scholarly journals Community-based learning in higher education: A portal for knowledge production in the time of COVID-19

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Nompumelelo Thabethe ◽  
Sarasvathie Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
University Education ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Arundhati Roy ◽  
Social Community ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
Community Of Inquiry Framework ◽  
The University

At the onset of COVID-19 in 2020, the world-renowned writer and political activist, Arundhati Roy, signalled that the pandemic is "a portal, a gateway between one world and the next . . . [and] we can choose to walk through it." Roy's views highlight how we can imagine our world anew through reflection in the time of COVID-19. In this article, we examine the epistemological experiences of students enrolled in a course in community-based learning (CBL) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and consider how CBL during COVID-19 serves as a portal for understanding knowledge that is produced at the nexus between the university and the community. We deemed the Community of Inquiry framework to be a suitable theoretical lens based on its appreciation of the nexus between social (community), teaching (classroom), and cognitive (critical thinking) elements in an online educational experience. Our findings indicate that COVID-19 provides an opportunity for CBL to serve as a portal for understanding how the students' epistemological experiences during the pandemic influenced knowledge production. This is beneficial since university education most often places at the periphery knowledge that students from the surrounding communities bring to the classroom. It is our contention that students bring epistemic value to the university that is not affirmed during the knowledge production process. We conclude that CBL can indeed serve as the gateway for knowledge production between universities and communities during and beyond COVID-19.

scholarly journals An immersive Arabic language course in Cairo moves online

2021 ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Heba Salem
Keyword(s):  
Arabic Language ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Community Based ◽  
American University ◽  
University Environment ◽  
The Us ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
Online Format ◽  
Novel Coronavirus ◽  
The University

This chapter describes the my experience as the instructor for a course rooted in community based learning theory that was forced to move online in spring, 2020, due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The course, titled ‘CASA Without Borders’, allows Arabic language students in the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) program at The American University in Cairo (AUC) to leave the university environment and serve the community, while also benefiting from the experience both linguistically and culturally. This course was disrupted by the students’ mandatory return to the US from Cairo as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, and continued remotely in an online format. This chapter describes the CASA program and explains both the purpose of the CASA Without Borders course and its significance to CASA students and to the program. It also describes and reflects upon my experience of continuing the course remotely during the ongoing pandemic.

scholarly journals The Past, Present, and Religious Studies Future of Civic Engagement in American Higher Education

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Ronis ◽  
Travis Proctor
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Community Based ◽  
American Higher Education ◽  
Ancient Religion ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The University

We argue that Civic Engagement is fundamental to the stated work of the university, the humanities, and the project of religious studies. We trace the historical connections between Civic Engagement and higher education in the American context to the present, highlighting a consistency of focus on Civic Engagement across diverse university contexts even as educational priorities and instantiations shift. We then explore the particular role of Civic Engagement in Religious Studies pedagogy. We contend that being explicit about integrating Civic Engagement in the religion classroom enhances our students’ ability to understand complex concepts in late antique religion and underscores for them how relevant the study of late ancient religion is to students’ lives today. We offer three ways that instructors in Religious Studies can incorporate Civic Engagement into their classes: cultivating naming practices, focusing pedagogical exercises on honing students’ Civic Engagement skills, and, where practicable, engaging in community-based learning.

scholarly journals Pós-colonialismo, relações étnico-raciais e universidade

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Luciane Ribeiro Dias Gonçalves ◽  
Cairo Mohamad Ibrahim Katrib
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Public University ◽  
University Education ◽  
Racial Relations ◽  
Brazilian State ◽  
The University

ResumoO artigo aqui apresentado tem como proposta de análise compreender o papel da universidade na concretização de ações educativas voltadas para a temática étnico-racial, uma vez que essas instituições, no Brasil, têm um histórico de produção do conhecimento pautado numa visão que privilegia, ainda, uma formação centrada em valores europeizantes. Nesta perspectiva, nossa análise tem como preocupação perceber como as relações étnico-raciais vêm emergindo no debate pós-colonial e qual a relação possível entre educação para as relações étnico-raciais e a universidade atual, a fim de projetarmos olhares múltiplos sobre a temática racial, temática esta tão disseminada nos últimos anos, mas tão dicotômica quanto a sua interpretação por parte do Estado brasileiro e significativas para o entendimento do processo de colonialismo e suas marcas na atualidade, silenciando o protagonismo de grande parte da população diferenciada pela cor da pele.Palavras-chave: Pós-Colonialismo. Universidade Pública Brasileira. Educação para as Relações Étnico-Raciais.Postcolonialism, ethnic/racial relations and universityAbstractThe article presented here has as an analysis proposal to understand the role of the university in the completion of education actions towards the ethnical/racial thematic, since that those institutions in Brazil have an historical of knowledge production guided in a perspective that gave preference, still, a formation focused in Europeanizing values. In this perspective, our analyses still have a concern as to perceive how the ethnical/racial relations are emerging in the postcolonial debate and which the possible relation between the education for the ethnical/racial relation and the current university, so we can project multiple visions about the racial thematic as the same being so disseminated in recent years, but so dichotomous about it interpretation by the Brazilian State and meaningful for the understanding of the colonialism process and its marks nowadays, thereby silencing the prominence of a large portion of the population differentiated by the color of it skin.Keywords: Postcolonialism. Brazilian Public University. Education for the Ethnical/Racial Relations.El postcolonialismo, las relaciones étnico-raciales y la universidadResumenLa propuesta de análisis del presente artículo es la comprensión del papel de las universidades en la concreción de acciones educativas orientadas hacia la temática étnico racial, dado que tales instituciones en Brasil tienen un historial de producción de conocimiento pautado en una visión que favorece, además, una formación centrada en valores europeizantes. En esta perspectiva, nuestro análisis tiene como inquietud la detección de la emersión de las relaciones étnico-raciales en el debate postcolonial y la posible relación entre la educación para las relaciones étnico raciales y la universidad actual, a fin de trazar diferentes puntos de observación sobre la temática racial, muy difundida durante los últimos años, pero a la vez tan dividida en cuanto a su interpretación por parte del estado brasileño, así como significativa para la comprensión del proceso de colonialismo y sus marcas en la actualidad, silenciando el protagonismo de gran parte de la población que se diferencia por el color de la piel.Palabras clave: Postcolonialismo. Universidad Pública Brasileña; Educación para las Relaciones Étnico-Raciales.

