What now? What next?

What now, What Next? Learning and Teaching at Wits

“The COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping all dimensions of life as we know it, including higher education. The pandemic has forced the global academy to question what it means to be a university, to reconsider its role in society and its relationship with other social actors. Concomitantly, it has provided the academy with a moment to pause, to reflect, and to propose new imaginaries, against a rapidly changing technological landscape, in a world where new challenges emerge daily, and which, like the coronavirus, force change into unchartered waters”.

These words written in 2020 by Prof Ruksana Osman, Senior DVC: Academic of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg promised a critical re-evaluation of what and how the 21st century university could and should be. Yet, as we emerge from the pandemic, hearing references to ‘back to normal’ as being fully face-to-face, and ‘we are a contact university’, are not unusual.

The Wits Learning and Teaching conference aims to create space for dialogue, reflection and re-imagining of practice, and to provide an opportunity for all voices to contribute ideas on what might be the focus of the future of learning and teaching at Wits. We look forward to connecting with you to share innovative ideas on learning and teaching. We encourage all those interested in exploring the sub-themes to submit an abstract to contribute to the conversations. Individual or group contributions are encouraged.

Please refer to the Call for Abstracts for further details.

The conference will offer hybrid (F2F and Online) engagement on the first day (19 Sept) and fully online engagement on the following days (20—21 Sept). The number of participants for F2F on day one will be capped at 80, please do register for on-site attendance as soon as possible to secure your place.