scholarly journals Debunking the Apartheid Spatial Grid: Developing a Socially Just Architecture Curriculum at a University of Technology

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Asanda Ngoasheng

Traditional universities are often interrogated on their pedagogic underpinnings, while universities of technology are often left unchallenged on knowledge production. Universities of technology are often assumed to be transformed because they are a post-apartheid creation, with a mainly black, working-class student body. This assumption has led to little interrogation of the university of technology and its relationship with knowledge production. This paper explores the nature of curriculum contestation and reform at a university of technology. It outlines the historical context of a university of technology and its approach to curriculum development, which has implications for current curriculum transformation efforts. Using autoethnographic research methodology, the paper tracks a multi-year journey towards the development of a transformative, socially just curriculum intervention in the extended curriculum programme for the Architecture and Interior Design programme at a university of technology. The paper concludes that curriculum change does not happen in a vacuum, that it is political, difficult and emotionally taxing, and that it is best done in collaboration with different education stakeholders.

Author(s):  
Felicia Zhang

The chapter discusses the background of a project which aimed at addressing the language needs of a diverse student body (both domestic and international student body) by embedding strategic approaches to learning and teaching in first year sciences in tertiary education. These strategies consisted of active learning skills which are widely used in language learning. The disciplines covered by the project were Biology, Chemistry and Physics and involved the University of Canberra, University of Sydney, University of Tasmania, University of Technology, Sydney, and University of Newcastle in Australia. This project was funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC).


IDEA JOURNAL ◽  
1969 ◽  
pp. 4-5
Author(s):  
Marina Lommerse

Interested Australian universities with Interior Design/Interior Architecture degrees held an inaugural meeting in Sydney in 1996 to elicit interest in an association to advocate Interior Design/Interior Architecture education and research. In 1997 IDEA was formalised to encourage and support excellence in the discipline. This is the Inaugural publication of the annual ‘IDEA Referred Design Scheme’, one of the activities the IDEA committee promotes. Participating universities include: Curtin University of Technology, Queensland College of Art, Queensland University of Technology, Northern Territory University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, University of South Australia and the University of Technology Sydney.


Author(s):  
Aldo Sena de Oliveira ◽  
Patrícia Bulegon Brondani ◽  
Lidiane Meier