scholarly journals The Need for Social Accountability in Medical School Education: a Tale of Five Students’ Integration into Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taren Roughead ◽  
Hira Gill ◽  
Krista Dewar ◽  
Naomi Kasteel ◽  
Kimberly Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Community Involvement ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Medical Curriculum ◽  
Social Accountability ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Learning ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
Downtown Eastside ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The University

AbstractMedical educators are recognizing that social accountability is a tenet of Canadian medical education, yet it is a difficult concept to teach didactically. Accumulating evidence supports the integration of social accountability into the medical curriculum through community involvement. Fortunately, the University of British Columbia Faculty of Medicine enables students to pursue community learning as part of its curriculum; and we, five medical students, benefited from that opportunity. This commentary will promote the importance of teaching social accountability in medical schools through community-based learning based on available literature and our personal experience with Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). RésuméLes professeurs de médecine reconnaissent que la responsabilité sociale est un pilier de l’éducation médicale canadienne; néan- moins, c’est un concept difficile à enseigner didactiquement. De plus en plus de preuves appuient l’intégration de la responsabilité sociale au curriculum médical à travers l’engagement communautaire. Heureusement, la Faculté de Médecine de l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique permet aux étudiants de participer à l’apprentissage par engagement communautaire en tant que composante du curriculum; nous, cinq étudiants en médecine, avons pu profiter de cette opportunité. Ce commentaire va promouvoir l’importance d’enseigner la responsabilité sociale dans les écoles de médecine par l’intermédiaire de l’apprentissage par engagement communau- taire, basé sur la littérature disponible et notre expérience personnelle avec le quartier de Downtown Eastside de Vancouver (DTES). 

scholarly journals Training matrices: a proposal to analyze the pedagogical and social community practice in the university

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-78
Author(s):  
Pedro Gregorio Enriquez ◽  
◽  
María Leticia Vannucci ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
University Education ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Teaching And Research ◽  
Social Community ◽  
Methodological Tool ◽  
The University ◽  
Short Time

In the last ten years, in Latin America in general and Argentina in particular, pedagogical and socio-community practices have been institutionalized in university education, they integrate extension with teaching and research. Despite its short time, there has already been a significant number of experience reports that it would be impossible to even mention them; but the proportion of works destined to create tools that make it possible to study this type of practice is lower. Taking into account this panorama, in this work a provisional theoretical-methodological tool is outlined, which allows analyzing the socio- community practices. This tool was built on the basis of two paths: that of the review and reflective reconstruction of the literature that bases and gives meaning to this type of practice and; the analysis of reports of experiences that provide emerging categories on the meaning and significance attributed to it by the subjects.

African Scholarship and its Integration within the Global Knowledge Economy : Reflections from within the University of KwaZulu-Natal

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-54
Author(s):  
Monica Njanjokuma Otu
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Knowledge Economy ◽  
Knowledge Systems ◽  
African Origin ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Space ◽  
Kwazulu Natal ◽  
African Worldview ◽  
Research Initiatives ◽  
The University

Over the decades there have been continuous efforts to position African scholarship within the global knowledge economy. Against the backdrop of marginalisation and domination, the champions of African scholarship have been engaged with political, ideological, and philosophical agendas that attempt to legitimise the African knowledge enterprise. Using an anthropological lens, this paper presents the nuanced local/global dialectics related to the recognition of African scholarship. The paper is based on the reflections of a selected number of academics of African origin from the College of Humanities at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. It highlights their subjectivities towards the elusiveness of this concept and attempts to seek its relevance as a knowledge space within the global knowledge economy. Branded as the premier university of African scholarship, UKZN has embarked on vigorous curricular, pedagogical and research initiatives that seek to bring the meaningful transformation needed to position the institution as a truly African university. This meaningful transformation can only be achieved if knowledge production in on Africa is cognisant of an African worldview, encompassing African cosmological, ontological, and epistemological perspectives. Interviews with those who participated in this study revealed the need for African scholarship to go global. Although this was emphasised, the approach to it revealed three streams of scholars who are termed in this paper as the idealists, the moderates, and the extremists. Despite their varying subjectivities, the conclusion drawn from the interviews pays allegiance to Afrocentric paradigms as the only way African development can be achieved as it connects with other global knowledge systems.

