Learning to teach again: navigating pedagogical change in the post-COVID university

Abstract

Across the African continent and globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has catalysed significant transformation in higher education. This paper employs the community of inquiry framework to examine how academics at a South African university responded to these challenges during their shift from emergency remote teaching to blended learning. This qualitative paper is based on interviews with 11 academics across six faculties. It provides insight into how academics recalibrated their teaching by introducing new digital practices, reconfiguring student support, and redesigning learning. The findings show the development of a teaching presence and academics’ willingness to adopt digital platforms and multimodal learning environments, which enhanced students’ access to learning. A key finding is that academics constructed blended and student-centred learning approaches and anticipated discussion and dialogue among students; however, students’ engagement was limited, especially in asynchronous spaces. Empathetic presence emerged as an essential dimension, reflecting academics’ care and responsiveness to students’ socioeconomic challenges. Academics adopted more flexible and student-sensitive approaches to sustain meaningful engagement. The paper suggests that post-pandemic pedagogy must move beyond affective responsiveness to embed student voice, agency, and epistemic inclusion. This paper contributes to comparative debates on pedagogical renewal by responding to Mahlaba and Sekano’s (2023) African continental review and Giakoumakis et al.’s (2025) global critique of digital corporatisation, and by calling for internationally compassionate teaching frameworks that support African and Global South universities in building just, dialogic, and connected learning communities.