Browsing by Author "Dison, Arona"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Decentering and recentering the writing centre using online feedback: Towards a collaborative model of integrating academic literacies development
    (Stellenbosch University, 2019) Collett, Karen Suzette; Dison, Arona
    Since its inception in 1994, the University of the Western Cape’s Writing Centre has been on the margins, viewed as an add-on to central learning and teaching activities at the university (Archer and Richards 2011, Clarence 2011). In this article, we use the constructs of place, space, and power to explore the decentering of feedback on students’ writing from the face-to-face, physical location of the Centre to the formative assessment space in a module. We reflect on the Centre’s engagement with a formative online feedback intervention conducted by a lecturer within a Bachelor of Education Honours course. Writing centre tutors participated in providing formative feedback on nested, scaffolded tasks leading to a long essay, using the feedback function of the Turnitin platform. The space of engagement with students moved from the faceto-face, physical writing centre location to the online space. We found that the development of the academic writing and feedback literacies of writing tutors, students, and the lecturer were developed through sustained and responsive online and face-to-face communities of praxis. In this process, there was a partial decentering and recentering of the role of the Centre, enabled by technology and the integration of the development of academic literacies within the course curriculum.
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    Developing scholarship of teaching and learning through a community of enquiry
    (UWC, 2017) Bozalek, Vivienne; Dison, Arona; Alperstein, Melanie; Mitchell, Veronica
    A growing interest in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in higher education requires the seeking of opportunities for its development within and across disciplines and institutions. However, rewards for individual competitiveness in research publications, including the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), tend to discourage collaboration, which could be highly conducive to the development of SoTL. This paper proposes the value of working together in a collaborative community of enquiry (CoE) in order to take forward SoTL in higher education. We draw on Cassidy et al.’s (2008) and Christie et al.’s (2007) model of seven elements of a CoE to explore our own experience of forming a CoE emanating from an inter-institutional professional course on teaching and learning, which assisted us to collaboratively contribute to SoTL. The above model was found to be useful, but could be enhanced through an expanded perspective, incorporating the affective turn.
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    Development of students’ academic literacies viewed through a political ethics of care lens
    (South African Journal of Higher Education, 2018) Dison, Arona
    This article explores insights which the political ethics of care (Tronto 1993; 2013) offers to academic literacies development of students. Research on ethics of care has been conducted in contexts ranging from micro to macro levels. However there has been no research on academic literacies development using this lens. In this article, data on academic literacy development within a health sciences faculty at a South African university is re-analysed through an ethics of care lens. Curriculum and programme alignment, departmental relationships and ethos and institutional approach to academic literacies development are considered through this lens. While the initial research project focused on student acquisition of dominant academic literacies, this article explores the insights that care ethics can bring to a “transformative” approach to academic literacies (Lillis and Scott 2007) and argues that care ethics can make a contribution to the decolonisation of education.
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    A diffractive reading of dialogical feedback through the political ethics of care
    (Taylor & Francis, 2016) Bozalek, Vivienne; Mitchell, Veronica; Dison, Arona; Alperstein, Melanie
    With regard to improving higher education feedback practices, there is an increasing interest in using the efficacy of dialogue rather than the more traditional unidirectional approaches. We build on this impetus by considering how the ethics of care can be used to analyse the dialogical aspects of feedback. By diffractively reading insights of Boud and Molloy [2013a. “What is the Problem with Feedback?” In Feedback in Higher and Professional Education: Understanding it and Doing it Well, edited by D. Boud, and E. Molloy, 1–10. London: Routledge; Boud, D., and E. Molloy. 2013b. “Rethinking Models of Feedback for Learning: The Challenge of Design.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 38 (6): 698–712] on dialogic feedback through the moral elements of care ethics, this paper proposes a novel way of discerning the extent to which the dialogical giving and receiving of feedback contributes to learning. To illustrate this, we draw on experiences from an Emerging Technologies professional development course for higher educators. We examine our own dialogical interactions of giving and receiving feedback using the moral elements of care ethics – attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and trust, to provide a concrete example of how the ethics of care can be used productively for evaluating feedback practices.
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    Factors influencing first year nursing students' career choice at a University in the Western Cape
    (University of Western Cape, 2020) Nibagwire, Jeanne D'Arc; Dison, Arona; Chipps, Jennifer
    The nursing profession is the backbone of the healthcare system glob-ally. However, due to the ongoing shortage of nurses there is a growing demand for nurses across the world. This demand puts pressure on the continued recruitment of new nursing students. The factors that influence students’ reasons for entering nursing vary and require investigation to improve recruitment practices.
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    Factors influencing first year nursing students’ career choice at a University in the Western Cape
    (University of Western Cape, 2019) Nibagwire ,D'arc Jeanne; Dison, Arona
    The nursing profession is the backbone of the healthcare system glob-ally. However, due to the ongoing shortage of nurses there is a growing demand for nurses across the world. This demand puts pressure on the continued recruitment of new nursing students. The factors that influence students’ reasons for entering nursing vary and require investigation to improve recruitment practices
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    Relationship between student preparedness, learning experiences and agency: Perspectives from a South African university
    (Health and Medical Publishing Group, 2016) Roman, Nicolette V.; Titus, Simone; Dison, Arona
    One of the more discernible needs that challenges universities is addressing the level of preparedness of students entering the higher education environment. Students expect to participate in active learning, while at the same time adopting a certain level of agency to successfully pass through higher education. To determine the relationship between student preparedness, learning experiences and agency of students in the Faculty of Community and Health Sciences (FCHS), University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town, South Africa. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 266 (N=578) convenience sampled 3rd-year students in the FCHS. Data were collected with an instrument constructed from items of evaluation from the departments in the FCHS and other validated instruments. Findings suggest that 3rd-year students perceive themselves as moderately prepared on enrolling at UWC (mean (SD) 13.74 (1.86)); current learning experiences are favourably indicated (94.04 (15.32)). On average, students perceive themselves to be agents of their own learning (51.56 (8.79)). Furthermore, a significantly positive relationship was found between learning experiences and agency. This study broadens our understanding of the Vygotskian perspective of the zone of proximal development, where students bring their own knowledge, interact with lecturers who scaffold their learning, and then become agents in their own learning.
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    Research capacity development of individuals at three South African university research centres
    (University of the Western Cape, 2007) Dison, Arona; Subotzky, George; Faculty of Education
    In South Africa, there has been recognition of the need for increasing research capacity at South African universities and within the national science system. Furthermore there has been a need to address imbalances in the racial and gender profile of researchers. There has been a growth of application-oriented, multidisciplinary research centres at South African universities in response to changing national and international knowledge contexts. Many research centres have a research capacity development component and run postgraduate programmes in collaboration with academic departments. This it was relevant to investigate what types of contexts these centres provide for research capacity development and postgraduate education. In this study, individual research capacity development was examined as a process of identity formation and socialisation through social, organisational and epistemological lenses.
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    Using the human capabilities approach as a normative framework to evaluate institutional teaching and learning interventions at UWC
    (UNISA, 2013) Bozalek, Vivienne; Dison, Arona
    This article uses the human capabilities approach to evaluate an institutional approach to teaching and learning at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). The human capabilities framework makes it possible to examine the impact of social arrangements and interventions on the expansion of valuable beings and doings in teaching and learning. The institutional approach at UWC which involved the development of a strategic plan for teaching and learning and a case study of the teaching and learning retreats for Heads of Academic Departments is examined using the normative framework of the human capabilities approach. The constraints and opportunities regarding the institutionalisation of teaching and learning are illuminated through an analysis of data from a human capabilities perspective.