In this paper, the author explores some of the issues associated with teaching about compulsory heterosexuality and schooling in an undergraduate sociology programme. Using a novel approach to gathering data, the article analyses the stories students submitted about themselves or others who were counter normative in terms of gender and sexuality…

Institutes of higher education (IHEs) have to consider benefits of remote learning post-pandemic. Retrogression to physical contact is counterproductive. The hasty implementation of remote learning during the pandemic deprived IHEs of opportunities to efficiently enact and theorise about it. Post-pandemic, IHEs have opportunities to theorise about…

Slido is an interactive online platform facilitating active learning in rural university settings. Rural universities often need more resources, including access to technology and opportunities for diverse pedagogical approaches. Traditional lecture-based teaching predominates due to these constraints, which can hinder student engagement and…

This paper explores the conflicts engendered during the artist's formation due to repeated submission to assessment in formal creative arts education. In a comparative qualitative study of two visuals arts practice undergraduate curricula, the underlying interpretative approaches to intentionality were uncovered to comprehend the impact of the…

Growing class sizes and the rapid advancement of information technology have prompted institutions to implement blended learning in their academic offering. There are few reports in the literature on a holistic assessment of the effectiveness of the instructional design of blended learning courses for large classes. We defined effectiveness from a…

Academic development is a recent project in the university, intended to enable the university to respond to the needs of a more diverse student body. In South Africa, such work arose during late apartheid, and has now moved to a more central institutional position advocating responsiveness in the light of the educational disparities that are the…

Recently, the South African Institute of Physics undertook a major review of university physics education. The report highlighted the necessity for further transformation of the teaching of physics, particularly in relation to the teaching of under-prepared students. In this article we examine how physics lecturers in South Africa reported how…

Graduates with well-developed capabilities in finance are invaluable to our society and in increasing demand. Universities face the challenge of designing finance programmes to develop these capabilities and the essential knowledge that underpins them. Our research responds to this challenge by identifying threshold concepts that are central to…

At the University of the Free State (UFS) in South Africa, professional development is characterised by its focus on the advancement of scholarly teaching in the disciplines. Practices followed are informed by the scholarship of teaching and learning movement. Within learning communities, special attention is given to the motivational conditions…

This study explored the perceptions of academic staff towards admission of students with disabilities, and their accommodation once accepted into an undergraduate Civil Engineering program in a South African university. Qualitative responses relating to the perceptions of five academic staff were obtained through semi-structured interviews. The…

Over the past few years, the virtual landscape of South African higher education institutions has changed as a result of ubiquitous and ever-present technological initiatives that can potentially provide students with a flexible learning space. Within these learning spaces, Web 2.0 tools have transformed educators' pedagogical approaches to…

The aim of this research was to develop a model of factors affecting students' ability to interpret external representations (ERs) in biochemistry. The study was qualitative in design and was guided by the modelling framework of Justi and Gilbert. Application of the process outlined by the framework, and consultation with relevant literature, led…

This article reports on a phenomenographic-based study of the expectations of teaching among undergraduate physics students. Data are drawn from a range of course-contexts at each of two quite different universities--one South African and one Swedish--and five qualitatively different expectations of physics teaching are identified and exemplified.…