2020 Recordings

Recordings and Responses to Questions

Wednesday, 09 September 2020

Click here for abstracts and biographies.

Response to questions from posed to the keynote

Thursday, 10 September 2020

Click here for abstracts and biographies.

Response to questions from posed to the keynote

Question 01 

What to do if students are unable to realise or identify their capabilities to express or integrate in the academic scenario? How they can be supported and helped through pedagogy? Thanks.

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

Your question is core to a pedagogy of well-being. If we follow Sen’s reasoning – the student has to have resources and an enabling environment in order to achieve the capabilities that higher education has the responsibility to provide. Many students exit higher education without the capabilities we want them to achieve – precisely because of the lack of resources and the lack of an enabling environment. As educators, we can help as much as we can to provide an enabling environment – a safe space to learn and grow, and to make as much use of the resources we have as possible. So we need to know how to create a safe and enabling environment – and in the current situation this means learning how to create safe online spaces. Many of us are in the position where we are expect to achieve a lot with few resources. A good place to start might be to ask students about what they need from us to achieve the capabilities. 

Question 02 

Just a comment: Many times teachers practice the mentioned harmful pedagogy but they themselves are not aware of it; or not ready to realise it. Such situation is dangerous. Teachers need to have self-knowledge.

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

I agree with you, Saima. I don’t know of any teachers who deliberately set out to harm their students. We tend to teach in the way we have been taught – whether it is a repeat-after-me rote learning or pouncing on a quiet student and asking them a difficult question, using sarcasm to make a point. We need to break the cycle of teaching as were taught – and as you say ‘self-knowledge’ (or critically reflective teaching) is the way to go.

Question 03 

Why the pedagogy of well-being is confined to STEM disciplines? Is it applicable to other disciplines too? Also is it applicable in traditional face to face classrooms? Thanks.

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

I was using STEM and Engineering as examples (because this is my research field), but pedagogies of well-being are not restricted to any particular discipline or field – or level. 

Question 04

Does higher education take the broader landscape into consideration in their long term response to COVID19. What about support for students who will enter this space in 2021 or even after 6 months, (current students) of lockdown with disadvantages compounded by COVID19?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

Covid-19 took us all by surprise. I’m pretty sure no institution had contingency plans for what to do in the event of a pandemic (or other disaster) striking us. I think we have learned a lot – and we are continuing to learn as we find our way through the challenges. Let’s hope, going forward, that we will be more aware of the risks and what we need to do about them. If there is a second wave of Covid-19 outbreaks or other major event, I think that we would be able to shift online in ways that are more supportive of learning and teaching in future. For example, we now know that electricity, data and devices are insufficient – students also need a safe space to learn. I would hope that creating safe spaces to learn (on or off campus) would be priorities in future. With regard to the students who have been ‘left behind’ (despite the rhetoric about ‘no student left behind’), there needs to be flexibility – e.g., deferred tests, assignments and exams, ability to drop some subjects without penalties, if funds stretch this far, offering support for students who might need to complete particular sections of the subject or course, etc. I also think that both the teachers and the students need to be consulted in the decision-making about how we support students to complete those sections of their courses that they had to drop out of. 

Question 05

Lockdown levels will return to level 1 soon and students will return. Will it be business as usual? Will there be some form of transition?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

 As above, Bronwyn, as we go back to the ‘old normal’ (which not may be possible!) I would hope that we take the lessons learned from the current crisis with us. A transition will be really important – again I think the teachers and the students must contribute to the decision making around this. It is quite staggering how decisions that affect teachers and students have been made without giving either a voice. These are the folks who can tell HE managers what is needed!

Question 06

Thank you for the brilliant presentation. The models you offer align well with the theories you used. My question: Is it fair to say that the drive towards rapid technological innovations is pushing us towards extreme posthumanism. In the context of South Africa's higher education, should we pause and consider the humans (in terms of equalities and care)? What are the implications for us?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

My understanding of the posthumanist position is that it promotes a very high levels of inclusion – of people and the planet. Well-being of people and planet is not separable. This understanding requires changes to the content that we teach, changes to pedagogies, and changes to the ways in which we conduct research (as well as what we research). 

Question 07

Your presentation on point, very informative. But is it not leading to the problem of scope creep of higher education. Where we expected to solve societal problems?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

I do agree with you about ‘scope creep’. In fact this has been a concern in higher education for some time. Van Onselen (1998) wrote about the ‘welfarisation’ of South African higher education.  He explained that universities have become relatively safe spaces in which students who are funded can cover their basic needs and help their families. Van Onselen argued that poverty has been shifted to the space of the university (for those who gain access). I’m afraid I don’t have any answers about what to do about this. But it is a problem that we need to confront.

Van Onselen, C. (1998). Closer to home: Student unrest and the welfare function. In R. W. Johnson & D. Welsh (Eds.), Ironic victory: Liberalism in post-apartheid South Africa (pp. 161–170). Cape Town, SA: Oxford University Press

Question 08

How can we talk about pedagogy when students are being financially cancelled because they cannot pay their fees due to job loss and retrenchments as a result of COVID?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

This question is the opposite side of the coin of the ‘welfare’ university (see above). It is crazy to prevent students from graduating due to outstanding fees. It just exacerbates the cycle of poverty. I know that universities need to be financially sustainable, but there denying graduation is not a way to be financially sustainable. 

Question 09

How do we encourage students to self-direct and self-motivate when they are at home since the home environment is bespattered with lots of distraction, low energy, lack of focus and lack of motivation to work and learn?

Response from Prof Chris Winberg

An absolutely crucial question – and I think that having safe space to work has been shown to be absolutely key to successful learning (and working from home) in the online space. I think one way to address this is to bring more students back to residence (with all safety protocols in place, of course). Another way might be to create safe places to learn in communities – with libraries closed this has not been possible – but there needs to be a balance between health issues and learning needs (like the lives and livelihood campaign – we can’t take an either/or approach here). I don’t have the answers to this – but this physical space for online learning is absolutely essential.