scholarly journals Afmystificering af studerendes forestillinger om forskning: et studenterperspektiv på forskningsbaseret undervisning

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maia Ebsen ◽  
Sophie Burisch ◽  
Sandra Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
University Education ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Production Practices ◽  
The University

Litteraturen om, hvorledes forskning og undervisning kan integreres på uddannelsesinstitutioner, er vokset betragteligt i de seneste år. Derimod har kun få af disse studier beskæftiget sig med, hvordan studerende oplever forholdet mellem forskning og undervisning. Baseret på et kvalitativt studie af studerendes oplevelse af et forskningsbaseret undervisningsforløb, nærmere bestemt et forskningspraktikforløb, vil denne artikel bidrage til diskussionen med et studenterperspektiv. Vores data viser, at studerende, til trods for at have gennemgået dette forskningsbaserede læringsforløb, stadig oplever forskning og undervisning som adskilte. Vi vil derfor argumentere, at studerende drager et konceptuelt skel mellem forskning og undervisning og betragter disse som to divergerende praksisser. Gennem en analyse af vores data, vil vi vise, at forskningspraktik leder til en afmystificering af studerendes forestillinger om forskning, hvilket udfordrer dette skel. I konklusionen påpeger vi, at en bedre integration af forskning og undervisning kan ske, hvis studerende introduceres til forskningsprocesser gennem hele deres uddannelse. Abstract Literature promoting a close relationship between research and teaching in university has increased significantly in recent years. A walk-through of this literature, shows that only few of these studies have investigated the students’ perspective, though. We intend to fill this gap, by contributing with a qualitative study of students’ experience of research based teaching. This study shows how students experience a divide between research and teaching. This divide, we argue, is primarily on a conceptual level, where the two practices and considered fundamentally different. Our data shows how an internship can lead to a demystification process for these students. This lead to a reevaluation of the conceptual boundary. We argue that a larger focus on research based teaching, throughout the university education, would lead to a better integration between research and teaching, and give students better conditions for taking ownership of their discipline’s knowledge production practices.

scholarly journals Is community-based electrocardiography education feasible in the early phase of an undergraduate medical curriculum?

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol O. Larson ◽  
Johan Bezuidenhout ◽  
Lynette J. Van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
Medical Curriculum ◽  
Limited Resources ◽  
Ethical Aspects ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Clinical Phase ◽  
Teaching Standards ◽  
Preclinical Phase ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The University

Accreditation authorities expect medical schools to increase their teaching standards and civic engagement, despite limited resources. The aim of this study was to investigate the feasibility of community-based (CB) electrocardiography (ECG) instruction in semesters 4and/or 5 of the undergraduate MBChB programme at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. A literature review and 34 structured interviews were employed, using a mixed-methods QUAN (þqual) research design. Regarding the preclinical phase, 18 interviewees strongly supported community-based learning (CBL) and 21strongly supported task-based (TB) CBL. Responses were more conservative regarding the practicability of TB CBL. Twenty-two interviewees supported preclinical phase ECG-specific CBL. There was more support for implementing CB ECG in the clinical phase than in the preclinical phase. Challenges identified included finances, transport, personnel availability, clinic space, curriculum time constraints, student and driver absenteeism, and ethical aspects. Solutions for the preclinical phase included combining electrocardiography with other CBL tasks. Many interviewees supported preclinical phase TB CBL, although several factors determine its feasibility. Availability of human and other resources and curriculum time significantly impact CB ECG learning. Solutions necessitate additional location-specific research.

scholarly journals Community-based learning: A model for higher education and community partnerships

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Day
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Learning Needs ◽  
Community Practice ◽  
Community Informatics ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Voice ◽  
Learning Partnerships ◽  
Community Based Learning ◽  
The University

This paper presents a model of community-based learning partnerships, developed at the University of Brighton, for consideration by Higher Education as a means to securing effective community informatics engagement.  The absence of funding and time to pursue research proposals required me to be creative in continuing collaboration with our community partners of funded research projects. It is suggested here that the academic curriculum together with the resources and goodwill of a UK university can support both the formal requirements of HE student learning and the more informal learning needs of community practice through the development of community media/informatics learning partnerships. This is the first in a series of papers to be written that share the story of community-based learning experiences at the University of Brighton. Our purpose is to engage in meaningful community Informatics/media research and practice partnerships with a view to contributing to knowledge whilst affecting social change. A number of preliminary community informatics/media partnership activities are introduced through the joint lenses of community empowerment and community development. The significance of community voice and community learning in facilitating and enabling active citizenship and empowered communities through community informatics practices is also explored.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document