02626nam 2200361 450 991062959260332120230516104413.0(CKB)5720000000079755(NjHacI)995720000000079755(EXLCZ)99572000000007975520230516d2022 uy 0engur|||||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierSelf-Directed Learning in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic Research on the affordances of online virtual excursions /Josef De Beer [and three others]Cape Town, South Africa :AOSIS,2022.1 online resource (380 pages)NWU Self-Directed Learning Series1-77634-231-3 The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted teaching and learning at higher education institutions (HEIs), and this book disseminates research findings on a series of cross-campus online initiatives of the North-West University (NWU) to ensure high-quality self-directed learning, whilst simultaneously attending to the need for inclusion and diversity in this challenging context. The golden thread running through the 13 chapters is how this HEI responded to the pandemic in a creative way through its investment in online virtual student excursions, based on problem-based, cooperative learning and gamification principles to support self-directed learning. Whereas virtual excursions usually refer to learning opportunities where 'a museum, author, park or monument is brought to the student' (Hehr 2014:1), the virtual excursion in our context is an activity system (Engeström 1987) where students' learning is scaffolded across the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky 1978) and where their 'social and pedagogical boundaries are stretched or expanded' (De Beer & Henning 2011:204). Students engage as Homo ludens, the playing human (Huizinga 1955), in learning activities embedded in an ill-structured problem, and through reflective activities, they are encouraged to reflect on their own naïve understandings or biases. This 'tension', or in Veresov (2007) parlance, 'dramatical collisions', provides a fertile learning space for self-directed learning.NWU Self-Directed Learning Series.Education and stateEducation and state.379Beer Josef De1346915NjHacINjHaclBOOK9910629592603321Self-Directed Learning in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic3363847UNINA