The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) held its Annual Learning and Teaching Imbizo at the Southern Sun Maharani and Elangeni from 22nd to 25th November 2022.
The theme for the Imbizo was titled: Time for Universities to Grow up? Envisioning and creating new futures, and widening debates on critical higher education imperatives.
The Imbizo was offered in a hybrid format with participants joining in online from other universities in South Africa, Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom.
The workshop gave an opportunity to invited participants to pause, engage reflexively and ask deep, critical questions about change and growth, post-pandemic and to re-imagine, re-envision and re-create new futures for higher education.
The 146 participants were from 24 universities/institutions, 13 were from the South African higher education institutions. In terms of the Durban University of Technology (DUT) participants: 94 were postgraduate students as well.
The Imbizo also showcased two budding studentpreneurs from innobiz exhibiting their work from fashion to herbal medicine.
The presentation formats were three keynotes, four workshops,
five critical dialogues, 59 paper presentations, 16 lightning presentations (shorter papers) and overall there were 50 presentations by DUT staff.
The keynote speakers at the Imbizo included Prof Mugendi K M’Rithaa, a transdisciplinary industrial designer, educator, researcher and consultant presently working at Machakos University, Kenya.
Mugendi is the President Emeritus and Senator of the World Design Organization (WDO) – having been the first African President in the history of the WDO during the 2015-2017 term. Much of his work with the WDO focuses on the importance of supporting the aspirations of designers worldwide in the (industrial) design profession’s collective quest to resolve wicked problems in diverse contexts.
Mugendi has a special interest in the pivotal role of design thinking in advancing the developmental agenda on the African continent. He is a founding member and Simba Fellow of the Pan-Afrikan Design Institute (PADI)/Design Council of Afrika, and is associated with a number of other international networks focusing on design within industrially developing (or majority world contexts) including the Association of Designers of India (ADI).
The second keynote speaker was the charismatic Lee Rusznyak who is an Associate Professor at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand. Her research focuses on knowledge-building and the development of expertise through initial teacher education.
She has published widely on the professional learning of student teachers through work-integrated learning. She has been a leading researcher on several national projects, including the Initial Teacher Education Research Project (ITERP), the development of Professional Teaching Standards for South Africa and the ‘Teacher Choices in Action’ project on learning to teach through work-based learning. She is the Director of the Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) Hub and a forum member of the UNESCO Chair in Teacher Education for Diversity and development.
The final keynote speaker was Professor Mncedisi Maphalala, a Director: of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the Durban University of Technology and a former Dean in the Faculty of Education at the University of Zululand.
Prof Maphalala is an established researcher who has edited three books and two special journal issues and published a number of book chapters and research articles in peer-reviewed journals. Prof Maphalala has presented research papers at various local and international conferences. As a postgraduate supervisor and mentor, Prof Maphalala has supervised to completion several Masters and doctoral candidates. He has conducted a number of large-scale commissioned research projects by external organisations such as the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), and Council on Higher Education (CHE). He has served on the Umalusi Research Forum, a sub-committee of the Umalusi Council, for a four-year term. He also serves on the CHE working group on Higher Education Practices Standards, Guidelines and Criteria Development and Quality Assurance Framework Capacity Development. His research interests are teacher education, selfdirected learning, blended learning, Scholarship of Teaching & Learning and Curriculum studies.
The Committee members who were instrumental in the organisation of the prestigious four-day Imbizo were Imbizo Committee Chair: Mrs Nalini Chitanand Imbizo, Committee Deputy Chair: Ms Shubnam Rambharos, administrators, Mrs Judy Reddy, Ms Sibongile Madi, Mrs Cebokazi Xozwa. Committee members: Dr Shoba Rathilal, Dr Serathi Molokwane, Dr Mzwandile Khumalo, Mrs Roshnee Sunder and Ms Bwalya Lungu.
Programme Directors of the event were Imbizo Committee Chairs, Ms Nalini Chitanand and Mrs Shabnum Rambharos.
The presentation formats were three keynotes, four workshops,
five critical dialogues, 59 paper presentations, 16 lightning presentations (shorter papers) and overall there were 50 presentations by DUT staff.
There was an abstract start to the first day of workshops, the first commencing with four workshops and the first of the series of critical dialogues which included:
Critical Dialogue 1 with Ms Lindelwa Mkhize, Dr Penelope Orton, Dr Benita Bobo, Dr Cleo Prince, Ms Tamia Abrahams and Ms Snegugu Mngwengwe, called Reimagining higher education and internationalisation: the role of Collaborative Online International Learning.
Critical Dialogue 2 was with Professor Alain Tschudin, Mr Crispin Hemson and Dr Simóne Plug on Time for Universities to Grow Out? Transformative Pedagogy, Dialogics, Action Research.
Critical Dialogue 3 had Dr Katie Bryant, Dr Rose Omari, Dr Tèko Augustin Kouevi, Dr Dominica Chingarande and Mr Gebeyehu Begashaw Equity, speaking on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM studies: Making African universities more inclusive through gender responsive pedagogy.
