This article considers assessment practices within the neoliberal conditions of higher education by posing questions to conceptions of value. As a motivating thrust, this article asks: might there be generative potential that remains unexplored, due to assessment’s direct linkage to the production of human capital? With its central emphasis on value, this article turns towards Brian Massumi’s Postcapitalist Manifesto: 99 Theses on the Revaluation of Value (2018). Guided by Massumi, I compose speculative propositions with which to explore the potential for a postcapitalist reworking of value within the context of assessment. The propositions offered in this paper by no means exhaust the emergent potential of re-thinking assessment, yet my aim is to sow but a few generative seeds that might expand on the potential of what (else) assessment might do. In engaging assessment otherwise, this article foregrounds assessment practices that are pertinent to the creative arts (with particular interest in the pedagogical convention of the studio crit), not as a means to suggest that arts-based disciplines have a superior and well-resolved approach to assessment, but rather to leverage the already tenuous relationship between arts education and assessment. As its objectives, this article aims to (1) contribute to the underrepresented discourse on the assessment of creative arts in higher education and to (2) explore the potential for re-imaginings of arts-based assessment practices to leak into the wider discourse of assessment as a whole. The intention is not to deliver fully formed methodological formulae but to think through assessment with propositions that might be expanded upon through speculative experimentation and future inquiries.
{"title":"Propositions for a counter-economy of assessment: Adventures in the assessment of creative arts in higher education","authors":"Francois Jonker","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.333","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.333","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers assessment practices within the neoliberal conditions of higher education by posing questions to conceptions of value. As a motivating thrust, this article asks: might there be generative potential that remains unexplored, due to assessment’s direct linkage to the production of human capital? With its central emphasis on value, this article turns towards Brian Massumi’s Postcapitalist Manifesto: 99 Theses on the Revaluation of Value (2018). Guided by Massumi, I compose speculative propositions with which to explore the potential for a postcapitalist reworking of value within the context of assessment. The propositions offered in this paper by no means exhaust the emergent potential of re-thinking assessment, yet my aim is to sow but a few generative seeds that might expand on the potential of what (else) assessment might do. In engaging assessment otherwise, this article foregrounds assessment practices that are pertinent to the creative arts (with particular interest in the pedagogical convention of the studio crit), not as a means to suggest that arts-based disciplines have a superior and well-resolved approach to assessment, but rather to leverage the already tenuous relationship between arts education and assessment. As its objectives, this article aims to (1) contribute to the underrepresented discourse on the assessment of creative arts in higher education and to (2) explore the potential for re-imaginings of arts-based assessment practices to leak into the wider discourse of assessment as a whole. The intention is not to deliver fully formed methodological formulae but to think through assessment with propositions that might be expanded upon through speculative experimentation and future inquiries.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"23 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138587678","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper interrogates emerging issues and assessment practices within higher education institutions in Zambia. It presents the reflections of a sample of lecturers and students from the country’s largest public university on their assessment experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions. Employing a qualitative research framework grounded in critical social theory, the study uncovers the constructions of assessment in higher education and how current assessment practices, particularly the focus on grades, undermine authentic learning experiences and learner motivation. Through in-depth interviews, participants challenge current practices and envision alternative approaches to higher education assessment that prioritize flexibility and creativity. This article gives a voice to the otherwise voiceless students and lecturers whose insights might be critical in transforming higher education assessments for student empowerment, equity, criticality, and lifelong learning.
{"title":"Re-imagining assessment in higher education: Creating alternative pathways for inclusive and democratic assessments in Zambian higher education institutions","authors":"Gift Masaiti, Paul Kakupa, Sydney Mupeta","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.384","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.384","url":null,"abstract":"This paper interrogates emerging issues and assessment practices within higher education institutions in Zambia. It presents the reflections of a sample of lecturers and students from the country’s largest public university on their assessment experiences during and after the COVID-19 pandemic disruptions. Employing a qualitative research framework grounded in critical social theory, the study uncovers the constructions of assessment in higher education and how current assessment practices, particularly the focus on grades, undermine authentic learning experiences and learner motivation. Through in-depth interviews, participants challenge current practices and envision alternative approaches to higher education assessment that prioritize flexibility and creativity. This article gives a voice to the otherwise voiceless students and lecturers whose insights might be critical in transforming higher education assessments for student empowerment, equity, criticality, and lifelong learning.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"8 26","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138586439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This interdisciplinary book review delves into “Contextualised Critical Reflections on Academic Development Practices: Towards Professional Learning” (edited by Teboho Pitso), offering unique perspectives from a clinical psychologist and a PhD candidate in higher education studies. The review critically engages with the three central themes: Teaching and Technology Support, Student Support, and Prospects and Possible Future Trajectories in Academic Development. Drawing on personal experiences in academia, the review intertwines reflections on these themes with a closing examination of Pitso's thought-provoking exploration of identity and alienation. This review offers a nuanced understanding of professional learning, bridging the gap between psychological and educational perspectives on academic development.
