3. Reading and Writing Support: From my VC Teaching (2021) award prize money, I started a “Reading and Writing Accountability Group” for post-graduate students in the department. All my students and many of my colleagues’ students were in this group. We met once a week and wrote non-stop for three hours, and then we would have drinks and food later as we debriefed our writings and/or readings for the day. In this way, the group ensured that Johannesburg-based post-graduate students see me at least once a week. In these sessions, affectionately, many kept me accountable if I had fallen behind on feedback or if there were supervision-related things I had forgotten. Importantly, as my students, they get to know each other without “favouritism”, and peer-topeer learning is inculcated among them as a cohort. Importantly, if one student is dealing with an issue or struggling, my other postgraduate students will often approach me to brief me. In this way, the students I supervise themselves create their own community to support each other in their post-graduate processes (Images 3 and 4). Image 2: Thulani with books to help him with his research and some for general reading. Image 3: Reading and Writing Accountability Group debrief. 2022 Teaching Innovation for the 21st Century | Showcasing UJ Teaching Innovation Projects 2024 97
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