Play to Learn: Shakespeare games as decolonial praxis in South African schools

The place of Shakespeare in South African secondary education has become highly contested in light of calls to decolonise the English Home Language curriculum through intentional inclusion of indigenous authors and knowledge systems, and the removal of colonial impositions such as Shakespeare. Yet removing Shakespeare from the curriculum is not the only or even the best solution for countering the violent legacies of colonialism and apartheid. This article argues that a more effective decolonial approach would be to change the way Shakespeare is taught in schools by cultivating horizontal, instead of hierarchical, dialogue within classrooms and between secondary educators and Shakespeare scholars. The authors describe their own horizontal collaboration to produce “Blood will have Blood”, a series of lesson plans and assignments centred on scenes of violence in the Shakespeare set works. Using the digital theatre game Play the Knave, the programme engages secondary school students in creative experimentation and embodied play with Shakespeare’s texts. As learners access the curriculum from their own epistemological standpoints and through their own bodies, they come to understand gendered and racial forms of violence represented in the plays and manifested in their personal and historical contexts. The article contextualises the project in terms of Practice as Research (PAR) methodology while offering preliminary findings from the programme’s implementation in Cape Town schools.

A Framework for Discussion in a Post-COVID World

This chapter addresses how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted teaching and practice for secondary educators. The authors consider how content area secondary educators, in light of the pandemic, can support adolescent students' understanding of discipline specific concepts through discussion in virtual spaces. Discussion is integral to literacy learning in the disciplines because it provides students with the tools they need to be successful learners and active participants in their learning. The authors use critical literacy, TPACK, and SAMR to provide educators with a framework to evaluate and interrogate disciplinary literacy teaching methods. The chapter provides educators with tools for secondary educators to engage in the thoughtful reconstruction of the learning experiences they design for students.

Reframing Web Accessibility in Post-Secondary Education: Examining the Role of the Educator in the Curation and Creation of Accessible Digital Course Content

Web accessibility is emerging as a key issue and opportunity for educators in post-secondary institutions (Brown, 2018; Gronseth, 2018). Many factors affect web accessibility, yet little literature examines web accessibility factors relative to literacy, pedagogy, course culture, course content curation and information design for learning— areas that rest firmly within an educator’s domain. What facets are specifically relevant to post-secondary educators? The conference presentation, this proceeding, and a subsequent article for the OTESSA journal that addresses the broader construct of digital accessibility, invite critical engagement with web accessibility practices, accessible course content, and the digital accessibility of technology-mediated learning environments. Together and individually, they offer educators various points of entry that are relevant to praxis and seek to ignite discussions and interventions that build educators’ agency and self-efficacy to co-create accessible courses with students with (and without) disabilities.

Experiences matter: Educators’ attitudes toward disability in higher education

This study investigated 128 post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability at a college and a university in southwestern Ontario, Canada. The participants completed the Educators’ Attitudes toward Disability Scale (EADS) and a demographic questionnaire that included questions about their experiences with disability. There were three research questions at the heart of this study: (1) What are post-secondary educators’ overall attitudes toward disability? (2) Do demographic factors predict post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability? (3) Does exposure to people with disability predict post-secondary educators’ attitudes toward disability? The findings of this study suggest post-secondary educators hold overallpositive attitudes toward disability and there were very few differences observed between groups (e.g., based on age, gender, discipline, etc.). Educators’ experiences with people who have a disability, however, were positively associated with their attitudes. This factor included personal experiences (e.g., friends, family, etc.), but also professional experiences (e.g., students in their classes).