CHEMISTRY, IMAGINARY AND CHILDREN: notes on the post-modern curriculumLA QUÍMICA, EL IMAGINARIO Y LOS NIÑOS: notas sobre el currículo pós-modernoA elaboração de propostas pedagógicas para o trabalho com crianças deve ocorrer em consonância com o contexto histórico em que elas estejam inseridas. Nesse sentido, as práticas desenvolvidas em décadas anteriores ainda permeiam o currículo da educação infantil e do ensino fundamental, acarretando incompatibilidade entre estes corpos e subjetividades. Em meio às atuais políticas de alterações curriculares, faz-se necessário um olhar mais aprofundando para as questões que envolvem a escola, o currículo e o planejamento educacional, haja vista que a abordagem construtivista, ainda que estabelecida em décadas anteriores, respalda teoricamente a elaboração de propostas metodológicas para a educação. Assim, propõe-se a realização de atividades envolvendo experimentos químicos, buscando-se as representações no plano mental que ampliem a curiosidade, viabilizem explorações do mundo físico e novas abstrações. Defendo o ensino de química para crianças, não com um trabalho excessivo com conteúdo de elevado nível de abstração, mas com temáticas compatíveis com o grau de desenvolvimento psicológico destas crianças. Abordagens experimentais que envolvem a química nas primeiras séries de escolarização, sendo alternativas viáveis e possíveis para ampliar as formas de construção e de conhecimento na infância.Palavras-chave: Química; Experimentos; Construtivismo; Infância.ABSTRACTThe elaboration of pedagogical proposals applied for children must occur in consonance with the historical context in which the children are inserted. In this sense, practices developed during the last decades still permeate the curriculum in elementary and middle education, leading to an incompatibility between these scenario and subjectivities. In the midst of the current curriculum change policies, a deeper look at the issues surrounding school, curriculum, and educational planning is needed. The constructivist approach, although established in previous decades, theoretically supports the elaboration of methodological proposals for education. This work proposes that activities involving chemical experiments are carried out, aiming at the creation of representations in the mental plane which will ultimately broaden the curiosity of the child, performing explorations of the physical world and allowing for new abstractions. The authors defend the teaching of chemistry for children, not with excessive work on contents with a high level of abstraction, but with themes compatible with the degree of psychological development of these children. Experimental approaches involving chemistry in the first grades of schooling are feasible and possible alternatives for expanding the forms of knowledge and of construction in the childhood.Keywords: Chemistry; Experiments; Constructivism; Childhood.RESUMENLa elaboración de propuestas educativas para el trabajo con los niños debe realizarse en consonancia con el contexto histórico en el que viven estos niños. En ese sentido, las prácticas desarrolladas en décadas anteriores todavía permean el currículo de la educación infantil y primaria, lo que resulta en una incompatibilidad entre estos cuerpos y subjetividades. En medio de las actuales políticas de cambios curriculares, se hace necesaria una mirada más profunda a los temas relacionados con la escuela, el currículo y la planificación de la educación, teniendo en cuenta que el enfoque constructivista, aunque establecido en décadas anteriores, respalda teóricamente la elaboración de propuestas metodológicas para la educación. Así, se propone la realización de actividades envolviendo experimentos químicos, buscando representaciones en el plano mental que amplíen la curiosidad, permitan el descubrimiento del mundo físico y nuevas abstracciones. Defiendo que se enseñe química a los niños, no con un trabajo excesivo con contenido de alto nivel de abstracción, pero con temáticas compatibles con el grado de desarrollo psicológico de estos niños. Enfoques experimentales que envuelven a la química en los primeros años de escolarización, como alternativas viables y posibles para ampliar las formas de construcción del conocimiento en la infancia.Palabras clave: Química; Experimentos; Constructivismo; Infancia.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kasturi Behari-Leak ◽  
Sisanda Nkoalo ◽  
Goitsione Mokou ◽  
Haaritha Binkowski

The #RhodesMustFall (RMF) movement of 2015 and 2016 challenged universities across the nation to interrogate how the curriculum serves as an alienating and marginalising device that stymies student success. Consequently, the HE sector has been challenged to respond to student calls for decolonisation by reviewing existing university curricula which promote forms of knowledge production that do not reflect an African worldview or a global South context. Academics have refocused their attention on exploring what an alternative, decolonial curriculum would entail. This paper reports on a professional development course, designed to support academics to ‘decolonise their curricula’, and explores what it meant to facilitate and participate in a course that disrupted who they were as disciplinary experts in the university. Drawing on decolonial scholarship, the authors use auto-ethnography to engage with two disciplines, namely midwifery and journalism, to see how the metaphors of (de)coloniality surfaced in these disciplines and how they were mediated through a decolonial approach to course re-design and re-imagination.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Norsyamira Shahrin ◽  
Rabiatul Adawiyah Abd Rahman ◽  
Noorliza Zainol ◽  
Noor Saliza Salmi ◽  
Mohd Faisal Abdul Wahab

Food handler still fails to play their part even when the government imposes “No Plastic Bag” campaign and a ban on polystyrene foam to pack foods. This research focuses on eco-friendly food packaging based on the perception and practice of young consumers, especially the undergraduates of Mara University of Technology Penang Campus (UiTMPP). Questionnaire was constructed and distributed to 315 respondents.  The collected data were analyzed with simple descriptive statistic of frequency, mean and standard deviation. Most of the respondents are aware on eco-friendlyfood packaging. They agreed that the university should propose some alternative to control and reduce non-biodegradable foods packaging. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Folusiak ◽  
Karol Swiderski ◽  
Piotr Wolański