{"title":"“Contextualised critical reflections on academic development practices: Towards professional learning” (edited by Teboho Pitso)","authors":"Curwyn Mapaling, Asiphe Mxalisa","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.382","url":null,"abstract":"This interdisciplinary book review delves into “Contextualised Critical Reflections on Academic Development Practices: Towards Professional Learning” (edited by Teboho Pitso), offering unique perspectives from a clinical psychologist and a PhD candidate in higher education studies. The review critically engages with the three central themes: Teaching and Technology Support, Student Support, and Prospects and Possible Future Trajectories in Academic Development. Drawing on personal experiences in academia, the review intertwines reflections on these themes with a closing examination of Pitso's thought-provoking exploration of identity and alienation. This review offers a nuanced understanding of professional learning, bridging the gap between psychological and educational perspectives on academic development.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"58 14","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138587087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This special issue focuses on the need for a fundamental reconceptualisation of assessment and feedback practices in higher education in the global south. Drawing on their experiences and assessment practices during the Covid-19 pandemic, the contributions highlight the lessons learnt, and how these may be leveraged to address present and future disruptions as well as ongoing inequities. The key themes running through the seven articles are the social dimension of assessment and feedback, and the urgency to shift towards more flexible and inclusive assessment practices. The message conveyed is the importance of care, connection and inclusive approaches to assessment and feedback in achieving the outcomes necessary for effective graduate participation in a world defined by inequity, complexity and change.
{"title":"Reframing and re-purposing assessment in higher education in the global South","authors":"K. Padayachee, Kibbie Naidoo","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.381","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.381","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue focuses on the need for a fundamental reconceptualisation of assessment and feedback practices in higher education in the global south. Drawing on their experiences and assessment practices during the Covid-19 pandemic, the contributions highlight the lessons learnt, and how these may be leveraged to address present and future disruptions as well as ongoing inequities. The key themes running through the seven articles are the social dimension of assessment and feedback, and the urgency to shift towards more flexible and inclusive assessment practices. The message conveyed is the importance of care, connection and inclusive approaches to assessment and feedback in achieving the outcomes necessary for effective graduate participation in a world defined by inequity, complexity and change. ","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"13 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138589215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Danica Sims, Simone Titus, Samuel Lundie, Rajendran Govender
Assessment policies facilitate the optimisation of learning and academic performance through the provision of fair, equitable, and standardised criteria for evaluation. In recent years, the assessment policies of three South African universities have been reviewed. These policies, in comparison to their previous iterations, are indicative of transformative approaches taken in assessment practices in South Africa amid broader disruptions to higher education. This article explores shifts in assessment paradigms in South African higher education using a conceptual framework of positivist and behaviourist, interpretative and constructivist, and socio-constructivist views. Document analysis identifies several notable trends, including a shift in the purpose of assessment away from assessment of learning to assessment for learning and assessment as learning. The paradigm shift is characterised by changes in the approach from a rules-based, with specific prescriptions, to principles and values-based approaches. The growing use of alternative and technology-enhanced online assessment methods, along with the need for flexibility, are more prominent additions to these new policies post-COVID-19. However, being mindful of the South African context, culturally sensitive and fair assessment practices, that consider the diversity of South African learners, and the role of assessment in promoting equity, social justice, and quality learning, are highlighted.
