Integrating technology into teaching and learning at CPUT

We hope you are well and looking forward to the 2021 academic year. To support you in preparing your courses, CIET will offer a range of webinars. Please find the descriptions below.

You can register for these webinars using our online booking form: https://forms.gle/8kp5YN7qdsPJX9mt6

Blackboard assignment tool and Safeassign

Date: 25th of Feb 2021, 14.00-15.30

Facilitators: Janine Lockhart, Library Services, Sonwabo Jongile and Dr Faig Waghid, CIET

In this webinar, we will focus on two main areas on our LMS Blackboard: Online Assignments and the Plagiarism prevention tool, SafeAssign. Online assignments will focus on the creation and submission of online assignments, as well as how you as the lecturer can do the marking of the assignments online, by making use of Blackboard’s inline marking tools (commenting tools) and the interactive rubric (grading form). 

We will then focus on the plagiarism prevention service Safe Assign, built into Blackboard, that allows you to protect the originality of work and ensure a fair playing ground for all of your students. SafeAssign prevents plagiarism by detecting unoriginal content in student papers within your existing teaching and learning environment. SafeAssign can also further deter plagiarism by creating opportunities to educate students on proper attribution and citations while properly leveraging the wealth of information at their disposal. Janine Lockhart from the library will contribute to the discussion on how to use information ethically.

How to set higher-order multiple-choice questions and performance-based assessments 

Date: 4th of March 2021, 14.00-15.30

Facilitators: Ass Profs Eunice Ivala and Daniela Gachago, CIET

How to design and implement secure and reliable assessments has been one of the most difficult tasks in the remote teaching and learning experience last year. This webinar will unpack some of the issues with assessment, discuss how to set higher-order multiple-choice questions, and offer alternatives to exams, such as more performative oriented, peer and self-assessments to counter the challenge of plagiarism in exams.

Blackboard and Respondus assessments 

Date: 11th of March 2021, 14.00-15.30

Facilitators: Sonwabo Jongile and Mvuyisi Mavela, CIET

This session will introduce the creation and management of online assessments both in Blackboard and in Respondus. We will discuss opportunities and challenges using either of the tools. Online assessments created offline in Respondus can be printed and published directly to Blackboard, whereas those created directly in Blackboard are all set to be deployed into the content area. While no purely online assessment system can prevent cheating, practical tips on safe and authentic contexts for managing online assessment either through Respondus or Blackboard will round up the session.    

Blackboard Collaborate / Engagement tools 

Date: 18th of March 2021, 14.00-15.30

Facilitators: Ass Prof Daniela Gachago and Dr Faig Waghid, CIET

Last year saw a rapid uptake of synchronous online communication tools, such as Blackboard Collaborate and MS Teams. This webinar will demonstrate the use of Blackboard Collaborate and introduce student engagement tools, such as polls and Breakout Rooms in Collaborate. We will also showcase other tools, such as Google Jamboard and Padlet for creative brainstorming. 

Structuring content on Blackboard (including adaptive release) 

Date: 25th of March 2021, 14.00-15.30

Facilitators: Sonwabo Jongile and Mvuyisi Mavela, CIET

The ability to design how lecturers teach and students learn has been one of the most crucial aspects of the success of remote teaching and learning. This includes how to structure your online content delivery to guide students in their learning journey. How you design and structure your content in a way that is easy to follow, navigate, and appropriate for your subject will be the focus of this webinar. We will demonstrate tools and possibilities that our LMS has to offer in terms of structuring content on Blackboard, such as adaptive release. 

Learning design workshop 

Dates: 2nd of March 2021 and 9th of March 2021 (repeat), 14.00-16.00

Facilitators: Ass Prof Daniela Gachago and Dr Faig Waghid, CIET

In this learning course design online workshop, you will work on the design of one of your courses you are teaching in 2021. The workshop will help you to create an active and responsive learning experience for students based on Laurillard’s six ways of learning. We will take you through a short learning design process, aligning learning outcomes, activities, and assessments. For this workshop, you will need stable internet access, a mic, and access to a laptop or desktop.

You can register for these webinars using our online booking form: https://forms.gle/8kp5YN7qdsPJX9mt6

You can now register for the 2020 Teaching and Learning with Technology Day

Date: Thursday, 26th of November 2020, 9.00-15.30
Location: online

Theme: Staff and student experiences of Remote Teaching and Learning during times of disruption – lessons learnt for an unknown future

COVID-19 has challenged institutions of higher learning to rethink the way they teach and how their students learn. CPUT like other institutions nationally and as mandated by government, adopted a multi-modal approach to teaching and learning using the carousel model in order to make sure that no student would be left behind. Over the last eight months, CPUT and its stakeholders gained invaluable experiences in supporting teaching and learning remotely. What were your experiences with RTL? What was made possible? What challenges did you encounter? In terms of student access? How did you handle security and privacy of student data? What inequalities were highlighted? How will these experiences impact on the future of higher education? Should we/can we go back to the way we taught before, or are we going to see more uptake of blended learning or fully online teaching and learning in the future?

