Through its many areas of work, the Division is proactive and responsive to developments and trends in the higher education ecosystem. It creates dynamic and interactive spaces where the high degree of complementarity between academic staff development initiatives and activities, academic planning and quality, and the work of the University’s faculties is evident. This publication is a proud reflection of the excellent ways in which UJ’s lecturers take the opportunities provided to benefit the students, connecting their own expertise as university teachers with the learning and teaching experiences of their students. In a herd of cattle, it doesn’t matter which is ahead It is a truism that many aspects of the lecturer’s journeys are undertaken alone. But it is equally true that there is enormous value in sharing and in creating together. Innovations in teaching and learning explore the ‘pedagogical content knowledge’ (PCK) and leverage each discipline’s unique concepts, which the students then use to construct their own meanings. Each discipline is most effectively taught through the use of its own distinctive teaching approaches and every student who comes to the University comes with a clear wish to study a specific discipline. Most lecturers seek to inspire in their students a love of the discipline they have made theirs. Innovations in teaching and learning are the disciplinary rungs in a bridge that connects the students to lecturers, and the present to the future. The teaching and learning bridge means that while students acquire the discourse of their discipline, lecturers acquire new skills in teaching and learning, and in their interactions with each other, both lecturers and students acquire, create and share new knowledge. The first of these publications came out in 2021. In the Introduction to the first edition, we wrote that the “great majority of students at UJ come from the poorest sectors of our society, from schools known as fee-free schools located in communities where families can afford few of the necessities, let alone the luxuries, of higher education”. Two years later, this is still the situation and the increasing pressure on the system continues to spur lecturers and students to new levels of creativity, to further transformations of curricula, to more activities and shared spaces from which meaningful and impactful learning and teaching is created. The collaborations across the University’s domains seek to build on the parties’ prior knowledges and experiences, developing understandings of students’ and lecturers’ needs, and setting in place the basis for PCK. The publication promotes sharing of learning ideas, cultivating a culture of trust in which conversation and collaboration is able to flourish. 2. 3. When a bird builds its nest, it uses the feathers of other birds The Teaching Innovation project at UJ is driven by an intense commitment to valuing teaching and learning and by the need to develop scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The quality of university programmes is only ever as good as that of its lecturers and students. The professionalisation of university lecturers remains a priority or UJ and for the DTE. This publication sets out the achievements of those lecturers who responded to the teaching innovation impetus. It depicts a variety of teaching and learning projects propelling us collectively into an uncertain future gilded by technological advances whilst remaining grounded in a pan-African vision. The projects showcased in 2022 are a snapshot, a glimpse into the creative and pioneering ways in which UJ’s lecturers lead in their fields. Each of the submissions suggests in its own way a set of practices which can move outside of their disciplinary confines to engage other disciplines and practitioners to further develop the ways in which teaching and learning catalyses change in the learning processes for the students. Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2022 4
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