African ideas, science, technology, scholarship and worldviews have been disproportionately displaced and marginalized in relevant global dialogues. In academic circles, African methods of knowing have been questioned, undervalued, mocked, misconstrued, and disregarded, causing apprehension. These negative attitudes are internalized via the…

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrating into our society. University education needs to maintain its relevance in an AI-mediated world, but the higher education sector is only beginning to engage deeply with the implications of AI within society. We define AI according to a relational epistemology, where, in the context of a…

The use of digital environments for both learning and assessment is becoming prevalent. This often leads to incongruent situations, in which the study medium (eg, printed textbook) is different from the testing medium (eg, online multiple-choice exams). Despite some evidence that incongruent study-test situations are associated with inferior…

This paper draws on a series of studies of design teams working on the creation and evaluation of novel complex learning spaces: spaces in which students' activity is situated and supported by rich mixtures of material and digital tools and resources. In most of the cases observed, students also played a substantial role in co-configuring the…

Feedback on student work is a key mechanism for improving learning in higher education (HE) and can be provided in a variety of forms. Recently, many institutions have moved to the provision of electronic feedback, although evidence for the effectiveness of this is mixed. While many studies evaluating the students' perception of feedback are now…

We introduce an analytic approach to examine preservice teachers' technology integration learning as a process mapped against their technology-related course experience in a technology integration course. The approach assumes that (1) the preservice teachers have common course learning experience; (2) their data are collected pre- and post-course…

Digital data are transforming higher education (HE) to be more student-focused and metrics-centred. In the UK, capturing detailed data about students has become a government priority, with an emphasis on using student data to measure, compare and assess university performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the governmental and commercial…

Data--their collection, analysis and use--have always been part of education, used to inform policy, strategy, operations, resource allocation, and, in the past, teaching and learning. Recently, with the emergence of learning analytics, the collection, measurement, analysis and use of student data have become an increasingly important research…

Flexible approaches to online learning are gaining renewed interest in some part due to their capacity to address emergent opportunities and concerns facing higher education. Importantly, flexible approaches to online learning are purported to be democratizing and liberatory, broadening access to higher education and enabling learners to…

Improving teacher design promises to be a scalable, sustainable approach to building capacity amongst a workforce faced with complex and evolving drivers of change in higher education worldwide. While design has long been recognised as a routine part of teaching, there has been renewed interest in supporting and understanding the design work that…

For universities to meet the 21st-century learning needs of today's students, it is important they allow students to take an active role in developing pedagogy and sharing their perspective. This paper introduces design-based research aiming to develop a pedagogic approach to support technology-enhanced learning practices at the university level…

This exploratory study examined how the level and nature of teaching presence impacted two online forum discussions from three dimensions: participation and interaction, cognitive presence, and knowledge development via assimilating peer messages. Effects on participation and interaction were graphically depicted. Effects on cognitive presence and…

This paper explores a "pedagogy first" approach to technology enhanced learning developed by Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) as a method to encourage use of, and experimentation with, technology within teaching practice and to promote the mainstreaming of innovative practice. Through a consultative approach where all staff members were…

This paper systematically reviews current research on using iPads in the higher education sector. Since the release of iPads by Apple in 2010, this new technology has been quickly adopted everywhere, especially by the younger generation and professionals. We were motivated to find out how iPads have been adopted for use in the higher education…

This paper examines the effect of a podcasting task on the examination performance of several hundred first-year chemistry undergraduate students. Educational researchers have established that a deep approach to learning that promotes active understanding of meaning can lead to better student outcomes, higher grades and superior retention of…