The year 2020 began with grand ideas about building future higher education. Thereafter universities have been through a constant swirl of uncertainties and confusions as they respond to a novel suite of radically reconfigured fundamentals and prospects. This essay charts this journey in order to document 2020 experiences and to clarify evolving…

This paper is a personal reflection that seeks to capture most of the observable changes that have taken place in South Africa and in its public university system as a consequence of the sudden and global spread of the novel coronavirus. The purpose for doing so is to provide a record of how the South African university sector has responded to the…

Universities have focused on teaching and learning at a time when quality has become the marker of distinction in international higher education markets. Education markets have meant pedagogical relations have become contractualised with a focus on student satisfaction, exemplified in consumer-oriented generic evaluations of teaching. This article…

The article argues that we make best use of learning technologies if we begin with an understanding of educational problems, and use this analysis to target the solutions we should be demanding from technology. The focus is to address the issue from the perspective of teachers and lecturers (the "teaching community"), and to consider how…

Educational professional development is a global concern. It is often characterised by event-delivery methods, though there are signs that other approaches are gaining favour. The authors stress the significance of non-formal learning, and the ways in which it can be promoted and enhanced within the activity systems within which teachers in higher…

It is proposed that a relational perspective on college teaching and learning provides more insight than paradigms that reduce the complex relations between students, subject content, and teaching to characteristics of instruction and students. The relational perspective links the improvement of the professional practice of teaching to research on…

The need to change higher education to respond to the demands for continuing education is discussed, and the contributions of three groups to the facilitation of learning through learning-centered and problem-based curriculum design are examined. (MSE)

Suggests that although "learning to learn" has become part of the skills agenda, it actually involves far greater depth of personal development than skill development alone. Discussion of personal development and academic assessment leads to identification of related issues of power, knowledge, involvement, and design. (Author/DB)

Transferability of skills in learning is discussed, focusing on the notions of cross-disciplinary, generic, core, and transferable skills and their role in the college curriculum. Cross-disciplinary or cross-curricular skills are examined in terms of their relationship to cognitive domains, and transferable skills in relation to social domains.…

A discussion of the awarding of college credit for experiential or prior learning looks at two approaches (credit exchange and developmental), proposes a continuum linking them, and examines theoretical and practical problems in their application in higher education. It is concluded that while credits for prior/experiential learning can be…

One element in debates over core college curricula, balancing breadth and depth of reading, is addressed from the point of view of Paulo Freire and his theory of critical literacy. Three levels at which a college course based on Freirean principles might be developed are outlined. At each level, the aim is to enhance breadth of perspective through…

Definitions and goals of lifelong education are discussed, and how instructors in the colleges and universities of Great Britain could change their own instructional methods and course content to make them compatible with the promotion of lifelong learning is examined. (RM)

The article describes organizing a seminar in the humanities as a "metalogue" where the object of study is both a text and the occasion itself, as well as the conscious analogical relation between the two. Two examples of the seminar as metalogue are offered. (Author/DB)

Develops and defends the concept of the critical stance as a goal in college teaching. Explains that the critical stance is an attitude or disposition towards oneself, others, and the object of inquiry that challenges and impels learners to reflect, understand, and act in the milieu of potentiality. (EV)

The article reviews the popularity in networked learning designs for values of collaboration, and in particular, of community. Examples of this are drawn from the networked learning literature, highlighting corresponding arguments for networked learning providing the basis for a more democratic ethos within higher educational programmes. The…