Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

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Browsing by Subject "Africa"

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    Demystifying research methods: everyday experiences as socio-cultural co(n)texts for effective research methods in teaching and learning in institutions of higher learning in Africa
    (University of Johannesberg, 2017) Banda, Felix; Banda, Dennis
    The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how everyday knowledge can be incorporated into the classroom practices of institutions of higher learning to inform inclusive outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse students. Using a metaphor of a marketer�s everyday interrogation of market conditions, a postgraduate guide to proposal writing and the funds of knowledge socio-cultural framework, we illustrate how forms of everyday and school knowledge can be used concurrently in the construction of socially responsive dialogic pedagogy. We argue for scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) in the South in which knowledge and theory generation is not a preserve of English only, but more so, of the complex interactions between English and the multiplicity of languages that students bring to the classroom. We conclude that SOTL in the South needs to be founded on the transfiguration of everyday knowledge and formal academic knowledge to facilitate the production of new and more powerful knowledge in multicultural postcolonial society. This would allow for inclusive pedagogy that caters for diversity in classrooms, and activity-based teaching and learning, networking students� experiential, community/home and formal academic knowledge in the construction of new and powerful knowledge.
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    Designing a course model for distance-based online bioinformatics training in Africa: the H3ABioNet experience
    (Public Library of Science, 2017) Gurwitz, Kim T.; Aron, Shaun; Entfellner, Jean-Baka Domelevo; Saunders, Colleen J.; Cloete, Ruben
    Africa is not unique in its need for basic bioinformatics training for individuals from a diverse range of academic backgrounds. However, particular logistical challenges in Africa, most notably access to bioinformatics expertise and internet stability, must be addressed in order to meet this need on the continent. H3ABioNet (www.h3abionet.org), the Pan African Bioinformatics Network for H3Africa, has therefore developed an innovative, free-of-charge "Introduction to Bioinformatics" course, taking these challenges into account as part of its educational efforts to provide on-site training and develop local expertise inside its network. A multiple-delivery±mode learning model was selected for this 3-month course in order to increase access to (mostly) African, expert bioinformatics trainers. The content of the course was developed to include a range of fundamental bioinformatics topics at the introductory level. For the first iteration of the course (2016), classrooms with a total of 364 enrolled participants were hosted at 20 institutions across 10 African countries. To ensure that classroom success did not depend on stable internet, trainers pre-recorded their lectures, and classrooms downloaded and watched these locally during biweekly contact sessions. The trainers were available via video conferencing to take questions during contact sessions, as well as via online "question and discussion" forums outside of contact session time. This learning model, developed for a resource-limited setting, could easily be adapted to other settings.
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    Sociocultural paradoxes and issues in e-learning use in higher education Africa
    (Routledge, 2018) Njenga, James Kariuki
    Sociocultural issues are major contributing factors in mass acceptance and effective use of technology. These issues are often perceived to contradict the benefits the technology brings about. E-learning use in higher education in Africa, as a technology, faces some sociocultural barriers that contradict its promise and benefits. This paper identifies five social cultural paradoxes, namely globalisation, cultural identity, westernisation, authenticity and foreign ideologies, with the aim of creating awareness of, and eliciting the interventions required to improve the acceptance and use of e-learning. The paper presents the differing and contradictory views of technology advocates and technology sceptics on the use of e-learning in higher in Africa.