Journal of Culture and Values in Education (JCVE)
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The STEAM vs STEM Educational Approach: The Significance of the Application of the Arts in Science Teaching for Learners' Attitudes Change
Full text linkThis article critically examines existing literature on the importance of incorporating the arts into the teaching and learning of science subjects in schools. It explores the significance of the STEAM educational approach as an option in science teaching and learning that might provide a range of benefits to STEM learners. STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics while STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. The argument in the article is focused on why leveraging such skills as creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, communications, self-direction, initiative, and collaboration, which are inherent in the arts, to strengthen the effective teaching and learning of science within the STEAM educational context is important for STEM learners. The STEM educational approach to science teaching and learning employs an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving aimed at equipping learners with 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving, self-direction, initiative, collaboration, effective communication, and morals. It also aims at providing them with the opportunity to apply these skills through the practices, contexts, and processes of hands-on activities. These are targeted at understanding science and viewing science differently, which might enable them to participate in a STEM-career pathway. However, the framework for STEM does not fully support an understanding that creativity can exist in science and that science can be taught in multiple ways, including application of the arts. STEAM, on the other hand, is grounded in a transdisciplinary approach to science teaching and learning. It explores the application of the arts in science teaching and learning. This is aimed at improving the confidence, attitudes, and interests of learners in science through new approaches to problem-solving which might strengthen positive attitudes towards science. This approach incorporates the common processes of science and arts, which includes discovery, observation, experimentation, description, interpretation, analysis, evaluation, wondering, visualising, exploring, and communication
Online Teaching and Learning Experiences of Higher Education Lecturers and Students in the COVID-19 Era: A Leap to Digital Pedagogies?
Full text linkThe swift transition from face-to-face contact to online learning due to coronavirus (COVID-19) in teaching and learning is unprecedented on the globe, fraught with a myriad of challenges, and many developing economies being hardest hit. However, several efforts have been made, albeit at different levels in the various parts of the world to adjust and to continue with tuition under the difficult circumstances. The study intends to determine the potential of online teaching and learning in a developing country to propose a more applicable and sustainable integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in teaching and learning in crises and unforeseen circumstances. The study was conducted as a survey based on a case study of a tertiary institution. The objective was to find out lecturers’ and students’ experiences of online instruction since the beginning of lockdown periods due to COVID-19 in early 2020 so as to map future trajectories. The major findings include a lack of digital literacy among both lecturers and students; inadequate data and properly functioning gadgets; resistance to change revealed in limited adoption on the part of both lecturers and students despite efforts to provide training being made; a lack of systematisation of integration of ITCs in teaching and learning making commitment to transition to online modes difficult; a lack of commitment to attending online sessions and plagiarism in assignments by students. However, adequate commitment to online instruction is crucial to embrace the fourth industrial revolution. 
