Higher education in post-apartheid South Africa was always likely to attract academic interest, and yet there remains a dearth of research on creating teaching and learning spaces suitable for students from diverse backgrounds. Using examples from higher education institutions across the Southern African Developing Community (SADC) region, this volume explores the ways teaching and learning spaces are being used to advance the transformation agenda of higher education in these regions, and provides concrete recommendations for the future.
The book is sure to appeal to academics from a variety of disciplines - from African, African American and ethnic studies to education and sociology. It will be of particular interest to teacher trainers, administrators and policy-makers working in higher education, and anyone else with a stake in managing cultural diversity in education.
About the Author :
Zilungile Lungi Sosibo is a Professor of Education and Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Education at Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. Her research focus is mainly on assessment and evaluation, and diversity and transformation in higher education. She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings and books in both areas, and has obtained numerous grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF) and CPUT in order to fund her research and disseminate it in local and international conferences. She has partnerships in the USA, Nigeria, and numerous others locally. Eunice Ndeto Ivala is Associate Professor and Coordinator in Educational Technology at the Centre for Innovative Educational Technology at Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa. Her research focus is on information and communication technology (ICT)-mediated teaching and learning in developing contexts. She has published/co-published more than 60 research papers and edited/co-edited two conference proceedings and three books. In 2018, she won an award for excellence in e-Learning from Global Learn Tech for the impact of her research on educational and individual practices.
Review :
Interesting and of sound quality.
Dr. Chaunda L. Scott
Oakland University
The transformation of teaching methods and curricula to address a changing socioeconomic world and redress social and economic injustice is central to the success of higher education systems. While the chapters in this volume focus on southern Africa, "Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Spaces" provides important and useful case studies, ideas, and recommendations for educators and policymakers around the globe. The history of colonization and apartheid, and the efforts at de-colonization, in southern Africa, makes the knowledge currently being produced there especially important and useful to educators everywhere. I recommend this innovative and useful volume to educators and policymakers who are endeavoring to achieve equity and inclusion and improve the quality of education available to all students.
The strong points of "Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Spaces" include
-- its multifaceted, intersectional approach that includes sex/gender as well as race/culture and socioeconomic status
-- attention to the need to decolonize both knowledge and the educational system itself and to consider how to incorporate indigenous knowledges and pedagogies in HE
-- concern with analyzing both equity of access and equity of outcomes and how HE institutions reproduce and can reduce social inequities
-- discussion of a variety of pedagogical strategies such as bilingual instruction, code-switching, peer assessment, ICT, blended learning, curriculum as process
-- discussion of the need for HE institutions to attend to students' economic and social environments because these affect their academic success
-- discussion of the need for HE institutions to attend to students' social and life skills as well as academic skills and knowledge
-- discussion of institutional practices and policies such as education funding (of individual students and HE institutions), teacher professional development, policies and support systems regarding gender-based violence, the curriculum development process
Dr. Diana L. Swanson
Professor Emerita, Department of English
Northern Illinois University