{"title":"Shifting assessment paradigms in South African higher education: Evolving towards transformative approaches to policy development.","authors":"Danica Sims, Simone Titus, Samuel Lundie, Rajendran Govender","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.334","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.334","url":null,"abstract":"Assessment policies facilitate the optimisation of learning and academic performance through the provision of fair, equitable, and standardised criteria for evaluation. In recent years, the assessment policies of three South African universities have been reviewed. These policies, in comparison to their previous iterations, are indicative of transformative approaches taken in assessment practices in South Africa amid broader disruptions to higher education. This article explores shifts in assessment paradigms in South African higher education using a conceptual framework of positivist and behaviourist, interpretative and constructivist, and socio-constructivist views. Document analysis identifies several notable trends, including a shift in the purpose of assessment away from assessment of learning to assessment for learning and assessment as learning. The paradigm shift is characterised by changes in the approach from a rules-based, with specific prescriptions, to principles and values-based approaches. The growing use of alternative and technology-enhanced online assessment methods, along with the need for flexibility, are more prominent additions to these new policies post-COVID-19. However, being mindful of the South African context, culturally sensitive and fair assessment practices, that consider the diversity of South African learners, and the role of assessment in promoting equity, social justice, and quality learning, are highlighted.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"6 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138586215","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Assessment is a powerful mechanism to leverage student learning and develop skills and practices that prepare students for the world of work. By extension, assessment can also play a critical role in creating learning contexts that are inclusive, responsive, and transformative. This paper draws on findings from a student survey, lecturer interviews, and student focus groups, conducted in an engineering school in South Africa, that provide a rich picture of the interaction between lecturer intentions, assessment practices, student experiences, and how these influence student intentions, actions, and ultimately learning. The findings presented in this paper focus on the social themes that emerged, highlighting the social nature of assessment practices and the role that these play in student identity, confidence, and engagement. The importance of a purposeful and holistically aligned assessment strategy is highlighted through several social themes, including the fairness and relevance of assessment tasks, feedback and relationships between lecturers and students, group work, the formation of social networks and community, and opportunities for including students as partners in assessment practices. The study reveals that a more collaborative and collectivist approach to assessment is needed. This is a significant finding that provides valuable insights that can be used to transform assessment practices, enhance student success, and facilitate social justice.
{"title":"Exploring the social aspects of assessment practices in an engineering context","authors":"Teresa Hattingh","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.349","url":null,"abstract":"Assessment is a powerful mechanism to leverage student learning and develop skills and practices that prepare students for the world of work. By extension, assessment can also play a critical role in creating learning contexts that are inclusive, responsive, and transformative. This paper draws on findings from a student survey, lecturer interviews, and student focus groups, conducted in an engineering school in South Africa, that provide a rich picture of the interaction between lecturer intentions, assessment practices, student experiences, and how these influence student intentions, actions, and ultimately learning. The findings presented in this paper focus on the social themes that emerged, highlighting the social nature of assessment practices and the role that these play in student identity, confidence, and engagement. The importance of a purposeful and holistically aligned assessment strategy is highlighted through several social themes, including the fairness and relevance of assessment tasks, feedback and relationships between lecturers and students, group work, the formation of social networks and community, and opportunities for including students as partners in assessment practices. The study reveals that a more collaborative and collectivist approach to assessment is needed. This is a significant finding that provides valuable insights that can be used to transform assessment practices, enhance student success, and facilitate social justice.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"12 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138589569","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown disrupted higher education practices and forced students and lecturers to rapidly migrate to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERT&L). Initially, ERT&L robustly focused on teaching and assessment to complete syllabi, without fully considering care and justice to students who were no longer consolidated in one location. During the lockdown, students were exposed to socio-economic plights, and mental health challenges, among others. Hence, this article aimed to consider how the pedagogical tool of effective feedback could promote the ethics of care and justice to support students during ERT&L. The feedback practices implemented during the lockdown were maintained after contact lectures resumed, and their effects were quantified to determine the overall impacts on optimizing T&L and ensuring a conducive learning environment- regardless of whether T&L occurs at university or remotely. Effective feedback practices, recommended by the literature, were applied by two lecturers within three undergraduate chemical engineering modules. Lecturer 1 adopted a blended learning approach in modules 1 and 2 before the lockdown, while lecturer 2 functioned as a full contact module. A quantitative research approach was adopted in which module and teaching evaluations were used to quantify the effects of the feedback interventions on T&L in the three modules. The results indicated an overall positive effect, with significant student satisfaction with the feedback interventions adopted from the literature to promote the ethics of care and justice during ERT&L. Based on the methodology and results, an empirical model is proposed to optimize any pedagogical intervention that education practitioners may strive to use to improve their assessment practices.