Critical Dialogue 4 saw Professor Darren Lortan focusing on Disrupting the Epistemic Exclusion of Holders of Higher Certificates.
Critical Dialogue 5 was with Dr Anthony Collins on Gaslighting, critical theory, and transformative pedagogy: and auto-ethnograpy of surviving violence and violence studies.
The purpose of the workshop was to teach participants how to facilitate active learning that is focused on entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation within the classroom. The workshop focused on daily teaching and learning practices that are glocally inspired, student-led and aligned to the skills needed for the 4th Industrial Revolution.
On Day Two attendees were officially welcomed by Prof Suren Singh, Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning and Prof Mncedisi Maphalala, who is the Director of CELT at DUT.
One of the keynote speakers, Prof Rusznyak gave insight into her presentation which was titled: “Preparing students to participate in practice: Lessons from teacher education.”
“Teaching a practice to students requires more than expertise and experience in the field. It also requires that we explain to students the (often unspoken) reasoning that informs what, how and why practitioners enact their work as they do. This is challenging, especially when our thinking in practice has become internalised and intuitive over time. However, unless we make the tacit parts of practice visible, students learn to mimic its routines without necessarily understanding their purposes, principles, and bases for success,” she said.
In her keynote address, she drew on examples from her research in teacher education to illustrate ways to better reveal the inner logics of practices to the students that are taught. Firstly, she demonstrated how students’ learning increases when they are guided to notice the reasoning that informs the work of practitioners. Secondly, she showed the value of repeated opportunities for students to connect insights from coursework with their work-based learning. Thirdly, she showed how the design of assessment rubrics send important messages about the criteria for achievement. Prof concluded by arguing that making practices explicit is crucial if academics are to empower students to participate in them with increased intention and complexity over time.
On the final day of the Imbizo, Prof Maphalala gave his ‘food for thought’ presentation titled: Rethinking Higher Education assessment practices: An Academic integrity perspective.
“I think we will really need to consider what the future might look like for assessment within HE settings; and also discuss the broader contexts of how assessment is trusted because recent months have revealed public discourses that question the validity, reliability, authenticity, fairness, flexibility and credibility of our assessments,” he said.
According to him, these ‘discourses also signal just how general views of assessment are fixated on testing and qualifications without acknowledging the value of assessment as a key part of the teaching and learning practice.
Looking forward, Prof Maphalala said that for the purposes of the discussion, there is a need to move from the premise that, Assessment is an integral part of the teaching and learning process. He then highlighted some of the key purposes of assessment: the first one being the assessment meant to support learning (that is formative assessment or assessment for learning).
“We regularly assess students to determine if the instruction and interventions positively impact the students’ performance or determine if adjustments need to be implemented. These are low-stakes assessments to support learning. The second purpose of assessment is meant for accountability; certification, progress, and transfer. (these are summative assessments),” he added.
He further acknowledged that Assessment is a critical component of teaching and learning; and academics need to uphold its integrity by ensuring that they don’t compromise on good and sound assessment practices and processes, this will ensure that they protect the credibility of students, academics, institutions and the qualifications that are offered. He then spoke on academic integrity amidst a pandemic, academic dishonesty and on the security of online assessments.
In his concluding remarks, he mentioned that it is evident from the literature review that there is a range of options available for designing assessment tasks to detect and prevent violations of academic integrity.
“However, no single method or design is adequate to eliminate all sorts of academic integrity violations. So, upholding and maintaining academic integrity should therefore adopt a multi-faceted approach. Although it is widely accepted that plagiarism and other forms of cheating cannot be eradicated entirely, there is enough evidence to increase confidence that with appropriate assessment designs and constantly raising awareness about the importance of academic integrity it is possible to discourage it. Most importantly, we need to get together and share good practices and try to transform some of these challenges into opportunities,” stressed Dr Maphalala.
Other interesting presentations highlights included on Dr Nontobeko Prudence Khumalo from the University of Zululand who looked at student engagement in teaching and learning using ICT: A critical aspect for students’ success.
The findings revealed that students acknowledge the importance of being engaged but highlight several challenges which include the use of English as a language of instruction and also being overloaded with many modules at once. The study, therefore, recommends the critical engagement of students by the lecturers. While adequate time and resources should be provided to the students.
Prof Jack Whitehead and Dr Marie Huxtable from the University of Cumbria/North-West University spoke on Enhancing academic citizenship, service and community engagement with Living Educational Theory Research. This paper is focused on academic citizenship, service and community engagement in enhancing the flow of values of human flourishing with Living Educational Theory Research.
Dr Mbusiseni Celimpilo Dube spoke on Breaking supervisor-student trust: students’ perspectives.
Another high point looked Dr Marí Pete’s presentation on her poetry collection, OlduvAI to AI. Dr Peté invited academics to her poetry, while challenging traditional notions of a poetry book.
After a robust question and answer session, the Imbizo came to a close with final reflections and an evaluation process.
Pictured: Attendees at the CELT Imbizo.
Waheeda Peters
