9th Annual Research in Teaching and Learning (RITAL) Conference Call for Papers

Date: Thursday 25 November 2021

Time: 9h00–16h00

Online virtual conference: Microsoft Teams

The RITAL conference will bring together academics across the disciplines who are interested in discussing institutional, curriculum and pedagogical adaptations during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Theme: Post-pandemic challenges in higher education: Integrating pedagogy and technology-enhanced teaching and learning practices

The RITAL conference will enable academics to redefine, rethink and re-imagine our roles as lecturers at a university. The rapid shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT) meant that lecturers had to re-learn and adopt new ways of teaching. A combination of synchronous and asynchronous teaching approaches became vital during the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating lecturers’ capacity and openness towards innovation and technology-enhanced learning opportunities. As lecturers moved their content online via the learning management systems (LMS), a key concern was the pedagogical adaptations made during the ERT.

The RITAL conference will allow academics to discuss the integration of pedagogy and technology-enhanced teaching and learning related to these key questions:

How does the transition to ERT influence lecturers’ pedagogical strategies?

How does ERT affect student learning and the social relationships of learning?

How do institutional responsiveness and strategies impact teaching and learningduring the pandemic?

How do lecturers deal with the social inequities of our socio-cultural and educational landscape, such as students’ lack of data and digital technology, students’ motivation to learn and students’ lacking basic resources such as food and electricity?

How does technology-enhanced learning influence our perspective of decolonisationin higher education?

How can technology-enhanced learning lead to transformative learning among our students?

Empirical studies, reflections and conceptual papers will be considered. Academic staff and postgraduate students are invited to submit abstracts that focus on post-pandemic challenges in higher education under any of the following conference sub-themes:

• Online assessments
• Pedagogical practices
• Digital education
• Remote teaching and learning
• Academic development
• Decolonisation and transformation of the curriculum
• Technology-enhanced teaching and learning
• Language and the curriculum
• Enhancing student learning and success
• Student engagement
• Curriculum development
• Institutional transformation

Academic support staff are also encouraged to participate, e.g., the Student Counselling Unit, The Disability Unit, HIV\ AIDS Unit, and the Community Engagement Unit.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submission of abstracts: 2 November 2021.

Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 8 November 2021.

Abstracts of 200-250 words for online presentations.

For questions, please contact Najwa Norodien-Fataar  and Nicolene Pasquallie