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30 July 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Anja Aucamp
Dr Fumane Khanare opted to integrate poetry into her teaching practice, using innovative ways to keep the curriculum afloat and interesting at the same time.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown has severely affected teaching and learning. Lecturers and students alike have been challenged to explore innovative ways to keep the curriculum afloat and interesting at the same time. Dr Fumane Khanare, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, has opted to integrate poetry into her teaching practice. Her Community Psychology students have shifted over the past few months from merely interacting with the course material to generating their own content.

Learning in the times of lockdown

According to Dr Khanare, the psycho-social impact of COVID-19 remains unknown as the world grapples with a backlog of information, accompanied by loss and grief. However, collaborative strides are being made in the right direction, considering that this is unchartered territory. “Recommendations advocating for online teaching and learning, bidding for free data, and laptops for the majority of students, especially those at the peripheries of a mainstream economy – and of course physical distancing-adhering wellness programmes – may enable effective teaching and learning.” 

Why poetry?

“Lurched in at the deep end and taking into account the students who are not well-equipped with the integration of information and communications technology in learning, is significant. This realisation led me to seek ways to help my students develop a deeper understanding and critical-thinking skills, as well as becoming self-motivated students amid COVID-19,” explained Dr Khanare.

Students were first tasked with analysing the poetry of Butler-Kisber (2002). Thereafter, they were required to write poems about COVID-19, underpinned by the Community Psychology in Education module. “The activity provided students with an opportunity to use and reinforce concepts learnt prior to the lockdown, monitor their own understanding and progress, plus motivate them to come to the lecture prepared – a function known as co-creators of knowledge,” she said.

The artistic creations of these students were circulated among peers for review, allowing them to move from the peripheries to the centre of knowledge production amid a pandemic. 

Digitising the education space

Beyond the classroom, Dr Khanare will attend the 2020 Women Academics in Higher Education Virtual Symposium. As the co-convener of the World Education Research Association-International Research Network, she continues to ensure that research-related activities continue, despite a ban on international travel.

News Archive

Haemophilia home infusion workshop
2017-12-17


 Description: haemophilia Tags: Haemophilia, community, patient, clinical skills, training 

Parents receive training for homecare of their children with haemophilia.
Photo Supplied


Caregivers for haemophilia patients, and patients themselves from around the Free State and Northern Cape attended a home infusion workshop held by the Clinical Skills unit in the Faculty of Health Sciences in July 2017. “It felt liberating and I feel confident to give the factor to my son correctly,” said Amanda Chaba-Okeke, the mother of a young patient, at the workshop. Her son, also at the workshop, agreed. “It felt lovely and good to learn how to administer factor VIII.” 

Clinical skills to empower parents and communities

There were two concurrent sessions: one attended by doctors from the Haemophilia Treatment Centre, and the other attended by community members including factor VIII and XI recipients, caregivers and parents. The doctors’ meeting was shown informative videos and demonstrations on how to administer the newly devised factor VII and XI kit, and discussed the pressing need for trained nurses at local clinics. Dr Jaco Joubert, a haematologist, made an educational presentation to the community members.

The South African Haemophilia Foundation was represented by Mahlomola Sewolane, who gave a brief talk about the role of the organisation in relation to the condition. Meanwhile, procedural training in the simulation laboratory involved doctors and nurses helping participants to learn the procedures by using mannequins and even some volunteers from among the patients.

A medical condition causing serious complications
Haemophilia is a medical condition in which the ability of the blood to clot is severely impaired, even from a slight injury. The condition is typically caused by a hereditary lack of a coagulation factor, most often factor VIII. Usually patients must go through replacement therapy in which concentrates of clotting factor VIII (for haemophilia A) or clotting factor IX (for haemophilia B) are slowly dripped or injected into the vein, to help replace the clotting factor that is missing or low. Patients have to receive this treatment in hospital.

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