​Decolonising STEM in our Sandbox: Sharing experiences and exploring ideas in a community of practice

In Khoisan tradition, a hunt is followed by storytelling, celebrating everyone's safe return with purposeful embellishment of the hunter's skill, whilst sharing the meal.  It has been argued that developing and maintaining teaching excellence requires “a great deal of talking about teaching" (Gibbs et al., 2007:2) and that engaging in collaborative reflection could contribute to more research-based accounts of practice (Clegg, 2009). However, opportunities for these conversations are rare in the academe.

In this Auxin session, a group of academics from different Faculties will reflect on how a Focused Interest Group, discussing 'Decolonising the STEM curriculum', became a community of practice with the aim of generating 'practical and productive actions' (McDonald et al., 2016:1146). The process we followed, in which we chose to sit  with stories (and food) and  resist  the colonized urge  to immediately categorise and analyse this somewhat fraught concept, have formed an interesting 'Sandbox' (McDonald et al., 2016) space where conversations about decolonising Science could continue and flourish.  We invite you to join us to discuss our journey, the individuals and experts we met along the way, and some of our insights into this most vibrant topic.

When: Tuesday, 27 February 2018 from 12:45 to 13:45 (“padkos" will be provided)

Where: Den Bosch, 39 Victoria Street (opposite House Skuilhoek and directly behind the Conservatoire)

There are only 15 places available. Please contact Nothemba Nqayi at nothemban@sun.ac.za or 021 808 3717 to reserve your place.

 [A podcast will be available on the CTL website after the session:  www.sun.ac.za/ctl ]