Textbook

This is a high-level introduction to course design. It covers learner-centric design, constructive alignment, Universal Instructional Design, and the development of instructional materials. The author has centred her discussion on basic instructional design around an argument for developing learner-centred courses. It is a good overview of some of the key considerations an academic should be thinking about as they develop their courses.

Ideas for CPD Interventions
This Pressbooks chapter can be used as introductory reading. There are multiple points that could lead to a deep discussion on various aspects of instructional design.

While this book focuses only on open textbooks (and not other types of materials), the information provided is in-depth and well structured. Academics and CPD co-ordinators can use Part 4 to inform their process of creating and editing content. They can refer to the summary page in each section, which consolidates key points, including underlying principles, who is involved, and key tactics.

Ideas for CPD Interventions
The book is far too comprehensive for any one CPD activity. However, the scope is wide, and the chapters could be broken up as specific focus areas about creating textbooks.

This starter kit has been created to provide instructors with an introduction to the use and creation of open educational resources (OER). The text is organized into five sections: Getting Started, Copyright, Finding OER, Teaching with OER, and Creating OER. Although some chapters contain more advanced content, the starter kit is primarily intended for users who are entirely new to open education.

Ideas for CPD Interventions
This starter kit can be used as a workshop text or as a reference when working with OER.

The Flexible Learning for Open Education (FLOE) Inclusive Learning Design Handbook is a free OER designed to assist in creating adaptable and customizable educational resources that can accommodate a diversity of learning preferences and individual needs. This handbook on inclusive design is structured according to 'perspectives' (philosophical), 'approaches' (advice for creating inclusive environments) and 'techniques' (advice about the actual tools that can be used to craft inclusive materials.

Ideas for CPD Interventions
This handbook can be used in multiple ways for those wanting to use it in a CPD initiative. It ranges from high level discussions on inclusive principles to advice on how to implement inclusivity in the classroom. This resource will need to be adapted to suit your needs as its scope is broad. Make sure you know what you want to achieve during your CPD initiative and select content appropriately. It is not meant to be a course, however, and will need to be reorganized if used as a workshop.

This practical guide or textbook provides a framework and tips to enhance inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility in OER. It looks at how to ensure that what one is developing is sensitive to the IDEA principles. The focus is on OER but the principles are universal.

Ideas for CPD Interventions
The textbook would be a great resource for a CPD initiative on inclusion, diversity, equity and/or accessibility; either as a course text or as background reading. Many lecturers would benefit from the guidance it gives when thinking about decolonization of the course content and how we should treat marginalized students.

These are short case studies built around selected specimens in the UCT pathology teaching collection, intended to support learning around common pathological conditions in Southern Africa.  The student cases form part of the UCT Digital Pathology online collection (www.digitalpathology.uct.ac.za), which catalogues thousands of pathology specimens used for teaching and learning.

This website, shared through Creative Commons, gives electronic access to several thousand pathology specimens in our pathology teaching collection. It is intended for use by undergraduate and postgraduate students in the health sciences. There are currently three main catalogues for (1) the anatomical pathology collection (2) the forensic pathology collection and (3) the obstetrics and gynaecology collection. (A paediatric pathology section is in the pipeline).

This is an historical collection (begun in the 1920’s) so the cataloguing is rather old fashioned. The specimens are catalogued by organ or system e.g. “kidneys” and then by broad pathological category e.g. “neoplasms”. Each specimen has a brief description and commentary along with good quality photographs. The emphasis is on macroscopic pathology; we are aiming to include more radiographic imaging and also microscopy going forward.

The website is a work in progress so much of our material is still in the process of being reviewed and uploaded. For all that use the website, please be respectful of all the specimens and their images. Although anonymous now, they originate from real patients whose diseases were often distressing, painful and fatal.

Funded by: Department of Education, South Africa 

This case study focuses on the multiple factors which feed into under 5 malnutrition (including the social determinants of disease). It is set in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa in 2002. The UNICEF Conceptual Framework is used as a tool for analysis.

The case is structured as a short narrative case study followed by an introduction to the UNICEF Conceptual Framework. In addition, contextual information is supplied and could be supplemented, using links to further sources of information, plus some tables and photographs. Also included are links to journal articles outlining possible responses to this situation.

