The culture of excellent teaching is firmly entrenched at UP across all fields of study. It is evident that the 2022 academic year will require the University to pivot to remote teaching and learning, at any stage, depending on the lockdown level. The University is committed to ensuring that all our students complete their academic year successfully. Student success remains a priority. To facilitate this, it is essential that lecturers keep on teaching during scheduled class times to discuss difficult concepts and answer questions. The general guidelines for undergraduate teaching are as follows:
Other important information for academics:
Teaching and Learning related support from other departments (not EI):
UP introduced a flipped-learning methodology that requires students to prepare thoroughly for class, complete pre-class assessments and engage in class.
The clickUP help site and Blackboard help site contain many resources on how to use all the above-mentioned tools. You may also contact the e-support office, but the response time might be slower during this period due to high volumes of requests.
| Educational consultant | Instructional designer | |
|---|---|---|
| EMS | Elmien van Amerom | Donald Tive |
| Education | Dr Marius Pienaar | Jacky Maroga |
| EBIT | Vacant | Alastair Smart |
| Humanities | Marena Lotriet | Gaby Pretorius |
| LAW | Alfred Hlabane | Dennis Kriel |
| NAS | Vacant | Mpho Thukane |
| Theology | Dr Marius Pienaar | Gretchen Jacobs |
| HEALTH |
Vacant |
Dr Hannelie Untiedt Nomathemba Ngcobo Erika de Bruyn |
| VET | Dr El-Marie Mostert | Velly Nkosi |
| Mamelodi | Faith Mathibedi | Philip Mthembu |
In terms of a learning theory, the University beliefs that students actively construct their own knowledge and understandings. This is best done by engaging students in class using inquiry-based teaching. A flipped teaching approach requires students to prepare before class, enabling new teaching to build actively on existing knowledge. In this way, more time is available in class for focusing on inquiry-based activities, such as developing ideas, exploring consequences, justifying solutions, discussions, and solving problems. This is best done by engaging students in class using inquiry-based teaching where lecturers can focus on complex concepts and problems. The inquiry-based flip approach can be used across different instructional modalities.
The University's flipped learning model for full-time students assumes three phases in teaching and learning, namely (a) preparation before class, (b) engagement in class and (c) consolidation after class.
At the very least, the Study Guide and your clickUP module should stipulate a clear, weekly work schedule so that students can keep up independently. Quality instruction requires students to come to class prepared, as this enables new teaching to build actively on existing knowledge. Students can prepare for the class using traditional textbooks, eTextbooks, PDF & Word files, videos or publishers learning systems. For more information about creating your own videos, click here. For YouTube videos URLs should be zero-rated please see the guidelines.
Assess before class: Students’ preparedness for each class should be assessed before the online class. These assessments provide valuable information to a lecturer that can be used during contact or virtual sessions to address misconceptions.
Inquiry-based learning (i.e. teaching by questioning and not by telling, following Socrates) enables students to think, communicate and justify their ideas. Some lockdown levels require mainly online teaching during regular scheduled class time to discuss difficult concepts and answer questions (contact or virtually - depending on the lockdown level). This will keep students on track and make them feel safe!
Some face-to-face teaching with a limited number of students attending their classes physically due to the social distancing requirements. In cases where class sizes exceed the number of students that are allowed in a venue, as prescribed by the national lockdown regulations, students could be divided into smaller groups and allowed to attend classes on a rotational basis. In this case, all lectures should be broadcast live to other students and recorded for later viewing. A small portable USB AVer 340+ camera (provided by the departments) could be used with any laptop to enable the live streaming of classes via Bb Collaborate. For instructions on how to use the Aver 340+ Camera to stream and record Collaborate lectures, click here.
Blackboard Collaborate also provides the opportunity to record sessions and share recording links with students (see video). These videos could be made available to students in clickUP and used for remedial and revision purposes. Assignments and assessments after class provide further opportunities for students to consolidate their knowledge and organise it into meaningful hierarchical patterns.
All UP academic staff are invited to apply for a grant to undertake research into the teaching of your discipline with the aim of developing your teaching and research capacity and improving student learning and success. The funds are part of the University of Pretoria’s Teaching Development Grant provided by the Department of Higher Education and Training. We have a number of one-year grants available for UP lecturers worth a maximum of R20 000 each. The purpose of the grant is to promote institutional research to improve teaching and student learning and success. Applications by individuals and teams will be considered on merit:
One of the most important and basic requirements for student success is to ensure that all students have access to essential course materials. It is therefore essential to promote the use of free material. Download the UP Open educational resources (OER) guidelines. We want to invite all UP lecturers to apply for the Open Educational Resources (OER) Grants. We have thirty grants available for UP lecturers, and each grant is worth a maximum of R10 000. To apply, lecturers are required to access the necessary information here: https://tinyurl.com/ydhkdo7v. Contact Dr Marius Pienaar or Dr Sanet Haupt.
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