Saide Current Awareness
03 July 2023

 

Education: South Africa 

  • Paradigm shift – why Early Learning Centres can unlock a triple impact as social enterprises Source: Daily Maverick The business of moving Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres into financial sustainability, with consistent learner development results, is complex and multilayered. It is a task for which we need an approach that recognises the role of ECD centres as social enterprises. How we give all children a foundational opportunity in life requires a massive rethink.
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  • Education needs to prepare youngsters holistically for the future Source: Mail and Guardian "Learners must be given a breadth of skills, beyond literacy and numeracy, to prepare them for an ever-changing world" writes Shahana Bhabha - Save the Children South Africa.
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  • Downtown is looking up – Joburg inner-city projects bring work and hope to its young residents  Source: Daily Maverick The Johannesburg inner city is plagued by many ills typical of similar spaces in cities all over South Africa. But it is getting better with the help of remarkable partnerships aimed at its young residents. Through sports, arts, literature and cultural programmes, three  NGOs equip young individuals with essential life skills. The power of teamwork, discipline and leadership not only shields them from the perils of crime and substance abuse, but also nurtures their innate talents, unearths their potential and amplifies their future prospects.
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  • Digital technology a game changer for education in sub-Saharan Africa Source: Vodacom A new research report  by Vodacom Group, Vodafone and Safaricom, launched in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Foundation titled "How digital technologies can transform education in sub-Saharan Africa" unpacks the current state of education across the continent. It showcases how digital technologies and connectivity, combined with the necessary regulatory frameworks and support from governments as well as industry stakeholders, can be leveraged to mitigate barriers to education across the continent.
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  • Landscape analysis of the role of Language in Early Grades Mathematics teaching and learning in South Africa Source: FundaWande "This report presents a two-fold landscape analysis: firstly, a review of the literature published on existing research on the role of language in EGM teaching and learning in South Africa is presented and research gaps identified. Secondly, we examined to what extent intervention programmes in South Africa recognise and attend to language-related issues in the design and implementation of their EGM programmes."

 

Language and Literacies

  • South Africans are readers, but face a number of barriers Source: Daily Maverick While the findings of the most recent Progress in International Reading Literacy Study reveal some bleak statistics on reading skills and habits in South Africa, there is some good news to consider: the 2022 National Reading Survey demonstrates that when reading is conceptualised more broadly, South Africans are in fact readers – but there are a number of barriers to expanding reading practice that must be overcome. 
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  • Better Together: Prioritizing Teacher Collaboration Source: LinkedIn Pulse In the field of education, the science of reading has emerged as a crucial framework for effective literacy instruction. It emphasizes evidence-based practices grounded in research on how students learn to read and develop into skilled readers. While understanding the principles of literacy is essential, it is equally important for teachers to have opportunities to collaborate with their peers within the context of the science of reading.
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  • The Phoebe Book of Poems for Children – an ode to our continent’s natural beauty Source: Daily Maverick A book review of Patricia Schonstein’s latest book which is "an invitation to celebrate the beauty of Africa’s natural environment" with its 'categories of animals both wild and domestic, earth and sea, tree blessings and the miscellaneous'. 

 

Open Education and Open Educational Resources

  • OER Index Source: African Folktales This page lists the OER packets created with materials from the Library of Books. You can also create your own packets using these materials; see the PDF Stories, plus these Tips for Working with Public Domain Materials.
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  • Teaching Data Science with Open Resources Source: Mina Rees Library 'This is the latest in our current series of short essays by participants in the Open Knowledge Fellowship coordinated by the Mina Rees Library. Fellows share insight into the process of converting a syllabus to openly-licensed and/or zero-cost resources, as well as their experiences teaching undergraduate courses at CUNY. '
  • Climate Education Source: OER Commons  This Hub is designed to be a library of educational resources about climate change and intersectional topics. The key element of these materials is that they are available under a copyright license that allows for free sharing and customization - providing more equitable access to students and heavily impacted communities around the world, as well as unlocking the power of educators to add cultural relevancy and local context - ultimately allowing more people to more deeply interact and collaborate with the material and issues we face.
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  • Making Open Educational Resources with and for PreK12: A Collaboration Toolkit for Higher Education Source: Virginia Tech Welcome to "Making Open Educational Resources with and for PreK12: A Collaboration Toolkit for Higher Education". This toolkit is designed to address known gaps in knowledge and practice which limit the development of generative relationship-building processes between higher education faculty and PreK12 educators.

 

Post Schooling

  • Africa’s young leave continent because they feel ‘alienated’ Source: University World News A way must be found to retain trained young people across Africa to remain on the continent because the idea of citizenship is becoming alien to them.
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  • University leaders fear rankings reinforce inequities Source: University World News University leaders are concerned that “current global university rankings often result in an unhealthy use of competition that reproduces and reinforces social inequities and global science inequalities”.
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  • QS rankings: 41 African universities from 10 countries on list Source: University World News Five South African universities lead a group of 41 African universities that have been ranked in the 20th edition of the QS World University Rankings 2024, released on 27 June. All five have improved from last year and are among the top 500 institutions globally.
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  • Following the yellow brick road to vice-chancellorship — the inspiring story of Pamela Zibuyile Dub Source: Daily Maverick Central University of Technology's vice-chancellor Prof Pamela Dube has followed her life’s dreams along the golden path of her own Yellow Brick Road, building her journey on the lessons of the home in which she was raised: that in order to successfully negotiate one’s place in the world, one must nurture and appreciate one’s own identity — and that one should always strive to lead a life of service and purpose.