COVID-19 and the Quest for Reconfiguration of Disciplines: Unpacking New Directions
Full text linkThis theoretical editorial piece sets the tone for a special issue that focuses on teasing new directions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece is underpinned by bricolage thinking, and we seek to show that it is essential to reimagine various educational disciplines in order to meet new challenges and opportunities presented by COVID-19. In doing so, we are convinced that the relationship between a serene scholarly quest and applied space has to be re-examined. Thus, to reimagine a better world during and post COVID-19, cross-disciplinarity is no longer an option for humanity, instead, it is essential, to ensure the collective efforts needed to address the pressing issues of the day. We end this editorial section by arguing that new strategies that are adopted need to be shared across disciplines and faculties, to reinvent multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approaches to addressing human crises
What is Next for Africa’s Youthful and Useful Population? STREAM Education for Global Inclusivity
Full text linkThe world is a global village today undoubtedly due to advances in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines and their education. The knowledge from these disciplines influences various aspects of human daily affairs, career choices and the type of education acquired by citizens. STEM literature across the world has put Africa at the tail end of development. Africa’s underdevelopment may not be argued owing to empirical literature in the direction of poor development. However, the global demand for competence in STEM disciplines continues to rise at a rate developed countries find difficult to keep up due to shortage of man power as against demands. This surge in demand creates a gap that must be filled in pursuit of sustainable growth. Science, technology, robotics, engineering, the arts and mathematics (STREAM) education remains obscure among countries in Africa, with the paradigm shift to aesthetics with arts and automation in robotics globally calling for redirection in developing regions. South African and Nigerian curricula have been moderated to accommodate coding and robotics as well as physics in technology, with green energy and elementary automation, respectively. This manuscript explores education as the panacea for poverty alleviation, sustainable growth and equality among citizens. The current state of affairs of STREAM education in Africa and its potential for a youthful and useful population are also explored
South African Female Academics’ Work from Home Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities
Full text linkThe COVID-19 pandemic has triggered pedagogical ramifications in many higher education institutions. The Work from Home (WFH) phenomenon as an offshoot of this development has not been adequately investigated in so far as female academics experienced it. This paper reports on ten female academics’ WFH instructional experiences with blended learning during the COVID-19 pandemic era. The WFH concept has necessitated the ‘virtualisation of pedagogy’ through blended teaching and learning of academics. The sample was purposively extracted from some higher education institutions in Gauteng, Free State and Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa. The sample for this study was purposively selected irrespective of geographical location or ‘status’ of the institution. Each female academic responded to an open-ended structured questionnaire whose questions broadly focused on: their understanding of the Working From Home (WFH) phenomenon; the influence of home environment on their academic activities and the place of blended learning in a South African Higher education context. The data were collated and analysed for its content with supporting excerpts to discern and support themes. The female academics viewed WFH as relocating offices to their homes with the attendant plethora of academic challenges this entailed. The WFH constrained their abilities to complete academic activities particularly instructional related ones. Be that as it may, the pandemic has presented female academics with opportunities for professional growth through the blended mode of learning and newer perspectives on the apparently shifting gender roles. Such opportunities promote female academics’ quest for the reconfiguration of education pedagogy and gender autonomy in higher education post COVID-19
Reimagining Responsible Research Innovations Regarding Professional Teaching Standards for Curriculum Practice
Full text linkApplying teacher capabilities is widely considered to be a technique for enriching the quality of teaching in all teaching spaces, worldwide. Education reformists have a responsibility to ensure that education accommodates the best interests of all learners. Standards depend largely on teacher capabilities and the context of a country. This paper reflects on responsible research innovation techniques that are crucial for improving teacher capabilities and advancing professional standards that are needed to improve education in South African schools. An architecture theory, which draws heavily on the famous quotation of Adolf Loos, was used as the main lens for the study. Critical participatory action research (CPAR) was used to generate data. CPAR was preferred, since it pilgrimages three principles of responsible research innovations, that is, recognising participants, establishing professional learning communities, and engaging in critical reflection that deliberately embraces capabilities, to address the inequalities that characterise the context of the South African education space. Critical discourse analysis was used to arrive at the following broad findings: (i) A practical learning experience must be created for all teachers; and (ii) Teacher training institutions are central to edifying teacher capabilities. The paper concludes with a recommendation that the preconfigured standards for professional teaching practices should be reconfigured to involve a de-hierarchical list, and to avoid decontextualized performance and false dichotomies
Virtual Management of Students' Unrest During the COVID-19 New Normal: The Need for an Innovative Approach
Full text linkCOVID-19 has changed the face of universities in terms of their operation, which include but are not limited to teaching, learning, researching, and management system. This does not exclude the management of students’ unrest. Despite the COVID-19 inversion, students’ unrest did not stop; instead, it took a more sophisticated dimension. Such dimension includes virtual protest and virtual meetings with the use of social media, among others. This significantly affects the culture of teaching and learning and also attempt to blackmail the image of the universities. Therefore, this conceptual paper aimed to respond by proffering an up-to-date management style suitable to managing student unrest during COVID-19. The argument is located within Diffusion of Innovation Theory to understand the university stakeholders' behaviour and adaptability to new ways of doing things during the COVID-19 inflicted change. The study argued the need for a change in the management styles towards managing students’ unrest. The challenges that hinder the university towards effective management of virtual protest/unrest and the possible solutions to the new methods of students’ protest/unrest was also presented. The study recommends, among others, the incorporation of strategic leadership and communication in the universities' management styles to meet the unavoidable dynamics of human behaviours in the system.  
