Program Overview

Scholarship of Higher Education Transformation, Teaching and Learning (SHETTL) Doctoral Programme

The Scholarship of Higher Education Transformation, Teaching and Learning (SHETTL) Programme in the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) is focused on strengthening scholarship through growth of doctoral work in key thematic areas of digital education, languages and literacies, and the critical knowledge project.

Programme Aims and Objectives

The programme aims to:

• Recruit PhD candidates specifically to these areas of scholarship
• Provide a platform for strengthening these areas of scholarship through the growth of doctoral work in these areas
• Develop cohorts of staff and students who are working and supporting each other
• Provide support for the cohort, for example, in 2-3 annual 'contact' (face-to-face/blended) events
• Provide supervision support especially for new supervisors

Thematic Focus Areas and Questions

The thematic focus areas are anchored by:

• Critical approaches, such as social justice
• Teaching and learning in multicultural spaces in higher education
• Anchoring curriculum transformation in higher education transformation
• Refocusing, responding to local concerns/issues, interrupting, and inclusivity with a dialogic approach and participatory teaching methods

Thematic Anchors

The thematic anchors include: | Thematic Anchors | Learning and Teaching in Digital Education | Mathematics Education in Higher Education STEM Disciplines | Exploring Theories, Pedagogies, and Practices Around Languages and Literacies | Towards a Critical Knowledge Project | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Key Themes | Transformation, teaching and learning for agency, theoretical and methodological perspectives | Equity, access, power, student voice, decolonial/Southern perspectives, multimodal semiotics | Draws on African, feminist, and situated knowledge-making processes, creates a space for engagement, helps scholars develop a critical lens | Exploring the role of digital education, critical digital pedagogies, open education, quality and authentic assessment | | Significant Questions | Exploring the role of digital education, online and blended learning design, critical digital pedagogies, open education | Decolonisation of the mathematics curriculum, innovative pedagogy, alternative forms of assessment, access and success | Disrupting traditional ways of knowing, centering students as knowledge producers, transitions, working with lecturers to understand power dynamics | Engaging the decolonial knower, African and situated knowledge-making, feminisms and power, engaging society through a critical lens |

Programme Details

The programme is designed to provide a comprehensive and supportive environment for PhD candidates to explore key thematic areas in higher education. The programme's focus on digital education, languages and literacies, and the critical knowledge project aims to strengthen scholarship and promote innovative research in these areas.