The lenses we use to research student experiences:
- Hlengwa, Amanda I, McKenna, Sioux, Njovane, Thandokazi
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux , Njovane, Thandokazi
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142736 , vital:38112 , ISBN 9781928331902 , http://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/e3388578-a030-46de-8d8e-df18dcb52bec/Higher_Education_Pathways_9781928331902.pdf#page=160
- Description: The recent student protests that erupted in the South African higher education landscape in 2015 and 2016 suggest that research concerning student experiences in our institutions has become all the more crucial. In light of this, our chapter argues for theoretically rigorous and conceptually rich approaches to research on the student experience, without which we will not be in a position to address the significant concerns raised by these protests. There is, of course, already a robust body of work detailing the student experience (for example Case, 2013; Case, Marshall, McKenna, and Mogashana, 2018; Walker and Wilson-Strydom, 2017). However, questions are often raised about the extent to which such research is being drawn on in subsequent studies (Niven, 2012) and this suggests that limited accounts of student experience remain dominant despite this body of research (Boughey and McKenna, 2016). It thus seemed important to make sense of the ways in which current research on student experience is being constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux , Njovane, Thandokazi
- Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142736 , vital:38112 , ISBN 9781928331902 , http://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/e3388578-a030-46de-8d8e-df18dcb52bec/Higher_Education_Pathways_9781928331902.pdf#page=160
- Description: The recent student protests that erupted in the South African higher education landscape in 2015 and 2016 suggest that research concerning student experiences in our institutions has become all the more crucial. In light of this, our chapter argues for theoretically rigorous and conceptually rich approaches to research on the student experience, without which we will not be in a position to address the significant concerns raised by these protests. There is, of course, already a robust body of work detailing the student experience (for example Case, 2013; Case, Marshall, McKenna, and Mogashana, 2018; Walker and Wilson-Strydom, 2017). However, questions are often raised about the extent to which such research is being drawn on in subsequent studies (Niven, 2012) and this suggests that limited accounts of student experience remain dominant despite this body of research (Boughey and McKenna, 2016). It thus seemed important to make sense of the ways in which current research on student experience is being constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Dangers of generic pedagogical panaceas: implementing sevice-learning differently in diverse disciplines
- Hlengwa, Amanda I, McKenna, Sioux
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61051 , vital:27933 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_67_2017/Dangers_of_generic_pedagogical_panaceas_Implementing_service-learning_differently_in_diverse_disciplines.sflb.ashx
- Description: Descriptions of service-learning in the literature tend to position it as a powerful pedagogic tool as well as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ applicable across all disciplines and institutional contexts. Furthermore service-learning is couched as a moral imperative. In the South African context, this moral imperative is translated into policy pronouncements driving institutions of higher education to demonstrate responsiveness to the transformation needs of broader society. In this article, two departments, Philosophy and Environmental Science, at one university are used as case studies to interrogate what enables the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. Drawing on the work of Fairclough, this paper identifies the dominant discourses at play and considers how they constrain or enable the uptake of service-learning. We advocate for the infusion of service-learning in curricula, but argue that institutional culture, disciplinary values and the structure of knowledge impact on its uptake and should not be dismissed in the implementation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I , McKenna, Sioux
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: article , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61051 , vital:27933 , http://joe.ukzn.ac.za/Libraries/No_67_2017/Dangers_of_generic_pedagogical_panaceas_Implementing_service-learning_differently_in_diverse_disciplines.sflb.ashx
- Description: Descriptions of service-learning in the literature tend to position it as a powerful pedagogic tool as well as an exemplar of ‘best practice’ applicable across all disciplines and institutional contexts. Furthermore service-learning is couched as a moral imperative. In the South African context, this moral imperative is translated into policy pronouncements driving institutions of higher education to demonstrate responsiveness to the transformation needs of broader society. In this article, two departments, Philosophy and Environmental Science, at one university are used as case studies to interrogate what enables the uptake of service-learning as a pedagogic tool. Drawing on the work of Fairclough, this paper identifies the dominant discourses at play and considers how they constrain or enable the uptake of service-learning. We advocate for the infusion of service-learning in curricula, but argue that institutional culture, disciplinary values and the structure of knowledge impact on its uptake and should not be dismissed in the implementation process.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Employing safe bets: reflections on attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of academics
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142145 , vital:38053 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142145 , vital:38053 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
The implementation of a service-learning component in an organic chemistry laboratory course
- Glover, Sarah R, Sewry, Joyce D, Bromley, Candice L, Davies-Coleman, Michael T, Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Authors: Glover, Sarah R , Sewry, Joyce D , Bromley, Candice L , Davies-Coleman, Michael T , Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70699 , vital:29690 , https://doi.org/10.1021/ed2008153