Ethical Leadership in Education: A Uniting View Through Ethics of Care, Justice, Critique, and Heartful Education
Full text linkSeveral studies have suggested that the implementation of ethical leadership can lead to improved job satisfaction, enhanced emotional commitment, and prevent employees from burnout. This article investigates the concept of ethical leadership and its repercussions on the field of education through a uniting perspective. This study proposes a review of the ethical leadership literature focusing on three paradigms: ethics of care, justice, and critique which we are linking to the concept of heartful education as helping tools for administrators, faculty, students, and families alike. The goals of this article are to (a) obtain a concept of ethical educational leadership; (b) to explore a relationship between ethical educational leadership and heartful education; (c) to adopt a uniting view on ethical educational leadership; (d) to investigate the roles of educational leaders through the ethics or care, justice, and critique; (e) to review previous ethical educational leadership studies (f) to obtain a series of conclusions on the implementation of this type of leadership on the field of education
Advancing Cooperative Learning Pedagogy in Science Classrooms: Challenges and Possible Solutions
Full text linkCooperative learning pedagogy is beneficial among student hence, its adoption for teaching and learning at all levels of education. The concept of cooperative learning pedagogy appears to immerse students and teachers into classroom activities thereby making them active participants during the teaching and learning process. However, cooperative learning face some challenges that hinders its effective execution in the classroom. These challenges also prevent students and teachers from enjoying the full gains of using cooperative learning pedagogy. This conceptual paper probe into the possible ways of alleviating the challenges faced by cooperative learning pedagogy. We locate the argument within brain-based theoretical framework to discuss the means of executing cooperative learning in the classrooms. Based on this argument, the study propose possible solutions that include fostering peaceful coexistence among students and teachers, encouraging a call to duty among students, maintaining classroom synergy and learning how to learn among students. The investigation conclude that cooperation should be encouraged among students through the maintenance of a threat free classroom environment. The study recommends that science curriculum developers and planners should encourage peaceful coexistence among students and teachers irrespective of their different backgrounds so as to maximize the achievement of classroom goals and objectives enshrined in positive interaction among students and teachers
Transformations in Higher Educational Institutions: A Review of the Post-COVID-19 Era
Full text linkThe COVID-19 epidemic was initially experienced in China, in a city called Wuhan (December 2019), and Europe, the USA and Australia were not left behind. South Africa was the worst-hit country, with a total of 88,914 deaths recorded on October 24, 2021, and like many other countries of the world, it suffered the loss of human lives and livelihoods. In 2021, almost 65,000 South Africans had been lost to the pandemic. This pandemic has destabilised systems and processes that define human existence, thereby wreaking havoc on many facets of human life, with education being predominantly affected. COVID-19 has fostered global readjustments in education with the advent of online teaching or, as referred to in some studies, emergency online education. This paper examined many of the challenges faced by students and lecturers, including adaptation problems among lecturers and students, internet connectivity issues, an unconducive teaching and learning workspace, and associated health risks. This study also reviewed positive developments that took place since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the WiSeUp Moodle Training, academic discourse, and capacity development. In addition, it is suggested that researchers carry out further studies on the effects of COVID-19 with reference to teaching and learning. The paper concludes by reviewing the positive and negative teaching and learning outcomes of the transformations that Higher Educational Institutions underwent after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic