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Dr Marnel Mouton, Department of Botany and Zoology (Faculty of Science), has received an SU Teaching Fellowship from 2022-2024.

Stellenbosch University (SU) initiated teaching fellowships in 2009 to provide an opportunity for selected academics to develop their teaching expertise and stimulate the growth of the scholarship of teaching and learning at the University. The fellowships provide outstanding teachers and scholars of teaching and learning with the opportunity to spend a consistent period of time (between one and three years), with various forms of support, to focus on any aspect of curriculum renewal or teaching and learning in general and disseminate good teaching and learning practice in their departments and faculties as well as at the university centrally.

Dr Marnel Mouton has received a Teaching Fellowship from 2022 to 2024. Dr Mouton is a senior lecturer in the Department of Botany and Zoology and has been at Stellenbosch University since October 2006. She holds a PhD in Microbiology from the University of the Free State.

​Dr Mouton's scientific research outputs include publications in fungal taxonomy, microbial ecology and Cetacean skin diseases. In the field of teaching and learning, her research interests and publications broadly span science education in higher education, with a particular interest in the articulation gap between secondary and tertiary education, first-year at university and the role of Extended Degree Programmes (EDPs) to address equity of access and equity of success in higher education. She is a member of the Legitimation Code Theory research group in the faculty of Science at SU and explores the affordances of this toolkit to assess and address a host of phenomena and questions in science education. She is co-editor of a book on this topic that includes the work of a host of local and international authors.

The overall aim of Dr Mouton's fellowship will be to determine how the Extended Degree Programme (EDP) in STEM at SU contributes to academic success. The study will be guided by the following questions:

1. How has access to higher education through the EDP translated into success? How do these data patterns compare to that of mainstream students?

2. How did former EDP students experience the EDP?

3. How did the EDP foundation succeed or fail to prepare these former students for studies in higher education?

4. What factors were most significant in students' achieving/not achieving academic success?

The fellowship intends to enhance SU's ability to respond to the national pass rate of EDP students which, together with other first-year students, is a national and international concern. It should provide SU with insights about possible indicators of student success and/or failure, which may also assist the institution in student selection and recruitment in future. These insights and initiatives may lead to improved yearly EDP graduation rates in STEM at SU. 

Since the Teaching Fellowships are supported by funds for capacity development, Dr Mouton's fellowship will also investigate ways to obtain, strengthen and maintain the competencies of academic staff to set and achieve development objectives over time.

SU has awarded 17 fellowships since the inception of the programme 12 years ago: 

More information about the Teaching Fellowships is available from Dr Karin Cattell-Holden, kcattell@sun.ac.za. 

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