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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

Victory lies beyond the moment
2017-12-25


 Description: 2017 Victory lies beyond the moment Tags: 2017 Victory lies beyond the moment 

Mokoena learns a new skill at the Learning Festival arranged
by the Centre for Community Engagement.
Photo: Igno van Niekerk

For Mokoena it was just a regular day. Another day. Another rush. As a taxi driver you get used to the adrenaline, taking gaps, foot on the accelerator. Alert. Honking hooters. Angry drivers.

Then it came out of nowhere. A stroke. The one side of his body was going numb. What was happening? What about his job? His income? His life?

Fast-forward a few years.

I meet Mokoena at the Learning Festival arranged by the Centre for Community Engagement, in association with Bloemshelter on the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus. A reserved young man, Mokoena is busy at one of the stands where a range of people from rural communities come to learn new skills. At no cost. They then go back to teach the skills they learnt in their communities. Job creation, that’s the philosophy: as you develop, you need to develop others. 

When I talk to Karen Venter, Head of Service Learning at the Centre for Community Engagement, the stories are overwhelming. “There was the lady who attended 19 workshops in two days. She went back to her community, shared her knowledge and became an entrepreneur helping others take care of themselves.”

New skills
Mokoena is also here to acquire new skills. After his stroke he was told by occupational therapy students about a project that teaches you to build your own house with raw materials. He takes out his cellphone with a sense of pride. Scrolls through some pictures: “This is my house. I built it from all kinds of things, cow manure, bottles, clay, other people’s rubbish.” The pictures show a house in a neat environment. Solid. Proud. A lot of healing came with building the house. Karen explains: “The physical work he was doing, pushing a wheelbarrow and working, but more than that – the knowledge that he could take charge, make a difference, work on a dream – the healing power of a sense of purpose. He became stronger and more confident.”

Victory 
Mokoena walks back to the sewing workshop he was attending before sharing his story. The buzz continues inside the Equitas Building where artisans, entrepreneurs and UFS staff are sharing their skills. Sewing machines hum away and infrequent beeps sound from a table where an excited group of non-scientists have just completed the building of circuits. Faces light up with every beep. Hands raised. Fists clenched. Victory!

But the victory lies beyond the moment. It’s in the confidence, the learning, and the sharing that will be taking place when these people go back to their communities. Some will participate in research projects; others will benefit from curricular requirements leading students into distant communities, and others will be hosting workshops at the next Learning Festival. 

And there will be more great stories. Like Mokoena’s.

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