Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL)

Editorial

Vivienne Bozalek; Daniela Gachago — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Immanent and diffractive critique in scholarship and publication

Vivienne Bozalek, Nike Romano — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Criticality and critique require careful attention by authors, reviewers, and editors in Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CRiSTaL), since they form a central focus of the journal. Conventional views of critique are influenced by unexpressed assumptions that what is needed is an authoritative expert, who from a position of superiority and distance, diagnoses and pronounces on the inadequacies of the text. This article explores more generative approaches to critique and criticality such as immanent critique and diffractive methodologies. We argue that in order for immanent critique and diffractive methodologies to happen, sensibilities such as attentiveness, response-ability, accountability, generosity, and curiosity are necessary. The final section of the paper considers academic practices of reviewing, writing, reading, pedagogy, and conferencing in relation to immanent critique and diffractive methodologies and the sensibilities we propose which make these forms of critique and criticality possible.

Towards a More Capacious, Kindly and Caring Criticality: A Post-Critical Manifesto for Ethical-Relational-Creative Reviewing

Carol A Taylor, Joy Cranham, Sally Hewlett, Hannah Hogarth — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The words ‘criticality’, ‘critical’, and ‘critique’ can often summon up painful, exposing, and difficult experiences. In a higher education system shaped by hierarchical cultures, abuses of power, performative metrics and competitiveness, many of us are often positioned as (and internalise a sense of ourselves as) lacking. This imputed sense of ‘lack’ begins early in our educational careers and its affective impress often stays with us. As PhD students, we are required to subject ourselves to critique in order to pass confirmation processes; as article authors, our work stands or falls at the critical hands of journal reviewers and editors who, as gatekeepers, decide which of us is ‘accepted’ or ‘rejected’. We write as four members of the larger Get Up and Move! Collective, using the special issue call from CriSTaL to explore criticality, critical, critique, to revisit our own contested entanglements in/with criticality in higher education. We deploy the methodological approaches of compositing and composting to ponder the inimical conditions, negative behaviours, and ill-judged peer review comments that give rise to damaging modes of critique. From our work in the Collective, we consider what a more capacious, kindly, and caring criticality might look, feel, and be like. The article ends with A Post-Critical Manifesto for Ethical-Relational- Creative Reviewing, which outlines a praxis for doing criticality differently.

Enacting criticality and care

Najma Agherdien — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides an account of one higher education teacher’s views on the notions of criticality and critique within the context of continuous professional learning spaces for academics and in which the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is central. I present an account of enacting SoTL practices through criticality and (with) care. Included is an account of SoTL engagements with academics, a process that takes time, courage, patience, and hope. The argument that I make is that withholding critical care – which includes attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness - is part of injustice. Hence, contestation, criticality, and critique with care must remain key SoTL activities. A twin argument is that (self) criticality is a precursor to critiquing others. The article concludes with implications of enacting criticality with care, in SoTL and beyond.

Unpacking the notion of ‘criticality’ in liberatory praxis: A critical pedagogy perspective

Gideon Nomdo — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper is informed by the field of socially just pedagogies. A critical pedagogy perspective grounded in a transformative and liberatory praxis is employed to discuss why the notion of criticality is fundamental to classroom engagement, especially within historically white South African universities. Although widely adopted, the meanings attached to criticality varies. This paper focuses on criticality as used within critical pedagogy and argues that it ushers in a humanising classroom pedagogy that facilitates dialogic relationships and promotes student agency and critical social consciousness. Through employing a qualitative case study methodology, this research draws on data extracted from two courses on identity. A critically reflective gaze is adopted to examine the impact of criticality in these spaces. Criticality embedded in dialogic praxis was found to aid the development of agency and raise critical awareness about socially just societies. Teachers’ responsibilities for being agents of change, was also highlighted.

Investigating critical thinking in higher education in Latin America: Acknowledging an epistemic disjuncture

Carolina Guzmán-Valenzuela, Roxana Chiappa — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Critical thinking (CT) in higher education (HE) has been widely investigated in Western countries. Most of the research on CT has conceived it as a higher order thinking skill with implications for learning processes. CT has also been connected with critical pedagogies, an approach that seems particularly attuned with the Latin American region. Through a systematic literature review, this article maps the scholarship on CT in HE in Latin America (LATAM). Findings point to a local character of the research on CT that heavily relies on cognitive psychology traditions. It is proposed that the scholarship on CT in LATAM is characterised by an epistemic disjuncture that favours theories and methodologies produced in the Global North overshadowing well-recognised traditions of critical pedagogies in the region. We conclude that research on CT in the region is missing an opportunity to develop powerful features that are especially fitting for LATAM’s geo-historic context.

A reflection on critical reflection in professional education research

Chris Winberg, James Garraway, Penelope Engel-Hills — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The roots of universities of technology can be traced back to technical colleges, which required compliance with industry standards, and the rule of labour markets. Universities of technology thus entered the university space, largely without an established critical tradition in teaching, learning, and research. This is the issue that we address in this paper, which is intended to inform potential authors in technical, vocational, and professional higher education who would like to publish their educational research studies in Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CriSTaL). The issue is important as universities of technology in South Africa are increasingly taking on the mantle of professional education, particularly in the fields of health, engineering, and applied sciences. In this paper, we discuss examples of published educational research that critique some of the ‘taken-for-granted’ ideas that have shaped the practices and aspirations of universities of technologies. The examples show that by judiciously drawing on traditions of critical reflective practice, and by bringing new ideas, concepts, and theories into educational research studies, further critical concepts can evolve. These new critical concepts will be of interest to the readers (and reviewers) of CRiSTaL, but more importantly could inspire universities of technology to reaffirm their connection to practice and begin to create a critical space for their own scholarly – and critical – identities.

What is critical in EdTech research?

Daniela Gachago — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

There are a number of editors on the CriSTaL editorial board, whose interest is in educational technologies, emerging technologies, ICTs in education, digital education and digital pedagogies, which are some of the many terms that are used in our field. These are usually the editors I, Daniela, as managing editor, draw on, when we get submissions from authors on issues around the use of technology in learning and teaching. We receive many submissions, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the rejection rate is also increasing due to the majority of the papers failing to meet CriSTaL’s aim and scope. I invited some of my editorial board colleagues into a conversation to chat about what we would like to see in a paper tackling technologies in learning and teaching and which papers we feel do not suit CriSTaL’s aims and scope. The colleagues who joined me in this conversation were Dr Najma Agherdien, who is in Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Witwatersrand and Dr Nicola Pallitt, an educational technology specialist and senior lecturer at Rhodes University. We shared our reflections with other members of the board, such as Paul Prinsloo, Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the College of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of South Africa, and Tutaleni Asino, Associate Professor in the Learning, Design and Technology Program at Oklahoma State University, and invited our critical friend Laura Czerniewicz, emeritus professor at the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town, to get an outside perspective as well.