REGISTRATION
INFORMATION
World University Rankings - Top 600

DUT HOLDS SURE COLLOQUIUM IGNITING DEEPER INSIGHTS ON UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP AND CREATIVE INQUIRY

DUT HOLDS SURE COLLOQUIUM IGNITING DEEPER INSIGHTS ON UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH, SCHOLARSHIP AND CREATIVE INQUIRY

The Durban University of Technology (DUT) hosted its Supporting Undergraduate Research Excellence (SURE) Virtual Colloquium -Igniting Undergraduate Research Excellence on Tuesday, 16 November 2021.

This colloquium is part of the initiatives driven through the DVC Research, Innovation and Engagement in partnership with the Teaching and Learning Sector of the University and Faculties at Large. SURE is situated within DUT’s ENVISION2030 Perspective on Systems and Processes, aimed at introducing curriculum that inspires innovation and creativity in order to contribute to knowledge generation and solutions. A series of webinars on SURE were launched in 2020.

The Programme Director of the event was Dr Anisa Vahed who is the SURE: Project Manager and Co-Leader at DUT. She is currently a visiting Fulbright Research Scholar at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Prescott, Arizona. Dr Vahed is a Y2 NRF rated researcher and senior lecturer/dental technologist in the Department of Dental Sciences.

“I warmly welcome you to this virtual colloquium on Igniting Undergraduate Research Excellence, which is part of a larger DUT project entitled: Supporting Undergraduate Research Excellence, otherwise known as SURE,” she said.

She gave insight into the programme and thanked all the distinguished panellists and students who took time to contribute to the video recording and relaying their experiences of undergraduate research.

“It is hoped that this SURE Colloquium will accelerate the exchange of ideas and the scaling up of effective practices in undergraduate research, scholarship and creative inquiry,” she said.

Dr Vahed then introduced the first set of speakers who were DUT’s Professor Sibusiso Moyo, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Engagement, Prof Nokuthula Sibiya, Deputy-Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning, who shared their perspectives on SURE and its alignment with ENVISION2030.

In her welcome address, Prof Moyo acknowledged all the attendees and distinguished guests for attending and participating in the Colloquium. These included Dr Anisa Vahed, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning, Prof Sibiya, the Executive Deans and all Staff, Students and dignitaries from DUT and other institutions including UKZN. In particular, she welcomed the Guest Speakers, Professor Jonathan Jansen, the Distinguished Professor of Education from Stellenbosch University, who is also the President of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She gave a heartfelt welcome to Prof Helen Walkington from Oxford Brookes University and Dr Jenny Shanahan from Bridgewater State University, USA.

“We have heard from the few video clips that you have seen that inquiry based teaching and learning plays a big role in really helping our students understand difficult concepts especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics areas and helps them to identify problems/challenges with the aim of finding relevant solutions. Introducing undergraduate research into the curriculum helps students grasp the necessary skills required to identify challenges and solutions from their own contextual setting and within the communities they find themselves in. From the DUT perspective, supporting undergraduate research excellence is a strategic initiative purposefully designed to inspire innovation and creativity amongst our DUT students and give them a distinct education”, said Prof Moyo.

Further into the conversation, Prof Moyo spoke on the green eco- systems, which is part of sustainability, and which is a key area because it is known that climate change, for example, affects the whole planet, “We want our students to be also conscious of the environment and resource utilisation so that they can help reduce the carbon footprint and so in their problem solving approaches they are expected to take sustainability aspects into account.

Dr Vahed then introduced DUT’s Prof Keo Motaung Director: Technology Transfer and Innovation who gave insight into creating student enterprises from undergraduate research. She outlined on the meaning of student enterprises, ways of promoting student enterprises. She delved into her case study with undergraduate students from the Faculty of Applied Sciences, the outcomes, impacts and measuring successes.

Speaking on student entrepreneurship, she emphasised that students get to do everything like a real-life entrepreneur, from coming up with the business idea to marketing, sales and preparing a Lean Canvas Model,” she stressed.

Prof Motaung said the start-up process for student entrepreneurs has been identified as comprising of three stages which are to inspire-creating student entrepreneurial mind-sets and student engagement. This gives them experiential learning to develop their entrepreneurial skills, know-how and shape their business idea and accelerate it to help build their enterprise.