- Description: Education institutions globally are increasingly expected to explore avenues for the implementation of service-learning into their curricula. A second-year undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiment, in which the undergraduate students make azo dyes, can provide a vehicle for a service-learning module in which university undergraduate students then teach students from resource-limited secondary schools how to make azo dyes. Evidence is provided to show how the theory is reinforced for both sets of students through a shared practical experience. The practical application of chemistry is conveyed through the use of the synthetic azo dyes to dye tshirts. The results of this study show that the service-learning experience clearly assists undergraduate students to appreciate the role of chemists in the broader society while at the same time increasing awareness of the inequalities in school education systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Glover, Sarah R , Sewry, Joyce D , Bromley, Candice L , Davies-Coleman, Michael T , Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70699 , vital:29690 , https://doi.org/10.1021/ed2008153
- Description: Education institutions globally are increasingly expected to explore avenues for the implementation of service-learning into their curricula. A second-year undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiment, in which the undergraduate students make azo dyes, can provide a vehicle for a service-learning module in which university undergraduate students then teach students from resource-limited secondary schools how to make azo dyes. Evidence is provided to show how the theory is reinforced for both sets of students through a shared practical experience. The practical application of chemistry is conveyed through the use of the synthetic azo dyes to dye tshirts. The results of this study show that the service-learning experience clearly assists undergraduate students to appreciate the role of chemists in the broader society while at the same time increasing awareness of the inequalities in school education systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Infusing service learning in curricula: a theoretical exploration of infusion possibilities
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70765 , vital:29727
- Description: In South Africa one result of the appeal for greater social responsiveness from Higher Education institutions has been for service-learning, a component of Community Engagement, to be infused into curricula in higher education. This paper suggests that infusion of service-learning into curricula is based on broad assumptions which need to be researched further. There are complexities which need to be considered regarding the potential of service-learning to bridge the gap between the university and society, and the extent to which it is the most appropriate pedagogic tool for this purpose. This paper argues that Basil Bernstein’s theory of classification and framing as well as his work on vertical and horizontal discourses is potentially useful for understanding the factors that could impact on infusing service-learning into curricula. Thus, the potential of Bernstein’s work to provide insights into the possibilities and constraints of infusing service-learning into the curricula is explored.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70765 , vital:29727
- Description: In South Africa one result of the appeal for greater social responsiveness from Higher Education institutions has been for service-learning, a component of Community Engagement, to be infused into curricula in higher education. This paper suggests that infusion of service-learning into curricula is based on broad assumptions which need to be researched further. There are complexities which need to be considered regarding the potential of service-learning to bridge the gap between the university and society, and the extent to which it is the most appropriate pedagogic tool for this purpose. This paper argues that Basil Bernstein’s theory of classification and framing as well as his work on vertical and horizontal discourses is potentially useful for understanding the factors that could impact on infusing service-learning into curricula. Thus, the potential of Bernstein’s work to provide insights into the possibilities and constraints of infusing service-learning into the curricula is explored.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Institutionalising service-learning
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:29685 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC131578
- Description: Higher education has three core pillars: teaching, research and community engagement. Teaching and research endeavours have dominated university agendas. However, momentum in prioritising community engagement is growing. The developing emphasis placed on the third pillar raises an opportunity to investigate how community engagement is conceptualised and therefore prioritised within the higher education landscape. Community engagement is expressed as a continuum in higher education inclusive of five overlapping activities of which service-learning is just one. This paper outlines what service-learning is and its potential role in the transformation of higher education, as well as to signal the importance of institutional commitment to service-learning. Lastly, the paper offers a synthesis of the available literature on how to implement successfully service-learning modules.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Hlengwa, Amanda I
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:29685 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC131578
- Description: Higher education has three core pillars: teaching, research and community engagement. Teaching and research endeavours have dominated university agendas. However, momentum in prioritising community engagement is growing. The developing emphasis placed on the third pillar raises an opportunity to investigate how community engagement is conceptualised and therefore prioritised within the higher education landscape. Community engagement is expressed as a continuum in higher education inclusive of five overlapping activities of which service-learning is just one. This paper outlines what service-learning is and its potential role in the transformation of higher education, as well as to signal the importance of institutional commitment to service-learning. Lastly, the paper offers a synthesis of the available literature on how to implement successfully service-learning modules.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
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