The World Teachers Day that falls on 5th October of each year has been set aside by the United Nations (UN) to appreciate the important role that teachers play in society. The role of teachers in the development of various societies and nations cannot be overemphasized. Almost every person in any profession has passed through the hands of a teacher in their lifetime. For this year's World Teachers Day, I would like to appreciate Professor Dick Ng’ambi from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Professor Ng’ambi made me enjoy learning and showed me how a caring teacher looks like and the actions they perform.
Dick Ng'ambi - Image source: YouTube
I took classes where Prof Dick Ngambi was the Programme convener for the ICTs in Education Postgraduate diploma in 2011 at the University of Cape Town. Prof Ngambi or Dick as he told the class to call him particularly coordinated the first to courses in the Programme.
Dick handled the components that he taught with a lot of passion and care. I recall one particular time when we had challenges understanding components of the Activity Theory. Dick was quite concerned that we grasped the concept. The following day he brought us a journal article by Nancy Mwanza if I recall correctly and the entire class grasped the concept very well. I really learnt a lot from this incident and many others about caring for one's learners.
Dick made sure we enjoyed whilst we learned. He told us at the start of the course that we would learn a lot and have fun whilst we learned. He would give us very clear guidance during pre-class tasks, block release face to face class sessions and during the take home essays. Dick has always been innovative in matters of teaching and learning. During the time when I was finalising my Masters Dissertation writing at the University of Cape Town, he came up with what was referred to as a “Shut up and Write” sessions where he would avail space to lecturers and students to focus on writing for 2 hours (with 25 minute block sessions and 5 minutes tea and coffee breaks). This was very useful in making progress in the writing process. I continue to use my own “Shut up and write” sessions individually and with others.
Dick taught the importance of academic writing and reading. He made sure he lined up staff within UCT and elsewhere to teach us good academic writing during our block release classes. He also exposed us to the leading journals in Educational Technology. Dick has published a number of academic journals so he walked the talk. During an Educational Technology Conference that he co-organised in 2015, one of the speakers on the programme was from the British Journal of Educational Technology. This gave us an opportunity to learn further on what constitutes writing a good publishable journal article.
Because of the appreciation I had for Dick’s teaching and the influence has in the use of educational technologies in teaching and learning, I made sure that Dick was invited to Zambia on two occasions. The first time was for a workshop held in Livingstone at New Fairmount Hotel for open, distance and flexible learning (ODFL) lecturers from technical and vocational education and training institutions and the second time to a larger group of ODFL lecturers and policy makers in workshops held in Kabwe and Kitwe at Tuskers Hotel and Edinburgh Hotel respectively,
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