AbstractThe idea of using the phenomenon of rotating detonation to propulsion has its roots in fifties of the last century in works of Adamson et al. and Nicholls et al. at the University of Michigan. The idea was recently reinvented and experimental research and numerical simulations on the Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) are carried in numerous institutions worldwide, in Poland at Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) since 2004. Over the period 2010-2014 WUT and Institute of Aviation (IOA) jointly implemented the project under the Innovative Economy Operational Programme entitled ‘Turbine engine with detonation combustion chamber’. The goal of the project was to replace the combustion chamber of turboshaft engine GTD-350 with the annular detonation chamber.This paper is focused on investigation of the influence of a geometry and flow conditions on the structure and propagation stability of the rotating detonation wave. Presented results are in majority an outcome of the aforementioned programme, in particular authors’ works on the development of the in-house code REFLOPS USG and its application to simulation of the rotating detonation propagation in the RDE.


Societies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Ilyas Mohammed

Decolonisation of knowledge over the past few years has gained much traction among scholars and students in many countries. This situation has led to calls for the decolonisation of knowledge, academia, the university, and university curricula. That said, the knowledge production side of the terrorism industry, which sits inside academia, so far has escaped calls to decolonise. This situation is somewhat surprising because the terrorism industry has had a tremendous impact on many countries, especially Muslim majority ones. The 9/11 terrorist attacks have resulted in a tremendous amount of knowledge being produced and published on terrorism and counterterrorism. However, little is known about “who is publishing on terrorism and where they are based”. To this end, this paper adopts a decolonial approach and addresses the questions of “who is publishing on terrorism and where they are based” by analysing seven terrorism journals. It argues that most of the publications and knowledge on terrorism in the seven terrorism journals are produced by scholars with Western heritage and are based at Western institutions, which is connected to the coloniality of knowledge.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Elphick

Digital capabilities are recognized as key skills that students must possess to learn and work in our increasingly digital world and have been the subject of a growing focus over recent years. Similarly, smartphones and, to a lesser degree, tablets are now ubiquitous within the student body, and many academics are beginning to leverage these devices for the purposes of learning and teaching in higher education. To further explore the possibilities of mobile technology, the iPilot project was created to explore the effects that embedded iPad use had on undergraduate students’ creativity, ability to collaborate with their peers and their perception of their digital capabilities. Focusing on the digital capabilities aspect of the project, this paper explores the results gathered. While the results are mixed, when combined with data taken from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Experience Tracker, it does appear that using iPads in the university classroom can have a positive impact on certain digital behaviors and students’ perceptions of their digital skills.


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wan Noor Hazlina Wan Jusoh ◽  
Suraya Ahmad

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the use of iMindMap software as an interactive tool in the teaching and learning method and also to be able to consider iMindMap as an alternative instrument in achieving the ultimate learning outcome. Design/methodology/approach Out of 268 students of the management accounting at the University of Technology MARA (Terengganu), 97 students have participated in this survey to evaluate the effectiveness of iMindMap in teaching and learning. Findings Results indicate that the majority of the students acknowledged that iMindMap is more attractive than conventional teaching methods and found that iMindMap shows clearly how the points are all associated and linked together. Students could find that learning is an exciting experience and were able to visualize the whole course content remarkably via iMindMap. Originality/value This study presents an alternative instrument, which is innovative and interactive in teaching and learning, especially for accounting students where the students’ technology acceptance could also be viewed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaushik Sunder Rajan

In Multisituated Kaushik Sunder Rajan evaluates the promises and potentials of multisited ethnography with regard to contemporary debates around decolonizing anthropology and the university. He observes that at the current moment, anthropology is increasingly peopled by diasporic students and researchers, all of whom are accountable to multiple communities beyond the discipline. In this light, Sunder Rajan draws on his pedagogical experience and dialogues to reconceptualize ethnography as a multisituated practice of knowledge production, ethical interlocution, and political intervention. Such a multisituated ethnography responds to contemporary anthropology’s myriad commitments as it privileges attention to questions of scale, comparison, and the politics of ethnographic encounters. Foregrounding the conditions of possibility and difficulty for those doing and teaching ethnography in the twenty-first-century, Sunder Rajan gestures toward an ethos and praxis of ethnography that would open new forms of engagement and research.


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