Abstract

‘Pedagogies in context’ are explored through a national project working with academic staff developers and new academics' induction and transitioning into higher education. Causal-layered analysis is used to explore the interplay between academic staff, institutional development, and contextual influences in shaping professional learning processes. Data generated by the project’s steering committee (SC) reflects on pedagogical encounters with the NATHEP participants and conference delegates (HELTASA, 2019). The outcomes of each intervention were compared by reflecting on who was in the room and how epistemological and ontological depth in each engagement was achieved. The study was guided by whether pedagogies are mobile and agile, irrespective of context. The SC asserts that pedagogies in context are relative to the participants, purpose and the project embedded in a specific context to achieve the epistemological, ontological, methodological, and axiological breadth and depth required. The portability of pedagogies from one context to another depends on aspects intrinsic to knowledge generation, transformation and decolonisation, engagement, being and becoming, and socio-cultural and historical conditions. This is also incumbent on the agility and flexibility of facilitators to adapt their repertoire to draw on a suite of contextually relevant pedagogical approaches.

Highlights

  • IntroductionNew Academics Transitioning into Higher Education Project (NATHEP) brings together Academic Staff Developers to theorise and conceptualise their institutional programmes on inducting new academics in relation to their different institutional types, contexts, and cohorts as well as their roles as university teachers

  • A Pedagogy of Being and Becoming looked at how intersectionality manifests across structures to complicate the relational aspects of what it means to be a new academic in South African (SA) higher education today

  • The aim was for the Nathep participants to critically reflect on and explore the pedagogies that participants used in the design of their induction programmes

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Summary

Introduction

NATHEP brings together Academic Staff Developers to theorise and conceptualise their institutional programmes on inducting new academics in relation to their different institutional types, contexts, and cohorts as well as their roles as university teachers. NATHEP is led by a project leader who is part of a steering committee (SC) of five members; all of whom have extensive experience in conceptualising and offering induction programmes at their institutions. Through its curriculum and methodology, NATHEP foregrounds inclusive and participatory teaching and learning experiences that are responsive to institutional, regional, and national contexts. This is what we refer to here as “pedagogies-incontext”

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