Learning and Teaching Enhancement Virtual Seminar: 25 March 2021
You are invited to the first seminar of the 2021
Virtual Learning and Teaching Enhancement Seminars under the auspices of the Deputy
Vice-Chancellor (L&T), Prof Deresh Ramjugernath, and the Division of Learning
and Teaching Enhancement.
Topic
Can and should assessment nurture an orientation to
society and social justice?
Presenter
Dr Margaret
Blackie
Short biography
Dr Margaret Blackie is a senior lecturer in the
Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science. She was the recipient of the South
African Chemical Institute’s Education Medal and the SU Teaching Award in the
Distinguished Teacher category in 2020. She also holds an SU Teaching
Fellowship. She has research interests in synthetic chemistry and in education,
and she teaches Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science,
Faculty of Science at SU.
Blurb
This seminar explores the connections that can be
made between how we assess students in STEM (science, technology,
engineering and maths) disciplines and nurturing an orientation to wider
society, by which we mean a sense of interconnectedness between oneself and
others. From a critical theory perspective, education should facilitate
movement from a conception of the individual as autonomous towards the
individual as a member of a larger society. We describe a longitudinal study
among chemistry and chemical engineering undergraduate students at universities
in the UK, South Africa and the USA. Only a very small number of students
display any orientation to society through their responses to assessment tasks.
This result is surprising, and somewhat distressing, because there are a number
of socially-related assessment tasks within the curricula of most programmes
researched. Thus it becomes evident that more may be required to achieve higher
education oriented to society and social justice than simply the deliberate
inclusion of socially-related activities in the curriculum or as assessment
tasks.
This seminar is a small part of a large project is
entitled ‘Understanding Knowledge and Student Agency’ is an international
collaboration led by Prof Paul Ashwin at Lancaster University. Margaret Blackie
will deliver the seminar, but the paper which is currently under peer review is
authored by Jan McArthur, Margaret Blackie, Nicole Pitterson and Kayleigh
Rosewell.
Time: 13:00-14:00
on 25 March 2021 on MS Teams
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Enquiries: Anthea Jacobs (jacobsa@sun.ac.za)