The event will feature both staff and students’ reflection on their experiences with multi-modal learning during lockdown and suggest ways we can use the lessons learnt for planning for 2021 and beyond. They will share specific tools and technologies they used and specific pedagogical interventions that worked particularly well for their students’ teaching, learning and assessment.

To book your place please use our online registration form

For more information and the programme see https://blogs.cput.ac.za/edutech/2020-teaching-and-learning-with-technology-day/

Edited by Zifikile Phindile Shangase, Daniela Gachago and Eunice Ivala

Introduction

Traditionally, co-teaching or team-teaching is discussed in the context of K12 education, in particular, in relation to specific subjects or issues, such as teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) or supporting learners with disabilities. However, researchers have recently been exploring the concept of co-teaching within institutions of higher education (IHEs), in fields such as teacher education, and as a response to massification of access to HE (Morelock et al, 2017) but also in the context of internationalisation and globalisation.

Co-teaching in a ‘global classroom’ (Kahn & Agnew, 2017) gives students the opportunity to hear multiple perspectives on the same topic and to learn from experts within and outside their institutions (Minett-Smith & Davis, 2019); broadens potential student base and can extend a University brand; and offers cross-institutional networking and research opportunities (Clark & Wilson, 2017).  Technology has the potential to support international partnerships between universities, facilitated by networked/blended/online pedagogies. These partnerships can bring together students and teachers from widely differing backgrounds, cultures and locations, to combine global perspectives and local relevance (Stewart & Gachago, 2016). Despite the above advantages, over half of universities’ collaborative teaching ventures have failed, with participants blaming bureaucratic administration, departmental silo mentality, work ethics, lack of flexibility and cultural barriers for the breakdown of collaboration. Furthermore, collaboration often fails due to a lack of a shared vision, poor administrative support and difficulties with funding arrangements (Morelock et al, 2017).

South Africa (SA) is still haunted by the legacy of Apartheid, which limits SA’s ability to collaborate and reach out beyond local borders and lecturers and students often lack the financial means to study, research or work abroad. Emerging technologies such as virtual classrooms, social media, MOOCs or Open Educational Resources / Practices provide opportunities to support academic collaboration across geographical distances (Bali and Caines, 2018; Czerniewicz, 2018). There is however, limited research around the use of context-sensitive use of technology to facilitate inter-institutional collaboration in teaching and learning and research globally  (Clarke & Wilson, 2017) and in the African context. This book will contribute insights towards closing this gap in knowledge by providing a range of chapters reflecting on how academics and academic staff developers have employed technology across the African continent and beyond, to co-teach and co-research. Some of the insights the book will provide are: on benefits and challenges of such collaboration, affordances of technologies to bridge unequal divides, emerging practices of continental collaboration and beyond, framed by a (Pan-)African spirit. Such collaborations also have potential to explore how these innovative approaches can support decolonising the African Higher Education institutions curriculum in support of this current agenda.

Submissions

We believe that it is of particular importance to research this issue from a Pan-African perspective, considering the huge differences in terms of resources but also in terms of beliefs around teaching and learning on the continent. International co-teaching, co-learning and co-researching require strategies and pedagogies built around collaborations, a plurality of knowledges and experiences, interconnections, networks, and engagement with the world. We would like to focus on initiatives that have grown from the Global South, which might have international collaborators but where the leadership resides in Africa. This edited volume will allow sharing of a wide range of experiences from the African continent, that not only focuses on the use of technology but engages more deeply with issues around cross-cultural collaboration. We also invite accounts of projects that failed and which can provide important lessons for future collaborations.

We are inviting submission to an edited collection of conceptual or theoretical papers and empirical research.

Based on the literature provided above, potential themes for this book are provided below.

1. Emerging practices of co-teaching and co-research
2. Pedagogies for co- teaching and co-research
3. Tools and technologies to support co-teaching /co-researching
4. Skills needed for co-teaching / co-researching
5. Admin/management challenges when setting up partnerships, managing partnerships such as commitment, and funding
6. Facilitating intercultural co-teaching/research (how does one negotiate power dynamics etc)
7. Evaluation criteria /quality assessment used during/after the co-teaching /co-research experiences
8. Implications/recommendations for curriculum development and academic staff development

The above themes will guide interested contributors in sharing their insights on how they have employed, supported, researched technology across the African continent and beyond, to co-teach and co-research and the issues that arose in the process and the curriculum development and staff development imperatives to be taken into consideration during co-teaching and co-researching. We encourage collaborative writing with the co-teaching / co-research team to acknowledge the multiplicity of experiences, views and cross-institutional learning.

