Produced from experiences at the outset of the intense times when Covid-19 lockdown restrictions began in March 2020, this collaborative paper offers the collective reflections and analysis of a group of teaching and learning and Higher Education (HE) scholars from a diverse 15 of the 26 South African public universities. In the form of a theorised narrative insistent on foregrounding personal voices, it presents a snapshot of the pandemic addressing the following question: what does the ‘pivot online’ to Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning (ERTL), forced into urgent existence by the Covid-19 pandemic, mean for equity considerations in teaching and learning in HE? Drawing on the work of Therborn (2009: 20–32; 2012: 579–589; 2013; 2020) the reflections consider the forms of inequality - vital, resource and existential - exposed in higher education. Drawing on the work of Tronto (1993; 2015; White and Tronto 2004) the paper shows the networks of care which were formed as a counter to the systemic failures of the sector at the onset of the pandemic.

Enrolments in STEM disciplines at universities are increasing globally, attributed to the greater life opportunities open to students as a result of a STEM education. But while institutional access to STEM programmes is widening, the retention and success of STEM undergraduate students remains a challenge. Pedagogies that support student success are well known; what we know less about is how university teachers acquire pedagogical competence. This is the focus of this critical review of the literature that offers a theorised critique of educational development in STEM contexts. We studied the research literature with a view to uncovering the principles that inform professional development in STEM disciplines and fields. The key finding of this critical review is how little focus there is on the STEM disciplines. The majority of studies reviewed did not address the key issue of what makes the STEM disciplines difficult to learn and challenging to teach.

Discussions of 'game literacy' focus on the informal learning and literacies associated with games but seldom address the diversity in young people's gaming practices, and the highly differentiated technologies of digital gaming in use. We use available survey data to show how, in South Africa, income inequalities influence consumption patterns, shaping experiences of digital games. Two case studies of young people's play practices involving digital games in Cape Town suggest the fragmentation and inequalities of contemporary play practices and the need for a more inclusive understanding of digital gaming. Mobile phones offer more accessibility than other digital gaming platforms and local appropriations include display of micro-commodities, concealment of outdated technology, control strategies and deletion of functionality. Young people move between multiple overlapping communicative spaces and hence complex cultural articulations arise when global game narratives are appropriated to make sense of racial otherness, crime and politics in South Africa. Since educational curricula cater for highly fractured publics, we ask whether it is advisable to speak of 'game literacy'. We suggest the need to validate less strongly mediatised forms of play, and to address diverse identification practices in consumer culture, including prestige and status as well as othering and shame.

Chris Winberg is the director of the Fundani Centre for Higher Education Development at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. She holds a South African Research Chair in Work-integrated Learning. The Fundani Centre is responsible for enhancing teaching and learning, and for promoting educational research. Chris' work involves academic and institutional development. Her research focus is professional and vocational education and technical communication. Nicola Pallitt is a lecturer in the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching at the University of Cape Town. As part of the unit's curriculum and course design team, Nicola is involved in a variety of curriculum innovation initiatives and assists university staff with blended and online learning design. She co-teaches on programmes in educational technology and assists with staff development workshops. Nicola is a member of the e/ merge Africa team, an online professional development network for educational technology researchers and practitioners in African higher education. AbstractTeaching portfolios have become increasingly important to university teachers. Portfolio requirements for the appointment or promotion of academic staff recognize that the assessment of teaching practice requires more depth and detail than a candidate's academic CV generally affords. The focus of this study is the electronic teaching portfolios, developed for purposes of promotion, in a vocational higher education context. Data were obtained from candidates' eportfolios, from precourse and end-of-course surveys, as well as from eportfolio assessors' formative and summative feedback. The analysis of the data reveals tensions arising from portfolio building in the particular context of vocational higher education. The nature of the vocational field impacts not only on teaching and learning practice, but on how academic staff choose to present their practice in an eportfolio. The paper argues that the constraints and enablements of context, including the disciplinary context, as well as the possibilities and limitations of agency, will strongly influence the purposes of eportfolio development and the extent to which university teachers can exercise agency in the creation of an eportfolio in a "high stakes" context. The findings can help university appointments and promotions committees, as well as educational developers, to better understand these enablements and constraints in order to inform policy and implementation.Introduction and background: Eportfolios in a high stakes context Teaching portfolios have been used to demonstrate evidence of growth, competency and the attainment of excellence, as well as a means toward linking theory and practice in professional education (Hauge, 2006;Seldin, 1993).The terms "teaching portfolio" and "eportfolio" are not interchangeable, although eportfolio platforms can be appropriated to create electronic teaching portfolios. We use the term "eportfolio" in this article for convenience to refer to an electronic teaching portfolio. The exp...

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