The COVID-19 pandemic catapulted higher education institutions to shifting their teaching, learning and assessment practices. Universities globally were abruptly forced to close their doors and adapt to digital learning platforms with the intention of meeting students' learning needs. In a University of Technology (UoT) context such as the Durban…

Higher education institutions have been following the global trend of advocating open educational resources (OER) for tuition and learning. In the South African context of higher education, there is also an increasingly strong call for decolonisation in educational content. However, there is a lack of knowledge and theories for the decolonisation…

Neoliberal practices such as managerialism and academic casualisation impact higher education systems globally. While these practices can constrain any curriculum aimed at enabling transformative learning, this paper shows that they place particular limitations on arts and humanities curricula intent on cultivating criticality and a sense of…

The purpose of this paper is to share insights gained from the discovery, design, and delivery phases of creating a three-tiered model of non-academic learning support in open, distance, and flexible learning (ODFL): "Learner Engagement and Success Services (LESS)", at Open Polytechnic | Te Pukenga, New Zealand. Presented as a case…

Purpose: Universities strategically organize themselves around sustainability, including transformative goals in teaching and learning. Simultaneously, the role of online education has become more prominent. This study aims to better understand the purpose and process of creating online sustainability education (OSE) and to identify challenges and…

The paper details a course offering that centers on student transformational experience and self-efficacy growth in an international environment by merging business, entrepreneurship and cultural experiences. Self-efficacy is achieved through both a mastery experience, mastering a task and controlling the environment, and vicarious experience…

In the shift to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERT&L) during the COVID-19 pandemic, remote assessment and feedback became a major source of discontent and challenge for students and staff. This paper is a reflection and analysis of assessment practices during ERT&L, and our theorisation of the possibilities for shifts towards…

With online learning solutions responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic, it is important for educational technologists and other practitioners to understand how learners are experiencing the demands of socially distanced online learning and how they conceive of themselves within distant spaces and digital communities. Research into the…

In practice, adult basic education activities are educational activities that adults engage in systematically so they can gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values for self-sustenance to ensure self-improvement and national development. Achieving these requires an appropriate approach which is vital for the participation of…

In 2019, The Open University (henceforth, The OU), based in Milton Keynes in the UK, celebrated its 50th anniversary. Since 1971 it has pioneered the delivery of Higher Education in prisons and other secure settings. Some 50 years on, in 2021 there is much to celebrate and still more to learn. In this article we briefly review the establishment of…

Since 2017 I have examined the impact of shifting professional practices demonstrated by students of an Artist Teacher MA programme at an English university. Students repeatedly discuss the transformative nature of the course, and through an impact case study I have interrogated the conditions which enable profound changes to occur. Emerging…

This article explores the evolving trajectory of the Teaching Practicum (TP) models within a selected South African teacher education institution (TEI) to accommodate the localised challenges of shifting from face-to-face support of professional learning towards online modes of delivery during COVID-19 times. Over time, even before the onset of…

The outbreak of the Corona-virus created a global health crisis which has affected educational systems globally, resulting in near-total closures of schools with far reaching economic and social consequences. Countries adopted different strategies to ensure learning was sustained using digital technologies. However, the majority of children in…

International students with low academic English proficiency face challenges with reading their course materials and writing assignments. Their challenges are exacerbated during remote learning, as they remain in their home countries, immersed in their home languages, which may be quite distant from academic English. To investigate the effects of…

"Learning from home" was a collective response to school closure in Australia amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we offer a description of the learning-from-home event, highlighting changes that were required of teachers, students and parents. Drawing on Engeström's cultural-historic activity theory, we reflect on these changes…