Makerere strategists to reorient, mentor staff and students

For many decades, university students who perform well get retained as teaching assistants/assistant lecturers.

Within a few months, a graduate finds oneself in a lecture room without any orientation or training in how to teach and guide students, or behave differently from them.

This puzzling and confusing situation was attested to by many speakers at the inaugural workshop of the CHUSS Centre of Excellence in Research, Teaching and Learning (CERTL) on October 27 in the Senate Building Conference hall, Makerere University. Earlier, on September 16, 2020, the centre was launched by Vice Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe.

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Though said to be more of an idea than a physical structure, the centre will be coordinated from the Central Teaching Facility 2 building. The director of the centre, Prof Andrew Ellias State, pledged to make the best use of the three-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that enabled it to be established, and to benefit not only Makerere University academic staff and students but the whole country.

The workshop attracted representatives from sister institutions like Muteesa I Royal University, Kampala International University and Uganda Christian University.

State said this will be a centre for sharing experiences and challenges in teaching and learning, and carry out orientations to give tips to people taking on new assignments such as becoming a teaching assistant/assistant lecturer, head of department, dean of school or principal of as college.

Hence it will handle challenges like the failure of lecturers to handle big classes, how to manage difficult students, and identifying and dealing with students with learning difficulties, among others.

TRANSFORMATIVE, IMPACTFUL

It will be a centre of knowledge creation and management, and a hub of innovations and excellence, teasing out various novices and experts equally. It is expected to be transformative and impactful on the larger society. It will offer opportunities for faculty to retool and learn from each other about the teaching of various disciplines in a university setting.

This will be through exploration of new pedagogies that foster critical thinking and enable senior faculty to provide orientation, mentoring, and instructional support to new and upcoming faculty.

This is anticipated to lead to opportunities for renewal and growth among senior faculty in research and teaching in their respective disciplines.

In addition, CERTL will initiate and support a culture of recognition and reward for excellence in research, learning and teaching, while also ensuring that various disciplines and programs are properly grounded in the debates, methodologies and writing in their respective disciplines albeit emphasizing interdisciplinarity.

Other functions the centre will carry out include supporting curriculum, methodology and pedagogy.