Postgraduate teaching & supervision

I completed the Strengthening Postgraduate Supervision (SPS) course in 2019. My assignment for this course is focused on one-on-one supervision that I was involved in before being invited to co-teach on the Social Justice and Quality in Higher Education (SJ&QinHE) doctoral programme that involves group supervision. My SPS assignment also details my reflections about supervision in the Educational Technology field in particular.

The SJ&QinHE programme was envisioned as a blended format but went fully online given the circumstances associated with the pandemic. It is designed with a scaffolded coursework approach where doctoral students engage in regular reading and writing activities as well as speaking about their research to develop confidence and agency as researchers (this is also discussed in more detail in my supervision assignment). A structured approach was identified as a support for doctoral students that historically struggle to complete their studies, therefore related to a broader transformation agenda around enhancing equitable participation of marginalised students in doctoral studies and as most of these scholars are also staff, transforming the emerging professoriate in South African universities.

I designed narrated presentations and online activities as well as modelling online facilitation that was adopted by co-teachers on the doctoral programme. In every space that I participate in, I am a teacher. As a course team we request feedback from the doctoral students on a regular basis and have programme meetings that include report backs of this feedback from the various modules and discussions around aspects emerging from the feedback. For example, students found the break-out sessions during weekly meetings with fellow doctoral students where facilitators were not present as a safe space to talk about their studies and develop their confidence. In response, I designed a weekly session with Dr Roxana Chiappa that took account of this feedback and our facilitation design ensured that scholars were given such opportunities.

I co-taught on the first module ‘Context of Higher Education’ with Dr Kirstin Wilmot and Dr Sherran Clarence that took place just before the pandemic. I co-taught two sessions in Module 6: Research design, one on research questions and design with Roxana Chiappa and one on Ethics with Mamotena Mpeta (University of Venda).

Below: screenshots of some of the weeks I taught in various modules and narrated presentations I made.

Below: recording of a panel for Sage MethodSpace. In August 2019 I was invited to present as part of a panel discussion ‘Nurturing the researchers of tomorrow’. I have included it here as I drew on insights from the SPS course where I started thinking in a more scholarly way about online supervision. I have also presented a workshop for the Faculty of Education and an online session as part of our RU Teaching Online about online supervision, as well as more broadly as part of my professional involvement for the e/merge Africa network where I have contributed two webinars on the topic of online supervision since I started working at Rhodes University.