ lived experiences and the perceptions of Emergency Remote Learning.

Pictured: Dr Dianna Moodley, Research Coordinator in the Faculty of Arts and Design.

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