 

Skills and Employment 

  • African women lawyers: numbers are up but report sheds light on obstacles to leadership in the profession Source: The Conversation "The African continent currently leads the world in the number of women chief justices and presidents of constitutional courts. Several countries across the continent have almost equal numbers of women and men at the bar. Some countries, such as Cape Verde, Zambia, South Africa, Namibia and Sierra Leone, have had women as presidents of the bar association or law society. In the legal academy, some countries have recorded success with women as deans of law faculties and heads of departments. And across the continent, the number of women called to the bar is increasing each year. Still, challenges remain, narrowing the opportunity structures for women to lead in some countries. "
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  • New tech hub to help address youth unemployment Source: ITWeb Old Mutual has opened a tech hub in Durban to help curb youth unemployment. 
    The company says the initiative is part of its corporate 2030 service strategy, which aims to roll out innovative digital experiences and financial solutions for customers. 
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  • How prefabricated data centres help global hyperscalers meet the need for speed, cost Source: ITWeb Successful deployment of localised solutions in Africa requires greater education and training.
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  • Host of new occupations in automotive sector demands skills Source: Engineering News The demands of digitalisation, electrification, autonomous vehicles, sustainability and changing consumer preferences have given rise to a host of new occupations within the automotive sector, Isuzu Motors South Africa president and automotive executive oversight committee skills development workstream chairperson Billy Tom has said.

 

Teaching and Learning- Local and Global

  • What students told us ‘good’ feedback means to them Source: Times Higher Education Asking students what they need from our feedback and responding to their answers makes them active partners in their learning process' writes academics from University of Technology  Sydney 
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  • Let's talk evidence – The case for combining inquiry-based and direct instruction Source: Educational Research Review The authors argue that a more complete and correct interpretation of the literature demonstrates that inquiry-based instruction produces better overall results for acquiring conceptual knowledge than does direct instruction. They show that this conclusion holds for controlled, correlational, and program-based studies and subsequently argue that inquiry-based and direct instruction each have their specific virtues and disadvantages and that the effectiveness of each approach depends on moderating factors such as the learning goal, the domain involved, and students' prior knowledge and other student characteristics. 
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  • Harvard Taps AI to Help Teach Computer Science Course Source: Inside Higher Ed The rapid march of AI into classrooms has reached Harvard University’s flagship computer science course, which is now using ChatGPT as a way of freeing up teaching assistants to spend more quality time with students.
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  • Trevor Noah Foundation plays leading role in shaping future education leaders Source: Daily Maverick The Education Changemakers programme launched its third cohort on Monday, 26 June. The programme aims to produce capable and competent leaders in schools who possess adequate skills and knowledge to address the numerous challenges facing the education across the continent.
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  • How to engage in Active listening Source: Discovery In Action A resource sheet with tips and hints which also includes a  a listening  assessment rubric 

 

Technology Enhanced Learning

  • Humanists and social scientists must help shape the future of AI Source: Times Higher Education Source: Times Higher Education Scientists and technologists must participate in a genuinely collective project to regulate technological development, says Nicholas Dirks
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  • ADHD in higher education: is digital learning making it worse? Source: Times Higher Education Hopping between multiple apps and platforms can easily overwhelm students with ADHD – we must be alert to the effects of too much digital multitasking, says Adrian J. Wallban
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  • Is critical thinking the answer to generative AI? Source: Times Higher Education Designing assessment that tests critical thinking has value and practicality, so the challenge is figuring out questions that flummox the AI without creating wildly difficult problems for students, write Luke Zaphir and Jason M. Lodge
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  • Showcase Short | Optimising the course and activity experience in Moodle Source: Moodle Youtube Channel Moving to our Educational Solutions teams, who share the work they have been doing to help us achieve our goal of optimising the course and activity experience in Moodle, supporting the needs of Moodle Educators and their students. This update also includes a sneak peek into our newest MUA-supported project: “Default Settings for Course Completion”.
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  • The Accessibility issue Source: MIT Review Connecting climate change and the digital divide. A blind educator working to make images accessible to everyone. How the app meant to streamline immigration at the border may be making things worse. Plus regulating robotaxis, Metaverse attorneys, and the forgotten history of highway photologs.
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  • Artificial Intelligence and Learning Futures: Critical Narratives of Technology and Imagination in Higher Education Source: Routledge A recent publication by Stefan Popenici which explores the implications of artificial intelligence’s adoption in higher education and the challenges to building sustainable instead of dystopic schooling.
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  • DESIGNING COURSES IN AN AGE OF AI Source: Teaching in Higher Ed Maria Andersen shares about designing courses in an age of artificial intelligence (AI) on episode 469 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

 

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