Day One: Wednesday, 21 July 2021

Papers 1: Assessing affective aspects of learning

A Prerequisite for Sustainable Educational Development in Nigeria

Nwameze Owhoeke (Federal College of Education, Omoku, Nigeria)

This study explores the potential role of cultural education as a prerequisite for sustainable western education development in Nigeria. It is a narrative textual case study (NTCS)—that is, all materials were sourced through secondary data. The paper discusses in detail the concept, value, importance, overall impact, and the contributions of cultural education to the development of western education in Nigeria. The paper concludes with the recommendation that cultural education should form part of the educational curriculum in Nigerian institutions of learning.

Feelings about Feedback: Who Cares about What?

Elizabeth Black & Kara Makara Fuller (University of Glasgow, UK)

What do learners and teachers care about most when it comes to feedback? If feedback is a dialogue, are we talking at cross-purposes? This paper draws on findings from a research project exploring practical solutions to enduring concerns around the provision of feedback in a School of Education within a large research-intensive university. Data from focus groups with students and interviews with teachers supports insights into the understandings and priorities of these different groups of feedback “senders” and “receivers” to answer the question: What features of consistent feedback support effective assessment for learning?

Developing Growth Mindsets

Anita Campbell (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Given the wide-ranging benefits of growth mindsets, enthusiastic educators and researchers have tried to instill growth mindsets in students at all levels of study. However, interventions to develop growth mindsets have produced mixed results. I explore some reasons for the mixed results from growth mindset intervention studies through a summary of experiences that promote growth mindsets and a comparison with interview data from first-year engineering students at a South African university who were assessed as having strong growth mindsets. Limitations with assessing mindsets through scales and interviews will be discussed, as well as suggestions for developing growth mindset environments.

The Human Side of Teaching

Nitza Davidovitch & Ruth Dorot (Ariel University, Israel)

The COVID-19 pandemic forced academic institutions in Israel, as well as those across the world, to instantaneously adopt online learning. In this paper we will present the findings of a study on academic lecturers’ opinions concerning various aspects of the advantages and shortcomings of online learning, adopting a systemic, multi-institutional perspective. Participants in the study were 223 lecturers in universities, teaching colleges, engineering colleges, and private colleges in Israel. Findings of the study indicate that instructors have little preference for online teaching, noting the lack of personal, social, and emotional interactions with students and colleagues as one of the main shortcomings of online teaching. Only one third of participants preferred online teaching, and most instructors did not believe that online teaching offers an advantage in terms of the quality of teaching.

Responding to Uncertainty in Higher Education through the Spirit of “Splace” and Flexible Learning

Krystle Ontong (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Emergency Remote Teaching and “learning anywhere, anytime” rapidly became part of daily academic jargon once the pandemic began. However, in a South African context the application of these notions became somewhat more challenging, given the country’s history and socio-economic inequalities. Therefore, the South African government, adopted the term remote multimodal teaching and learning as a desensitized approach which acknowledges the diversity of students. The successful implementation of multimodal models relies on flexible pedagogies (FPs) to ensure that “no student is left behind.” However, FPs can only be effective after formulating a reconceptualization of the intersectionality between the places and spaces (‘splaces’) in which teaching and learning occurs.

Papers 1 Discussion