{"title":"Applying effective feedback principles to promote the ethics of care and justice during emergency remote teaching and learning in three chemical engineering modules","authors":"Rishen Roopchund, Vizelle Naidoo","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.327","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.327","url":null,"abstract":"The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown disrupted higher education practices and forced students and lecturers to rapidly migrate to emergency remote teaching and learning (ERT&L). Initially, ERT&L robustly focused on teaching and assessment to complete syllabi, without fully considering care and justice to students who were no longer consolidated in one location. During the lockdown, students were exposed to socio-economic plights, and mental health challenges, among others. Hence, this article aimed to consider how the pedagogical tool of effective feedback could promote the ethics of care and justice to support students during ERT&L. The feedback practices implemented during the lockdown were maintained after contact lectures resumed, and their effects were quantified to determine the overall impacts on optimizing T&L and ensuring a conducive learning environment- regardless of whether T&L occurs at university or remotely. Effective feedback practices, recommended by the literature, were applied by two lecturers within three undergraduate chemical engineering modules. Lecturer 1 adopted a blended learning approach in modules 1 and 2 before the lockdown, while lecturer 2 functioned as a full contact module. A quantitative research approach was adopted in which module and teaching evaluations were used to quantify the effects of the feedback interventions on T&L in the three modules. The results indicated an overall positive effect, with significant student satisfaction with the feedback interventions adopted from the literature to promote the ethics of care and justice during ERT&L. Based on the methodology and results, an empirical model is proposed to optimize any pedagogical intervention that education practitioners may strive to use to improve their assessment practices.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"46 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138587315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Although assessment theorists have long argued that assessment is a contextually located social practice, objectivist and psychometric discourses about assessment persist. The COVID-19 pandemic, in many contexts, unsettled and denaturalised assessment practices, creating a critical disruptive moment. This paper presents a reflection on what this moment might suggest about academics’ assessment beliefs and practices at a research-intensive institution in the Western Cape. Drawing on an institutional survey, we argue that dominant concerns about academic integrity and mark inflation surface discourses of assessment for certification and accountability. Exploring some examples of assessment practices during the emergency remote teaching period at the same institution, we highlight some factors that influence design. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we contemplate the conditions of field and capital that create opportunities for change. We propose that change is contingent on the complex interplay of the capital and habitus of agents, as well as the nature of the field. We reaffirm the case for positioning assessment as a social practice, arguing that this enables the conditions for discussion, negotiation, and scrutiny on the purpose of assessments, what is being valued and not valued, and who is benefiting or being marginalised from particular assessment practices.
{"title":"From the individual to the collective: Repositioning assessment as a social practice","authors":"Cheng-Wen Huang, Shanali Govender, Daniela Gachago","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.335","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.335","url":null,"abstract":"Although assessment theorists have long argued that assessment is a contextually located social practice, objectivist and psychometric discourses about assessment persist. The COVID-19 pandemic, in many contexts, unsettled and denaturalised assessment practices, creating a critical disruptive moment. This paper presents a reflection on what this moment might suggest about academics’ assessment beliefs and practices at a research-intensive institution in the Western Cape. Drawing on an institutional survey, we argue that dominant concerns about academic integrity and mark inflation surface discourses of assessment for certification and accountability. Exploring some examples of assessment practices during the emergency remote teaching period at the same institution, we highlight some factors that influence design. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, we contemplate the conditions of field and capital that create opportunities for change. We propose that change is contingent on the complex interplay of the capital and habitus of agents, as well as the nature of the field. We reaffirm the case for positioning assessment as a social practice, arguing that this enables the conditions for discussion, negotiation, and scrutiny on the purpose of assessments, what is being valued and not valued, and who is benefiting or being marginalised from particular assessment practices. ","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"43 38","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138588704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Transformation and diversification efforts in South African higher education system continue thirty years into democracy. Access universities play a crucial role in attracting students from previously excluded groups to higher education, specifically Black learners from poor schools with the least resources. Black lecturers in access universities, through shared cultural identities and backgrounds, carry an unspoken responsibility, beyond academic duties, to develop inclusive assessment and feedback practices. This unspoken responsibility must be carried out without compromising academic curriculum requirements and became acutely important during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Through transdisciplinary pragmatism in pedagogical practice, relatability ensures that students engage in meaning-making through participation in the development of solutions that address hyper-localised problems, thus contextualising science in real-world contexts. This study evaluates the role of relatability in the development of inclusive, transdisciplinary, and pragmatic formative assessment and feedback practices for student success in higher education. It does this by comparing the practices and experiences of young, Black lecturers in an access university. Our formative assessment and feedback methodologies and analysis of our teaching portfolios are presented to demonstrate how our personal student experiences have shaped more inclusive practices. In the discussion, we highlight the influence of unspoken responsibilities on Black lecturers to develop student outcomes beyond academic success through assessment and feedback. We seek to highlight how relatability can be leveraged to improve formative assessment and feedback practices towards strengthening inclusive teaching and learning for students’ academic success.
