Humanising Online Teaching and Learning in the BEd. Foundation Phase Programme: Moving Beyond Covid-19

Abstract

Covid-19 brought unforeseen and unpredicted challenges to higher education institutions (HEIs). In this paper, we recount the authors' experiences of exploring a humanising pedagogy as a way of practising social justice during online learning. Our Bachelor of Education, Foundation Phase (FP) classes consist of students from predominantly rural and urban low socioeconomic environments. The primary focus of this study was to explore the experiences of lecturers who teach a humanising pedagogy-embedded programme in the FP at an HEI through online learning in a highly under-resourced context. The study further focuses on technological strategies and pedagogies used in HEIs, issues related to lecturers' inclination and adaptation to technology, the digital divide, and barriers to online learning. This study resides within a critical transformative paradigm, and uses humanising pedagogy principles as a lens. We draw on our lived experiences and engage in dialogue to make sense of the process of online learning. In this qualitative research, we engage in narrative freewriting to gather data. Thematic analysis was used to reduce the data and to identify common themes. The two themes that emerged, and are discussed in this paper, are mutual vulnerability and lecturer resilience and collaboration. The findings of the study encouraged lecturers to critically reflect on the challenges and opportunities that Covid-19 presented, and to incorporate some of the practices that enabled better delivery of teaching in a humanising way.