This case study resource has been developed at the School of Public Health (SOPH), University of the Western Cape (UWC) and used in our teaching. It is based on a research project undertaken over 12 years in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa by Emeritus Prof David Sanders and Prof Thandi Puoane of the SOPH, UWC with Prof Ann Ashworth from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

The case concerns an informal settlement with a high prevalence of diarrheal disease in sub-Saharan Africa, and the factors that feed into this situation. The learning aim is to apply a model for intervention – the Public Health Action Cycle, which is based on UNICEF’s Triple A Cycle for nutrition improvement.

This case study explores progress made, lessons learned and possibilities for the future in harnessing Open Educational Resources (OER) in support of the vision and mission of Africa Nazarene University to open learning opportunities in higher education. We begin by providing a context for the work that has been undertaken to date.

Paul Mumba, Principal of LEAP Science and Maths School in Diepsloot joins the panel to talk about his experience of leading a school in a township context. He also talks about the South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition (the community of practice he belongs to) and what it has meant to him to be part of that collaborative platform.

Find more podcasts on Leadership in Education on the BRIDGE Knowledge Hub or on CliffCentral.com.

A team of key players from BRIDGE’s National ECD Community of Practice (ECD CoP) and the National ECD Alliance (NECDA) met in dialogue to focus on key challenges facing the ECD sector, the specific strengths and challenges of each structure and the potential for collaboration.

Through the dialogue, participants identified and agreed on opportunities for strategic collaboration to further the agenda of civil society organisations working in ECD in South Africa.

BRIDGE’s focus on ICTs as a cross-cutting theme in education has recently taken centre stage in several contexts. An important concern is to make sure that the device is not the goal; technology must support teaching and learning rather than overwhelming it.

We were joined by the first two principals in Gauteng to be part of the controversial school-twinning process.  They discussed how they have worked through the process and dispelled some of the myths.

In this video, Melissa King of BRIDGE, provides an update on the progress of the development of the ECD CoP’s ECD Quality Reflective Toolkit. The purpose reflection tool is to help practitioners (including care-givers, trainers and other stakeholders) think about quality in ECD and reflect on: “What is quality ECD provision in practice?”

The Axis Education Summit is an annual convergence of students, teachers, school leaders and stakeholders in the South African educational sector. The summit was hosted by the Global Teachers Institute in partnership with Teach With Africa, the South African Extraordinary Schools Coalition and BRIDGE. In 2015 the summit theme was “A New Story for Education” and strove to lead the change for a new and positive narrative for education transformation in South Africa and the rest of the world.

This resource focuses on the Leadership in education show on Cliffcentral.com every Monday. This weeks guest was Fiona Wallace of the CoZaCares Foundation, chatting about leadership in a school that’s on a tech journey.

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) is the second largest university in Africa with more than 180,000 students. The OER project at NOUN was initially motivated in response to the 2012 UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning Paris Declaration on OER. Specifically, NOUN referred to the section that encouraged government-funded materials to be released under an open licence and made available and accessible as OER.  

The University of South Africa (UNISA) is a mega open and distance learning (ODL) university with more than 400,000 students in South Africa and around the world. UNISA committed to the implementation of OER within the university by incorporating support for OER into all relevant policies and processes. This is seen as the critical enabling factor. Moreover, as an open university, it was felt OER are well aligned with the institution's academic traditions of sharing knowledge while being beneficial to learners.

Kenya, like many African countries, has faced enormous challenges in the production of and access to quality relevant teaching and learning materials and resources in primary and secondary school classrooms. This has been occasioned by a plethora of factors which include, but are not limited to, lack of finances, tradition, competence, and the experience to develop such resources. Such a situation has persisted despite the existence and availability of many Open Educational Resources (OERs) that have been developed by education stakeholders at enormous cost. Such freely available resources could potentially improve the quality of existing resources or help to develop new courses. Yet, their uptake and reuse in secondary and primary schools in Kenya continues to be very low. This paper reports the findings of a study in which Open Resources for English Language Teaching (ORELT) developed by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Canada, were piloted in a sample of fifty (50) Kenyan secondary schools. The study applied the Model 1 – Distance and Dependence (Zhao et al 2002) model to investigate the challenges that instructors face in adopting and using ORELT materials. The study reported that poor infrastructure, negative attitudes, lack of ICT competencies, and other skill gaps among teachers, as well as lack of administrative support, are some of the challenges experienced in the adoption and use of OERs in Kenyan schools. The findings of the present study will provide useful insights to developers of OERs and Kenyan education stakeholders in devising strategies to optimise utilisation of OERs in the Kenyan school system.