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Confronting the COVID-19 crisis with curriculum relevance

30 July 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Anja Aucamp

Dr Khanare_read more — 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

NRF commits R30-million for research at the UFS

2007-02-20

The National Research Foundation (NRF) has committed approximately R30-million for various research projects at the University of the Free State (UFS).

According to Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of Research Development at the UFS, the NRF has also approved all eight research niche areas that were submitted to the NRF, the highest number approved at any university in the country.

Prof Swanepoel said the 24 research projects for which funding had been obtained from the NRF ranged from traditional healing and HIV/Aids/tuberculosis management, practices of the paediatric anti-retroviral programme at the UFS to nano-materials synthesis and characterisation.

He said the eight research niche areas were part of an initiative at the UFS to establish strategic clusters of academic and research excellence.

“There will be six strategic academic clusters at the UFS and the eight NRF-approved research niche areas will form part of them,” Prof Swanepoel said.

The six strategic clusters are:

1. Water management in water-scarce areas

2. New frontiers in poverty reduction and sustainable development

3. Social transformation in diverse societies

4. Ecologically sound value chains for agricultural commodities

5. Materials and nano sciences

6. Advanced bio-molecular research

Prof Swanepoel said that the UFS had also submitted five proposals in terms of an NRF initiative to establish research chairs at South African universities.

“Linked to our intention to establish six strategic academic clusters, five proposals for the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARCHi) were submitted. All five pre-proposals were accepted in the first round of screening, and successful candidates have been invited to submit full proposals by the end of February,” he said.

The proposed research chairs are:

Petro- and organometallic chemistry

Biocatalytic and biomimetic oxidation-reduction systems

Nano-solid state lighting

People’s health and well-being

Water management

Speaking at the official opening of the university earlier this month, the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof Frederick Fourie, said: “The cluster initiative represents a strategic initiative to focus our energies in a few key areas, investing in them so that the UFS can become an international leader in those fields.”

“A medium sized university such as the UFS with relatively limited human, physical and financial resources has to achieve this kind of ‘critical mass’ and synergy to establish itself in terms of its core functions of teaching/learning, research and community engagement,” said Prof Fourie.

Media release

Issued by: Lacea Loader

Media Representative

Tel: 051 401 2584

Cell: 083 645 2454

E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za

20 February 2007

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