School of Teaching Excellence & Curriculum Development
Focuses on evidence-based teaching methods, learning theory, and instructional design principles
Department of Pedagogy and Learning Design
Department of Curriculum Reform and Assessment Innovation
Courses in this School
Assessment for Learning and Feedback Systems
TEC 107 is a practice-focused, intermediate course that equips teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education to design assessment and feedback that genuinely improves learning. It covers the full assessment craft: the purposes of assessment, assessment of/for/as learning, validity and reliability, constructive alignment of assessment with outcomes, authentic assessment tasks and rubrics, feedback that students actually use, formative feedback systems that work in large classes, self- and peer-assessment, academic integrity, inclusive assessment, and technology-enabled assessment. All content is grounded in the realities of African universities (large cohorts, limited resources, blended and technology-enhanced teaching, and the Africanization agenda) while drawing on the international assessment literature (Biggs, Black & Wiliam, Sadler) reinterpreted for African contexts.
Designing Effective Assessments in Higher Education
A practical, evidence-informed mini-course for academic faculty, lecturers, and educators in higher education. This course takes you from the foundational principles of assessment—why assessment drives learning through the backwash effect, and how validity, reliability, and fairness shape quality—through to the practical craft of designing authentic tasks, building analytic and holistic rubrics, and embedding feedback and continuous-improvement cycles. You will apply Biggs's constructive alignment to link learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment tasks, distinguish formative from summative assessment, and design assessment FOR learning. By the end, you will be equipped to design assessments that are valid, reliable, fair, authentic, and improved over time—and to evaluate them with evidence. Includes rubrics, Mermaid diagrams, and interactive practice throughout, culminating in 12 CPD credits.
Educational Technology and Digital Pedagogy
TEC 104 is a practical, intermediate course that prepares teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education to integrate technology into teaching thoughtfully, effectively, and equitably. It grounds technology use in sound digital pedagogy — putting learning goals first and treating tools as enablers — and equips participants to design blended and technology-enhanced learning that works under the real constraints of African universities: low bandwidth, limited or shared devices, intermittent power, and the need for open-source, mobile-first, and offline-capable solutions. The course is anchored to CAA's Certificate in Digital and Innovative Pedagogy alongside TEC 102 and TEC 106.
Inclusive and Diversity-Sensitive Teaching
TEC 105 is a practice-focused, intermediate course that equips teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education to teach effectively and equitably across the full diversity of their students. It develops the knowledge, mindsets, and practical strategies to create genuinely inclusive learning environments — recognising that every student has inherent value and the right to learn, and supporting students of varied backgrounds, abilities, and circumstances. The course covers the dimensions of student diversity in African universities, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), supporting students with disabilities and varied learning abilities, and equity and social inclusion across gender, socioeconomic status, language, ethnicity, and rural-urban background, with specific attention to making large and blended classes inclusive. Completing TEC 105 + CAD 204 + TEC 108 anchors CAA's Certificate in Inclusive and Transformative Teaching.
Innovative Teaching Methods and Active Learning Strategies
TEC 102 is a practical, intermediate-level companion to TEC 101 that equips teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education with a working repertoire of learner-centred methods — problem-based learning, the flipped classroom, inquiry-led learning, and blended learning models. The course is built around a hard reality of the African university: how to run genuinely active, engaging learning in large classes with limited resources and unreliable technology. It grounds every method in real African implementation cases, from problem-based learning in Ugandan, Kenyan, and Zambian universities to blended-learning templates developed at a Nigerian university of technology.
Learning Design and Classroom Management
TEC 103 is a practice-focused, intermediate course that equips teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education to design coherent learning experiences — from a single lesson to a full course — and to manage the learning environments where those experiences unfold. Building directly on the pedagogy of TEC 101 and the active-learning methods of TEC 102, the course turns those foundations into structured practice: constructing constructive alignment, planning lessons and activities, sequencing a course, and proactively managing large, diverse, and under-resourced classrooms. It is grounded throughout in the realities of African universities — large cohorts, scarce physical and technological resources, and diverse students.
Principles of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education
TEC 101 is a foundational, practice-oriented introduction to the fundamentals of pedagogy, learning theory, and adult education principles for early-career academics, new lecturers, teaching assistants, and instructors across African higher education. The course bridges established international learning theory with the realities of teaching on the African continent — including large classes, resource constraints, and the movement toward learner-centred, competency-based education. Participants will build a professional identity as educators, understand how students learn, design for mature adult learners, apply active-learning strategies in resource-constrained settings, and begin a reflective teaching portfolio.
Reflective Practice and Portfolios
TEC 106 is a practical, capstone-style course that helps teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors in African higher education become deliberate, self-aware, and continuously improving teachers. It develops the habits and methods of reflective practice — learning systematically from one's own teaching — and guides participants through building a professional teaching portfolio that gathers and interprets evidence of teaching effectiveness. The course is designed for the realities of African universities: large classes, limited resources, and blended/technology-enhanced teaching. Completing TEC 102 + TEC 104 + TEC 106 anchors CAA's Certificate in Digital and Innovative Pedagogy.
Transformative and Culturally-Responsive Teaching in African Higher Education
An intermediate, practice-grounded course for teaching faculty, lecturers, and instructors that anchors the "Transformative" half of CAA's Certificate in Inclusive and Transformative Teaching. Drawing on critical, decolonial, and culturally-sustaining pedagogies—reinterpreted for the realities of African universities—this course equips educators to design learning experiences that affirm student identities, centre African epistemologies, and drive genuine transformative change. Participants move from the colonial inheritance of the African university, through critical and transformative pedagogy, culturally-responsive and culturally-sustaining frameworks, and African epistemologies, to the practical work of decolonising curricula and designing identity-affirming learning experiences—while navigating large cohorts, scarce resources, and multilingual classrooms.
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