Annual Research Report 2020

37 Emergency online teaching in Economic and Management Sciences necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic: The need for healthy relations in a rural schooling context Habasisa Molise To prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, new ways of teaching are necessary that favour online learning. Emergency online teaching (EOT) was adopted to address various challenges, including a lack of compe- tence in teachers to teach online using digital learning management systems, shortcomings regarding internet connectivity, and resistance by teachers to using EOT. The study couched this as relation- al leadership, with an emphasis on constructing positive relationships to forge sustainable learning conditions. To this end, a WhatsApp group was created to facilitate focus group discussions. The study found that EOT and learning is desirable and doable, even though various challenges need to be overcome, especially in rural schools. Therefore, there is a need for teachers to adjust their subject teaching plans, assessment methods and teaching materials, and to adopt new ways of interacting with learners through EOT during the Covid-19 pandemic. The argument of the paper is that, in the context of Covid-19, education stakeholders should invest in healthy relationships to facilitate the adoption of EOT, in order to construct conducive learning conditions in rural contexts. Experiencing ‘otherness’: Teacher educators’ journey with first‑year pre-service teachers Dr Anthony Mpisi, Dr Emma Groenewald and Dr Emma Barnett In South Africa teaching is complicated, and this is compounded by changes in the education landscape as far as diversity is concerned. This has forced ed- ucation planners to reconsider the manner in which initial teacher education programmes are structured in order to meet the needs of the diverse classroom population. This study reports on the experiences of South African university teacher educators from diverse backgrounds, who facilitated a first-year education module, The Individual in Context. This module relates to the way identity is con- structed and, as a result, ‘otherness’ is perceived. If pre-service teachers are to adjust to the new, diverse university context, they constantly have to navigate and negotiate the university space, while re-evaluating and reconstructing their own perceptions of ‘otherness’. The article argues that, in order for the teacher educators to effectively facilitate the mod- ule, they, too, had to subject themselves to a soul-searching process of reflection, re-evaluation and reconstruction of their own perceptions of how ‘otherness’. A narrative methodology was employed to explore how these teacher educators’ own identities were constructed, and how this influenced their perceptions of ‘otherness’. The findings of the narratives reveal that these teacher educators constantly had to unlearn prior un- derstandings of ‘otherness’.