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14 December 2023 | Story Dr Jared McDonald | Photo Supplied
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference
From the left: Dr Eleanor Bernard, Assistant Director in the Centre for Teaching and Learning on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus; Dr Jared McDonald, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal; and Prof Pearl Sithole, Campus Vice-Principal: Academic and Research on the Qwaqwa Campus.

From 21 to 23 November, more than 160 delegates gathered at the Golden Gate Highlands National Park in the Eastern Free State for the fourth biennial conference on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) in the South, dubbed SOTL 4 the South.

This year’s iteration was proudly hosted by the University of the Free State (UFS) and organised by Dr Jared McDonald, Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal; Dr Eleanor Bernard, Assistant Director in the Centre for Teaching and Learning on the UFS Qwaqwa Campus; and Prof Zach Simpson, Editor-in-Chief of the SOTL in the South journal. Established and emerging scholars, as well as postgraduate students working in the field of teaching and learning from across disciplines in Southern Africa, came together to share ideas, debate perspectives, and learn from experiences related to the conference theme: Teaching and Learning for Sustainable Futures.

The programme included presentations on a wide variety of topics, such as the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence in higher education, academic literacy, student success, teaching and learning for sustainable development, curriculum design, and digital futures. The programme also included two keynote presentations by leading scholars in education for sustainability, Prof Heila Lotz-Sisitka, Distinguished Professor and SARChI Research Chair in Global Change and Social Learning Systems in the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University, and Prof Kasturi Behari-Leak, Associate Professor of Higher Education Studies and Dean of the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Higher Education Development.

The organisers were delighted with the quality of the scholarship that was shared. “This conference has been 18 months in the making, and we are grateful to all the delegates for embracing, and engaging with, the conference’s theme. We are also appreciative to all the reviewers on the Scientific Review Committee who were generous with their time, reflections, and critiques in assisting us to deliver a compelling, impactful programme,” said Dr McDonald. Dr Bernard added that “the conference would not have been possible without the generous support of the University of the Free State’s Executive Management and Centre for Teaching and Learning, as well as the senior management of the Qwaqwa Campus, who have supported the conference from the time it was just an idea”.

Prof Zach Simpson expressed his gratitude to the UFS for its support and assistance. “The last in-person conference of SOTL in the South was in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was wonderful to see so many scholars come together in a beautiful location to engage with a compelling and topical conference theme.” Selected papers have been invited to contribute to a special issue of SOTL in the South, edited by the organisers and due for publication in mid-2024.

SOTL is an informal ‘body’ that is not affiliated with any particular parent organisation or institution. Its aim is to advance scholarship in teaching and learning across the Global South – conceived of not just in geographic terms – but as concerned with questions of power, access, inequity, and marginalisation, even where these might be present in the Global ‘North’. Moreover, it aims to give voice to novice SOTL practitioners and to serve as a platform for academics, particularly novice academics, to contribute their scholarly work.

News Archive

UFS in partnership with USA ’s Council on Economic Education 
2006-02-01

A visit to the campus of the UFS was part of the recent NCEE workshop.  Standing from the left are Prof Soehendro (Chairperson:  National Education Standardisation Body of Indonesia), Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean:  Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS), Prof Elena Reshetnyak (Vice-Dean for International Programs, Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, Kharkiv, Ukraine) and Mrs Annely Minnaar (local coordinator of the NCEE and professional officer of the UFS Department of Agricultural Economics).  Seated are from left Prof  Sutjipto ( Chairman of the Indonesian Council on Economic Education) and Dr Patty Elder (Vice-President of the NCEE's national programme).
Photo: Stephen Collett


UFS in partnership with USA ’s Council on Economic Education 

A group of 50 teachers in Economics, learning facilitators and lecturers from eight countries attended a ‘train the trainers’ workshop this past week in Bloemfontein.  The workshop forms part of the outreach programme of the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE) in the United States of America’s (USA) effort to improve the quality of the training in Economics of teachers and lecturers across the world. 

The UFS and the Free State Department of Education are the NCEE’s first partners in Africa.  “The initiative started in the Free State because of the connection that existed between the UFS and the NCEE,” said Prof Klopper Oosthuizen, from the UFS Department of Agricultural Economics and initiator of the cooperative agreement with the NCEE.

Three faculties at the UFS are involved in the cooperative agreement namely the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, the Faculty of the Humanities and the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

A group of 84 teachers and learning facilitators in the Free State attended the ‘train the teacher’ workshop at the UFS in December 2005 in an effort to improve the quality of Economics classes at schools in the Free State.  The last national workshop will take place in June 2006 in Bloemfontein.  During this workshop a group of 40 teachers and learning facilitators in the Free State will be trained by the NCEE.    

“Because of the success with the programme in the Free State Dr Patty Elder, Vice-President of the NCEE’s national programme, announced during last week’s workshop that the initiative will now be extended to the other provinces in the country,” said Prof Oosthuizen.  According to Prof Oosthuizen discussions around a strategy to get the other provinces on board of the programme also took place between Dr Elder and Prof Herman van Schalkwyk, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.  Prof van Schalkwyk will take the lead in this regard.  

“The presence of Dr Elder and the executive directors of similar education networks in the Ukraine and Indonesia is an indication of the NCEE’s seriousness with the programme in Africa,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

Prof Oosthuizen explained that South Africa is competing to obtain funds from the NCEE to have a total South African representation in the workshops in the following one-year training period. 

South Africa has a good chance of establishing the network quickly because of the presentation of the last national workshop in Bloemfontein in June 2006.  “We are going to try to have as much South African representation as possible at this workshop,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

Concurrent with the workshop in June 2006, a programme will be developed that will be attended by at least five other provincial education departments and representatives of five other universities.  These representatives will then be able to observe on a first-hand basis how this action learning takes place and how the participating countries plan to establish and expand their networks,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

“The NCEE has been working together with international partners since 1992 to strengthen their Economics teaching systems.  They have already succeeded in increasing literacy in Economics of schools in the USA and more than 20 East Block countries.  More than 1,5 million learners in the East Block countries have already been served by this initiative,” said Prof Oosthuizen.

According to Prof Oosthuizen the focus of the NCEE has since 2004 moved away from the East Block countries to Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.  The representatives that attended last week’s workshop were from South Africa, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Indonesia, Mexico, Paraguay and Uruguay.  Countries such as Egypt, who was also present at last week’s workshop, are eager to start a similar network. 

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel:   (051) 401-2584
Cell:  083 645 2454
E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
31 January 2006

 
 

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