Nkululeko Fuyane

Dr Nkululeko Fuyane is a dynamic and driven academic with a passion for learning & teaching, research, and the advancement of higher learning. Currently serving as a faculty member at the University of Brighton, Dr Fuyane brings a wealth of international experience in marketing (and business management) and teaching in higher education.

Within the marketing domain, Dr Fuyane's research interest focuses on consumer behaviour, the influence of personal values, in particular, integrated marketing communications, service marketing, and especially the concept of service quality, marketing strategy for nascent firms, and the integration of technology for marketing, including digital strategy. As a HE practitioner, Dr Fuyane is interested in adopting and integrating technology to enhance teaching and learning in pursuit of 21st-century graduate attributes. He is open to supervising Masters and Doctoral research students in the abovementioned or cognate fields.

I am open to taking up the supervisory role for Masters and Doctoral students in the following marketing fields

• Marketing management, including [digital] strategy,
• Consumer behaviour,
• Services marketing,
• branding, and
• Integrated marketing communications.

I am also keen to take students focusing on the adoption and integration of technology into teaching and learning activities as my secondary research interest.

In order to describe my teaching practice, it is critical that I start by outlining my onto-epistemological views that have a bearing on my academic identity and how I answer questions such as: What is education? What is knowledge and the nature of learning? Who do I teach? and What must I teach? Ultimately, these questions lead to the big question: What is good teaching? These questions, from a layman's perspective, seem to have straightforward answers.

However, from a pedagogical point of view, they are difficult questions that need critical reflection. To answer the question about ‘What is good teaching?’, I draw from Pratt’s (1992, 1998) Teaching Perspectives Inventory for constant reflection to continuously understand and adjust my approach to teaching and learning. At the core, I am inspired by the libertarian worldview and social justice discourse (Friere, 1970; Fraser, 1998, 2009; Leibowitz and Bozalek, 2016) as the anchor of my ontology, which is the gaze into my teaching practice. From a libertarian worldview, I believe in a dialogical (problem-solving) approach to education. As such, my pedagogy is largely driven by the constructivist epistemological view, even though I usually adopt a pragmatic approach to educational problems.

Such a stance enables me to easily adapt my teaching approach to realities that are local and specific to any context (Guba and Lincoln, 1994). Accordingly, I enable my students to bring in their socially constructed meanings as the foundation of learning. Teaching in a historically disadvantaged institution made me cognisant of the reality (frailties) besetting our students, which should be carefully handled in order to avail socially just teaching and learning activities. Now, as a teacher in a British university with a very diverse student profile of different nationalities, I still find the constructivist approach appropriate to achieve inclusivity. Also, as someone who has been exposed to open and distance e-learning (ODeL), both as a student (at Zimbabwe Open University and UNISA) and a teacher (Zimbabwe Open University), I am aware of the pedagogical differences between conventional and ODeL teaching and learning situations. The major difference is that of space and time, which places so much emphasis on inculcating an independent learning approach on students and digital literacies compared to conventional teaching and learning. 

At the centre of my teaching and learning activities (TLAs) is the constructive alignment framework (Biggs, 1999), which binds together what and how I teach and assess the intended learning outcomes. Through constructively aligned learning activities, I “entrap” my students to be actively engaged in learning, thus avoiding surface learning in favour of deep learning approaches. This is achieved through a cooperative process, partnerships and highly interactive contact between student-to-student, student-to-teacher, student-to-content, teacher-to-teacher and teacher-to-content (Anderson, 2003; Anderson and Garrison, 1998).

Furthermore, as I adopt the constructivist approach to learning, I also lean on the connectivist paradigm (Siemens, 2005), which espouses the chaotic, complex and networked nature of learning in the digital era. Thus, I rely on the Technological, Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) model (Mishra and Koehler, 2006), which integrates the core skills for teaching and learning in the 21st century. This model is a widely accepted framework that outlines the interrelated skills needed to teach effectively in the digital era. It has enriched how I integrate various technological tools, such as the learning management system and other educational technologies, without falling into the trap of shiny-tech syndrome. With the higher education sector globally grappling with the affordances of artificial intelligence (AI), e-pedagogy has become more important than ever. Over and above domain-specific knowledge, I also inculcate critical thinking and problem-solving on collaboration, creativity, communication skills, and ICT (digital, media and information) literacies dubbed as the 21st-century skills.

The above onto-epistemological and TPACK framework reverberate through my curriculum development views. I espoused such when I led curriculum development (e.g. Advanced Diploma in Marketing and Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing at MUT), and I still do so in my materials development for modules I teach currently. 

Another noteworthy aspect of my teaching practice is my view of the notion of quality. As part of reflection in action and reflection on action (Schön, 1983), in addition to intrapersonal reflection, I rely on peer and students’ evaluations to introspect and enhance my practice. This is in addition to the disciplinary, institutional and national quality standards. 

All of my exploits, some not discussed here, have resulted over the years in some commendable outcomes, such as consistently attaining high pass rates, winning teaching awards, getting collaboration requests, being invited as a guest speaker or panel member and being appointed as an external moderator and examiner.  

As a parting shot, I believe that one is as best as their last lecture/research output; hence, the need for continuous improvement underpinned by reflectivity and reflexivity (Finlay, 2008; Palmer, 1993; Schon, 1983). These two concepts help me to escape being “trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions, and expectations” (Larrivee, 2000:293).

Nkululeko Fuyane: Dcom-UNISA, RSA; MBA-NUST, Zim; PGDHE-Rhodes University; BCom Marketing-ZOU, Zim; Dip. In PR-LCCI-EB (UK); MA(SA).