Page 19 - Transformation Report

2.2 Flexible, Blended Learning Pathways
The pandemic provided an opportunity to develop blended learning and flexible learning pathways, thus enabling students
to elect to continue their studies at a pace that would ensure their academic success. Each learning pathway was designed
to provide students with equivalent learning content and assessment, regardless of the elected learning pathway. In support
of blended learning, all LT development programmes for students and staff were migrated onto online platforms namely,
Moodle, MS Teams, Zoom, and WhatsApp.

A further innovation initiated by the LT Collab was the facilitation of iingxoxo to provide opportunities for academic staff to
critically reflect on how to adapt their pedagogical approaches to promote student success in a blended learning context. The
explicit inclusion of the student voice in these dialogues was particularly encouraging since it cultivated inclusive practices at
all levels. Students have expressed appreciation for the various learning resources shared by their lecturers, while also surfacing
some of the challenges experienced, such as the coverage of large volumes of content in a short space of time, as well as too
many assessment activities across various modules.

2.3 Digitalisation of Learning and Teaching - Learning Management System
Shifting to blended and flexible learning pathways at the scale required a Learning Management System (LMS) that hosts
learning content while also providing a platform for discussion. Expanded access to e-learning resources was facilitated via the
use of the University’s Moodle LMS which has increased exponentially across all faculties with 4 881 modules now available
online. In the first quarter of 2020, there were approximately 1 500 lecturers using 5 674 Moodle sites on the Moodle LMS. This
augurs well in terms of the drive to accelerate the digitalisation of learning and teaching. Given that there was an unacceptably
high number of students with limited access to mobile devices and connectivity at the start of the March 2020 Lockdown, the
University expanded its student laptop initiative to mitigate these barriers to e-learning. The table below shows a breakdown
of student laptops issued to students to enable online participation:

Total number of students
Description Number of laptops
participating online
2019 NSFAS First Years 2 701
4239
2020 NSFAS First Years before lockdown** 1 538
2020 During Lockdown 5 793

Grand Total 9 993
**University’s own student laptop initiative before Covid-19

In addition to the laptop initiative, discussions with all cellular residences that each house more than 20 students.
service providers resulted in an agreement to zero-rate certain
learning websites for all universities. The multiplicity of hosting To address the connectivity requirements of staff working
sites for important online resources (including cloud-hosted remotely, line managers were able to pre-approve employee
material) required universities to supplement this offer and, requests for data per operational requirements, up to R500 per
to this end, the University approved the provision of 30GB month. ICT Services has procured 200 routers and SIM cards
of data per month for all registered students for the duration provisioning 40/80GB of data on a month-to-month basis
of the 2020 academic year. These provisions have continued supports various data-intensive portfolios to continue work
into the 2021 academic year. The first phase of a project to remotely. Furthermore, the University brought forward the
accredited off-campus accommodation establishments to replacement cycle of desktop PCs to purchase an additional
provide better internet access to students who previously had 100 laptops for staff with desktop towers to ensure that they
limited and/or capped Wi-Fi has been completed. Phase 2 of can work remotely.
the project focuses on the additional 12 recently accredited

19 TRANSFORMATION REPORT