UCT’s Online Orientation Course and how student learning is assessed

  1. Structure of the course
    1. UCT offers a four-module online “Environmental Sustainability Orientation” course for first-year residence students.
    2. The modules cover: the responsible use of resources (energy, water, materials), waste, carbon emissions, and the impact of the built environment on wildlife.
    3. The course includes videos, reading material, a chatroom for discussion, and group activities.
  2. Assessment / Evaluation mechanisms
    1. At the end of each module, there is a short question to test knowledge.
    2. At the end of the course, there is a multiple-choice quiz.
    3. In addition, students complete two group activities that relate to sustainability at UCT.
    4. There is a chatroom in the course where students can ask questions, discuss, and interact; this likely contributes to participatory learning and peer evaluation / reflection.
  3. Follow-up and feedback
    1. After the first iteration of the course, UCT’s sustainability leadership (the director of Environmental Sustainability) held a feedback discussion with residence student environmental committee leaders.
    2. In his review, Manfred Braune (Director, Environmental Sustainability) said:
      “There are still many students who do not relate to the topic of sustainability … and so there is a need to further engage … to understand how the university can more effectively reach them.”
    3. UCT is evaluating not only knowledge retention (via quiz) but also affective / behavioural engagement (via group work + student feedback) and then iterating on the course design.
  4. Longer-term strategic commitment
    1. The Planetary Health Report Card for UCT (2023) notes that this orientation course is being developed further: “a short orientation course on sustainability for students in residences was piloted … with the intention of ultimately creating a campus-wide foundational ‘literacy’ course on environmental sustainability.”
    2. This shows that UCT is not treating the module as a one-off, but is committed to scaling it and making sustainability literacy more broadly accessible — which implies continuing evaluation and improvement.

Assessment

  • Strengths: UCT’s orientation course is fairly robust: knowledge checks (short questions), a final quiz, group activities, and discussion forums. These are standard pedagogical tools for assessing both retention (quiz) and application / reflection (group work).
  • Behavioral / Affective learning: The inclusion of group activities, chatrooms, and feedback loops suggests that UCT cares about more than just cognitive learning; it wants students to internalize and apply sustainability concepts, and it is willing to adapt based on student feedback.
  • Iterative improvement: The fact that UCT is planning to scale the course into a foundational sustainability literacy course for more students indicates that evaluation results are feeding into strategic educational planning.