Cook, Shashi Cullinan

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Shashi Cullinan Cook is a lecturer in Contextual Studies at the University of Johannesburg’s Department of Jewellery Design and Manufacture. After studying Fine Art, she graduated in 2009 with a Master’s in Art History and Visual Culture, and will graduate in October 2021 with a PhD in Education.

Cullinan Cook’s doctoral research, on the knowledges that first-year art and design students bring to their university studies, grew from her work as an educator, as a research assistant on the South African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE) project, and as the managing editor of the SOTL in the South journal.

Shashi Cullinan Cook

Lost connection: Reflections on online jewellery design teaching

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Fashion, Jewellery & Textile Design

In this paper, four educators teaching undergraduate jewellery design and manufacture recount our adaptations to online learning during the COVID19 lockdown, and how this impacted our ideas about lecture content and delivery. We look at the possibilities for online study in jewellery design in relation to the developments of the fourth industrial revolution, such as blended learning, simulations and computer-aided design and manufacture. We share adaptations that may serve educators in distance or blended learning scenarios. However, the lockdown created difficult learning circumstances in South Africa in which we often ‘lost connection’ due to high data costs and inequalities in students’ living conditions.

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