Predictive Path Modelling of Indicators of Secondary School Instructors’ Affective, Continuance and Normative Job Commitment

There is a growing body of literature investigating the impact of retraining and motivation on employee work efficiency. However, little seems to be understood about the effects of employee placement on the commitment of teachers to their jobs. To the best of the researcher's awareness, the partial and composite impact of staff placement, retraining, and motivation on the three aspects of job commitment (affective, continuance and normative) among secondary educators have scarcely been examined. This research was intended to fill this vacuum by using a predictive path modelling approach to analyse the association between these endogenous and exogenous variables. A random sample of 500 secondary school principals was surveyed using two forms of questionnaires. Collected data were analysed and formulated hypotheses tested using Path and multiple linear regression analyses, with the aid of Amos and SPSS packages. Findings indicated that staff placement and motivation were highly predictive of instructors' commitment (at the affective and continuance dimension), but not at the normative dimension; Employee dedication in the three dimensions was not predicted by personnel retraining, but it did result in employee attrition; workers retraining only increased teachers' work commitment when it was augmented with placement and motivation. The combined effect of staff placement, retraining, and motivation was statistically significant in two dimensions of teachers’ job commitment (affective and continuance), but not on the normative dimension. Based on these findings, policy and theoretical ramifications for effective instructional management, assessment, classroom practice, and future study are discussed. Received: 30 March 2021 / Accepted: 27 July 2021 / Published: 5 November 2021

Mental Health Literacy: An Essential Tool for Caring Post-Secondary Educators

The mental health needs of post-secondary students have been steadily increasing. Educators, particularly those who work in caring disciplines like the social and health sciences, are often compelled to assist students with their mental health, but may lack confidence in our abilities to support students. Relationally, this uncertainty may prohibit us from engaging in the caring relationships so important for role modelling professionalism. This paper describes the baseline mental health literacy of 122 educators in higher education which provides a starting point for educators and researchers studying caring practices, specifically as they relate to student mental health.

Building a culture of computing in the sciences using images as data within a community of practice

The Digital Imaging and Vision Applications in Science (DIVAS) program was built to improve the computational self-efficacy and skill of first- and second-year college students majoring in biological and chemical sciences. Our three-year pilot study showed that the program could be successful in both fronts. The scholars, faculty, and staff who participated formed a community of practice that became the heart of the DIVAS program. Through this community, we expanded access to the image processing workshop in collaboration with The Carpentries, supported faculty and secondary educators in developing computing modules for their classrooms, and created and staffed a “writing center for computing” on the host campus. Overall, the DIVAS program has sparked a local computing culture. DIVAS interventions and resources are freely available for adoption by other institutions. We hope to grow the community in a way that builds student access and opportunities and supports educators in the process.

Embracing a Practice of Care During Challenging Times: Voices of Social Justice Leaders

In an attempt to mitigate community spread of covid 19, many school districts cancelled face to face sessions and shifted to online instruction. As communities enacted quarantines, schools were pressed to transition learning environments to students’ homes while policymakers and leaders implemented a number of new policies and procedures. The purpose of this study explored how the covid 19 transformed the leadership of educators in three southwest Texas school districts when instruction was modified to e-learning. This qualitative study centered on the accounts and experiences of 25 elementary and secondary educators from 3 different Title I school districts in southwest Texas. The participants were graduate students in a nationally recognized program for the development of social justice leaders. As a result, this study uncovered how the practice of these educational leaders evolved to serve the Latino students in their communities. This study will highlight how the teachers’ agency helped leverage services to provide the learning opportunity for the learners.

Understanding Internships for Transition-Age Students With Disabilities

Secondary educators implement an array of work-based learning activities that expose transition-age students to the demands of post-secondary employment. One such strategy, internships, provides students with a formal opportunity to acquire transferable employment skills that lead to meaningful post-secondary employment outcomes. Facilitating internships for transition-aged students with disabilities, however, presents challenges for educators because internships often involve complicated and sometimes ambiguous labor laws, regulations, and provisions. This article provides secondary educators with information about how to facilitate unpaid and paid internships for students with disabilities that align with requirements established by the Fair Labor Standards Act. The article provides a case study to illustrate how schools can develop both unpaid and paid internships and concludes with recommendations for best practices.