Contributing to mentorship programmes
Faculties offer different types of mentorship to cater for the psychosocial and academic needs of students. Several ADP units collaborate with the faculties to offer these programmes. In some cases, first year students are given the opportunity to work with senior students as their mentors. In other cases, final year students are offered academic mentorship to boost their marks so that they can meet the requirements to enrol for Honours.
Collaborating with other CHED departments and UCT educational initiatives beyond CHED
The Commerce EDU’s extended and augmented curricula include integrated career development modules developed in collaboration with CHED’s Careers Services. Similar workshops or modules are in the pipeline for extended curricula offered in the other faculties.
The Language Development Group was recently selected and awarded funding to develop a gateway MOOC on academic literacy in collaboration with CHED’s Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT). The MOOC will run over four weeks and use the theme 'Identity and mobility in an ever-changing world' to promote ways of reading and writing in academia. The course will be directed specifically at students in their gap year, first year students, mature students resuming their studies and the whole world. The MOOC goes hand in hand with broader transformation goals of widening access to higher education and social responsiveness. It will enhance understanding of how digital literacies can be recruited to promote academic literacies under the banner of access to disciplinary knowledge.
The Language Development Group and the Numeracy Centre have over the years contributed expertise in academic literacies for test development workshops run by CHED’s Centre for Educational Testing for Access and Placement (CETAP), which runs the National Benchmark Tests Project.
ADP is involved in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) programme which is a CHED project run jointly from the Dean's office and Careers Service. The programme identifies and mentors students of promise from under-represented groups to help them become scholars of distinction. The programme is designed to encourage fellows to enter PhD programmes that prepare them for professorial careers.
The Language Development Group's short courses for postgraduates are offered in collaboration with the Centre for Innovation in Teaching and Learning (CILT), the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies (EMS) and the Office of the Director of Postgraduate studies.
Working in Teaching and Learning partnerships with academics in other faculties
ADP staff members from all units work closely with academics in the other faculties, assisting with course and curriculum design. They also participate in other educational collaborations such as team-teaching and joint research projects.
Higher Education policy development and implementation
ADP’s Central unit liaises with the national Department of Higher Education and Training on policy development and implementation. The key area in which ADP participates is the formulation and implementation of Foundation provisioning policy which underpins the extended curricula.