Pedagogy for fostering criticality, reflectivity and praxis in a course on teaching for lecturers

Abstract

Using the concepts of criticality, reflectivity and praxis, the paper presents an analysis of our reflections on participants’ responses to the assessment requirements for a course for lecturers on teaching. The context in which the course is being taught has changed considerably in the last few years in terms of the mode of delivery, as well as the number and diversity of participants. Our analysis has generated insights into ways in which the course is not meeting all the learning needs of the participants, nor preparing them adequately to demonstrate, in writing, their learning. Using insights gained, we suggest pedagogic processes and strategies for ensuring that the course focuses on both writing to learn and learning to write; and for assisting participants to acquire the practices to demonstrate their learning in written assessment tasks, using the requisite literacy including criticality, reflectivity and praxis.

Keywords:

• academic staff development
• criticality
• reflectivity
• praxis
• formative assessment

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank our colleague Sioux McKenna for her feedback on the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the South African National Research Foundation [grant number 6989], [grant number 74003].