{"title":"Relatability's role in formative assessment and feedback practices of young Black academics in an access university","authors":"Karabo Sitto-Kaunda, O. Moroeng, Tebogo Makhubela","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i3.330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i3.330","url":null,"abstract":"Transformation and diversification efforts in South African higher education system continue thirty years into democracy. Access universities play a crucial role in attracting students from previously excluded groups to higher education, specifically Black learners from poor schools with the least resources. Black lecturers in access universities, through shared cultural identities and backgrounds, carry an unspoken responsibility, beyond academic duties, to develop inclusive assessment and feedback practices. This unspoken responsibility must be carried out without compromising academic curriculum requirements and became acutely important during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Through transdisciplinary pragmatism in pedagogical practice, relatability ensures that students engage in meaning-making through participation in the development of solutions that address hyper-localised problems, thus contextualising science in real-world contexts. This study evaluates the role of relatability in the development of inclusive, transdisciplinary, and pragmatic formative assessment and feedback practices for student success in higher education. It does this by comparing the practices and experiences of young, Black lecturers in an access university. Our formative assessment and feedback methodologies and analysis of our teaching portfolios are presented to demonstrate how our personal student experiences have shaped more inclusive practices. In the discussion, we highlight the influence of unspoken responsibilities on Black lecturers to develop student outcomes beyond academic success through assessment and feedback. We seek to highlight how relatability can be leveraged to improve formative assessment and feedback practices towards strengthening inclusive teaching and learning for students’ academic success.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"67 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138587069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Higher education developments are gradually enabling the re-conceptualisation of postgraduate research supervision as a teaching and learning practice. This re-conceptualisation has also led to the recognition that postgraduate research supervisors need to be appropriately capacitated so that they can master the supervisory craft. This study sought to explore the prospects for professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho, by examining supervisors’ trajectories of learning how to become supervisors and to identify areas for further professional development. Fifteen supervisors took part in the study. Nine (three associate professors and six senior lecturers) were interviewed through semi-structured interviews while six junior lecturers were interviewed through a focus group interview. The findings revealed that while most supervisors relied mainly on the way they were supervised, they also value the experiential learning accrued in their trajectories as supervisors. The study highlights issues for consideration in advancing professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho.
{"title":"Exploring the prospects for professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho","authors":"Tebello Tlali","doi":"10.36615/sotls.v7i2.310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v7i2.310","url":null,"abstract":"Higher education developments are gradually enabling the re-conceptualisation of postgraduate research supervision as a teaching and learning practice. This re-conceptualisation has also led to the recognition that postgraduate research supervisors need to be appropriately capacitated so that they can master the supervisory craft. This study sought to explore the prospects for professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho, by examining supervisors’ trajectories of learning how to become supervisors and to identify areas for further professional development. Fifteen supervisors took part in the study. Nine (three associate professors and six senior lecturers) were interviewed through semi-structured interviews while six junior lecturers were interviewed through a focus group interview. The findings revealed that while most supervisors relied mainly on the way they were supervised, they also value the experiential learning accrued in their trajectories as supervisors. The study highlights issues for consideration in advancing professional development of postgraduate supervisors at the National University of Lesotho.","PeriodicalId":248454,"journal":{"name":"Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-08-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124183131","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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