Multiple Learning: What “Ubuntu pedagogy” can teach us about epistemically heterogeneous classrooms

Increasingly, heterogeneous class make-ups, particularly in international and interdisciplinary study programmes, challenge canonical knowledges and expectation horizons of lecturers. Even on Master’s level, a common knowledge base cannot be taken for granted which makes it difficult to set up assessment and quality standards. If teachers assume a shared background and simply conduct business-as-usual, students might struggle to relate content to their lives and subsequently their career aspirations. It is therefore important to connect and appropriate study content to the experiences and epistemological backgrounds of students. Since the lecturer is part of the heterogeneity, this will likely result in a questioning of the salient expert position. It will, however, also open the way for multi-directional learning and teaching. We can learn from Ubuntu pedagogy and translanguaging in working with these set-ups in constructive ways. Instead of blaming students’ assumed incapabilities, lecturers might find it more fruitful to make heterogeneous cultures productive for mutual learning. This enables us to “meet students at their level,” but moreover, helps university lecturers to conceive of knowledge diversity as a resource.
This seminar opens a space to discuss questions of knowledge canon and epistemological diversity as a resource. It then provides hands-on exercises and examples for assessing heterogeneous understandings and potential adjustment of fixed and foundational teaching elements with a focus on disciplines of the humanities. In the concluding part, participants will reflect on the validity, usefulness, and sustainability of a student-infused approach to teaching.