Audience

This book is aimed at:

• Academics at institutions of higher learning in Africa who have an interest in co-teaching and co-researching
• Academics from Africa and beyond who would like to collaborate internationally through co-teaching/research using networked learning;
• Innovation centres that support the use of technology for co-teaching/research;
• Offices in charge of internationalisation strategies and initiatives in higher education institutions;
• Management and decision-makers who are in charge of creating supportive environments for international collaboration on co-teaching and co-researching
• Academic staff developers who need to support international collaborations on co-teaching/research
• Curriculum developers interested in designing courses for diverse audiences

Timelines

Submission of abstracts (250-500 words), author(s) details and key words by 20th of December 2019

Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 31st of January 2020

Submission of chapters: 31st of March 2020

Completion of blind peer review process: 31st of July 2020

Final submission of chapters: 30th of September 2020

Final manuscript to publisher: 31st of December 2020

For more information, please contact one of the co-editors:

Dr. Zifikile Phindile Shangase, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Shangasep@ukzn.ac.za

Prof. Daniela Gachago, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, gachagod@cput.ac.za

Prof. Eunice Ndeto Ivala, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, ivalae@cput.ac.za

Information on the publisher

The book will be published by Vernon Press (https://vernonpress.com/). We are still negotiating the possibility of an open access option. We are also in conversation with AfricanMinds as publishers for the African market.

References

Bali, M. & Caines, A. (2018). A call for promoting ownership, equity and agency in faculty development via connected learning. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education. 15(46). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-018-0128-8

Czerniewicz, L. (2018). Inequality as Higher Education Goes Online. Bonderup Dohn, N., Cranmer, S., Sime, J.-A., de Laat, M., Ryberg, Th. (Eds.): Networked Learning. Reflection and Challenges. Springer (eBook).

Clark, C.H., &  Wilson, B.P. (2017). The Potential for University Collaboration and Online Learning to Internationalise Geography Education. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 41(4): 488–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2017.1337087.

Kahn, H. E., & Agnew, M. (2017). Global Learning Through Difference: Considerations for Teaching, Learning, and the Internationalization of Higher Education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 21(1), 52–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315315622022

Minett-Smith, C., & Davis, C. L. (2019). Widening the discourse on team-teaching in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 0(0), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1577814

Morelock, J. R., Lester, M. M. G., Klopfer, M. D., Jardon, A. M., Mullins, R. D., Nicholas, E. L., & Alfaydi, A. S. (2017). Power, perceptions, and relationships: A model of co-teaching in higher education. College Teaching, 65(4), 182–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/87567555.2017.1336610

Stewart, K., & Gachago, D. (2016). “Being Human Today: A Digital Storytelling Pedagogy for Transcontinental Border Crossing.” British Journal for Educational Technology, 47 (3), 528–542.

Facilitators:

Daniela Gachago and Sonwabo Jongile, Centre for Innovative Educational Technology and Candice Livingston, Faculty of Education

Date and Venue: 

10th of October 2019, 13.00-15,00, Centre for eLearning, D6 campus

17th of October 2019, 13.00-15,0, lab 3.07, IT centre, Bellville

Workshop description:

Connecting and engaging with fellow academics online using social media has become an important part of an academic’s research practice. Academic reputations today can be considerably enhanced by developing an online profile or ‘academic digital identity’, broadening the reach of your research beyond conventional publishing channels or conference attendance. Academic social networking sites such as www.academia.edu or www.researchgate.net are important platforms to increase one’s academic visibility. Platforms such as the Conversation allow you to reach a broader public and increase you research impact. An important tool to manage your digital acadmic identity is an e-Portfolio.

Electronic Portfolios (e-Portfolios) are increasingly being considered in higher education (in particular professional degrees such as teacher education) to enable student teachers to reflect in, on and about practice in a structured way and demonstrate their growth and development as professionals. ePortfolios have multiple purposes for teaching staff and students alike (e.g. showcasing, learning, assessment, promotion). This seminar will consider the development opportunities that ePortfolios (as both a technology and an approach) can offer for: 1) teaching staff; and 2) learning opportunities with students.

For teaching staff: e-Portfolios for teaching staff demonstrate teacher passion for their teaching career and bring evidence of your teaching philosophy and your teaching practice. An important part of e-Portfolio pedagogy is the reflective component, one of the critical parts of student learning, or learning in general. As CPUT is embracing paperless practices, teaching and learning philosophies/portfolios for ad hominem promotion or the TDP will soon go online as well.

For student development: e-Portfolios are being used more and more widely to promote student reflection, assessment and presentation in innovative ways. Providing students with the opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge and skills paves the way for reflective practices by which experiences are turned into learning.

We will locate ourselves and interests in relation to a spectrum of broad uses of e-Portfolios, followed by more targeted considerations: What do I need to think about when choosing a tool to create an ePortfolio for myself or to use with students? What are some of the things to think about before starting? We will use Google Sites as an easy to use, freely available online platform to create ePortfolios.

 If you are interested please book your place using our online booking system the following link. We look forward to engaging with you in this workshop.

For more questions please contact Sonwabo Jongile at jongiles@cput.ac.za