Prof Motaung explained that her case study with undergraduate students in the faculty of Applied sciences, resulted in establishing start-ups from the work the students had done. Out of eight, only five had managed to register their companies and continue with incubation. She said that these five start-up companies were awarded seed funding and incubated are being incubated through innobiz DUT Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

The next speakers, Dr Khethiwe Dongwe (DUT) Dr Bongiwe Zulu (UKZN), looked at teaching a research module to undergraduate students amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

Giving a talk on a systematic review-a useful alternative to data collection in undergraduate research during a pandemic was DUT’s Prof Shalini Singh. She explained that, this year, only 17 students registered for the postgraduate studies in their programme.

“There was also no laboratory work or face to face data collection leading us to quite a tight spot. Moreover, the quality fraternity in which we work preferred us not to use surveys and interviews as data collection tools. So every reasonable alternative was sought. That led me to my title of a systematic review as a useful alternative to data collection in a pandemic,” she said.

Her presentation included shared experiences, her teaching and learning initiatives during this project, and some findings of her practice.

“The aim of my study was to improve the quality of undergraduate research projects. In 2021 I had to seek to use a suitable teaching method for online learning and also for an alternative,” said Prof Singh.

She conveyed some challenges that DUT students experienced which were that some of them are very afraid of research and they think that it’s this big mountain that they have to climb.

“A lot of them are also very misinformed because they believe that if they read a few articles and talk about those articles, that is research, they forget that there’s a whole new engagement. With methodological principles that have to be included in the study, our students generally do not like reading text, so we have to find innovative ways in which they can engage with the material so that they could produce good quality work. Another challenge is that all my students are part- time students and they are all employed students and arrive to my classrooms at 5:00 O’clock in the afternoon when they are tired,” she stressed.

Going forward, Prof Singh developed a booklet and outlined aspects of a dissertation and explained different examples, particularly regarding research design and methodology, covering each aspect of what makes up a dissertation.

Giving more perspectives on assessing the impact of undergraduate research on Engineering student graduate attributes development were DUT’s Mr Jacob Adedayo Adedeji, Ms Zesizwe Ngubane and Mr Shanley Hay. Presenters Ms Indrani (Hazel) Govender (DUT) Dr Rajendran Pillay (MUT) looked at undergraduate inquiry-based research to promote sustainable cities: bridging the divide between science and society.

Adding further into the discussion was DUT’s Dr Ashika Naicker who delved into the development of unique recipes for the SPAR Bean Tree coffee shops/restaurants concept using the SPAR Smart Chef range: Formative consumer research to recipe development. Other speakers included DUT’s Mrs Evonne Shanita Singh who explained more on joining the links, using industry-based projects to come to full circle.

DUT’s Dr Kylah Meredith Forbes-Biggs and Dr Maliga Reddy highlighted on the Undergraduate Students Enriching Disciplinary Literacy in Disaster Studies (USED LiDS) Project: Engaging Photovoice for Innovative Teaching.

Another interesting topic presentation was on the area of group work in problem based learning: A problem within a problem? by DUT’s Prof Poovendhree Reddy.

After the formal presentations, a panel discussion on cultivating student-faculty relationships in undergraduate research followed, which was moderated by Prof Rubby Dhunpath from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. During the panel session Prof. Jonathan Jansen emphasised that undergraduate teaching needs to refocus and be repurposed to orient students into research. Prof Helen Walkington shared improved understandings on the salient practices of undergraduate mentoring, which is part of DUTs Learning and Teaching Strategy document and the Research and Innovation Blueprint. Dr Jenny Shanahan provided insights into the framework of a backward curriculum design to scaffold undergraduate research and teaching throughout the curriculum.

Giving the vote of thanks was DUT’s Dr Linda Linganiso Research, Director: Research and Postgraduate Support who thanked all speakers for their innovative perspectives in this critical focus area- encouraging undergraduate research as well as, the organisers of the webinar.

“This engagement was supported by the technical and administrative teams from the DUT ICTS Team, Office of the DVC RIE and Corporate Affairs Team,” said Dr Linganiso.

Pictured: Attendees at the virtual SURE Colloquium.

Waheeda Peters

No comments