Several factors have affected university students, including those at the University of the Free State (Faculty of Theology and Religion), as have many other universities and faculties. These factors include the Fourth Industrial Revolution, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and volatile and uncertain learning and teaching environments. Using LMS platforms such as Blackboard and involving students with a critical and dialogical pedagogical need to critically engage could positively impact students’ academic success. Moreover, when students participate in this:

Discussions of this kind can provide insights into how faculties at higher learning institutions can respond more effectively to the ever-changing external and internal worlds of learning and teaching. Lecturers may even be able to use these insights to engage students socially and psychologically so that they can thrive in their studies. The Centre for Learning and Teaching (CTL) and the students at the University of the Free State, through the work of Loots (2021), confirm this by positing that:

The article examines how well-trained lecturers and teachers are able to manage their pedagogy of engagement through teaching effectively by evaluating their Learning Management Systems (LMS) skills, values and equal distribution of resources when it comes to teaching and learning. Aside from ensuring a safe and friendly learning environment, the goal is to facilitate the success of students. The article also discusses the possibility of providing students with a learning experience that encourages them to become active citizens. The methodological framework and the theoretical frameworks of Freire and others underlying the study will be discussed. Afterwards, the article will describe the proposed teaching approaches and conclude with some conclusions.

The methodology employed in this article has chosen ‘an interpretive perspective’ to critically engage and discuss how lecturers include students in the teaching and learning on online LMS platforms such as Blackboard. The article has utilised the ‘conceptual research methodology’ from which to move and understand deliberations between students and lecturers regarding this, including how students are cared for in the learning and teaching process. Scholars who have written extensively on these issues are Paulo Freire, Jurgen Habermas and Yusuf Waghid, among others. The lenses of these scholars are foregrounded in this research in order to make critical deductions. If one considers this combined approach as one from which to extrapolate a conceptual study, the process of developing a systematic theoretical foundation for engagement becomes evident. Terre Blanche, Durrheim and Painter (2006) expressly agree with this paradigm of doing research. They posit that:

This in turn will heighten the intended purpose of a critical discussion, and it lays the foundation for lecturers and students in the teaching process to come up with meaningful and impactful change.

The aforementioned scholars and their perspectives on issues of teaching and learning, deliberative pedagogy, democracy and ‘care and associated work (ethics, justice) in higher education’ (Joorst 2021:1) have been solicited to help in engaging the minimal effort required to put greater emphasis on the critical relationship between lecturer and student on all learning and teaching platforms, but more specifically on online LMS platforms, which have now become the norm in educational spaces in the post-COVID 19 period.

The methodology of Brazilian educationalist and to some extent theological thinker, Paulo Freire, has a strong theological frame of reference when he reflects on teaching and learning settings (Hazelton & Haigh 2010). His theory of dialogue in educational situations can be summarised as ‘the encounter of men, mediated by the world, to pronounce it, not exhausting, therefore, in the I-you relation’ (Freire 1972; Heidemann & Almeida 2011). For Freire, any learning and teaching setting, including online platforms such as Blackboard, needs to fulfil:

Freire’s (1972) modus operandi is a methodological approach that is effective, albeit not widespread. In this methodological strategy, the ‘culture circle’ is used, in which the teacher and facilitator and student create reflections and discussions about reality and collectively seek to unveil and identify the possibilities of learning. The ‘culture circle’ is a concept that speaks to the ‘critical consciousness of inequities and addresses their causes and insisting on transforming their social and their political circumstances’ (Zulu 2020:252), to be able to be part of the online Blackboard teaching and learning process.

This would be in line with the perception of the University of the Free State (UFS) of what good education ought to be. Therefore, it is important for transformative higher education institutions to tap into this ‘action-reflection process’. This process lays bare how students positively and actively participate in an online learning process, even on a virtual platform such as Blackboard, where the stories of students and who they are as persons from different backgrounds lend richness to the learning and teaching process (Longo 2020:1–2). This ultimately allows all stakeholders in the learning and teaching process to strengthen and modify these practices (Davids & Waghid 2018:221). Freire’s methodology is an approach that encourages a ‘reflective process’, where both lecturers and students from university faculties, which also include the Faculty of Theology and Religion, are able to value the cultural and historical sources of individuals, which can be revealed in ‘culture circles’, which Davids and Waghid (2018) refer to as ‘active citizenry’. Through the Journey Mapping project of Loots (2021), it has been the aim to take a step back and look at the entire educational journey of UFS students – from their first interaction with the university, to getting ready to transition out of university and into the world of work or pursuing postgraduate qualifications. Such an analysis allows us to see which aspects contribute to students’ success, at which times, and how these factors interact with each other over time. This, in turn, enables the University of the Free State to align its curricular and co-curricular initiatives with students’ experiences, which includes not only caring for students outside of just assessments and content, but also allowing them to be co-deliberators of learning and teaching initiatives online that would have an impact on their success.

To put this explicitly within a framework of theological and caring language, which would be important for transformative higher education institutions, I borrow from the words of Habermas (2006), who posits in an interview where he was asked his opinion on the love for education (wisdom). He asserts:

In the above statement, Habermas accentuates that any ethos, including any theological and religious ethos, climaxes ought to embrace education (teaching and learning). More importantly, the critical and dialogical and deliberative online teaching and learning platforms such as Blackboard form part of the education process, and therefore, all stakeholders in such a process should:

The three aforementioned theories in the forms of Freire’s dialogical and critical pedagogy, the deliberation theory and Habermas’s educational ethic of care and inclusion all intersect within the discussion of transformative higher education institutions, in order to necessitate fair action and redress in the teaching and learning process. This means that true transformation in online teaching and learning can take place. This can be described by Freire (2018) as:

The teaching and learning processes of a transformative higher education institution such as the UFS are based on a system that aims to produce students who are able to identify, analyse and solve everyday problems. Students must be able to think critically and creatively, both inside and outside of their discipline of study. Once they have completed their studies, they must be able to take responsibility for their own actions in life. They must be able to manage themselves and their activities effectively and responsibly. In order to successfully develop, they must be able to communicate well using language skills, either visual or symbolic (Bloch 2005:10).

The efficient administration of instruction and learning in higher education ought to consider the appropriation of the democratisation of students’ learning to dialogue with their lecturers (Jansen 2005:22). Consequently, this will allow ‘students to demonstrate an understanding of the world as a whole and as a set of related systems’ (Mashiyi 2000) by recognising the content learned in their courses. Thus, the proper use of Blackboard can be applied to the teaching and learning process, but also to how students should conduct themselves further afield. This means that lecturers and an LMS such as Blackboard ought to be viewed as critical tools in the development and growth of UFS students in general and Faculty of Theology and Religion students in particular. The policy of the Faculty of Theology and Religion provides an example of how technology and Blackboard are critical for the learning process:

Moreover, the lack of a strong emphasis on the importance of making connections and having critical engagement between students and lecturers in higher education institutions plays a vital role in mediating students’ expectations and learning experiences. It is the experience of many students in the faculty that there exists ‘a lack of communication from lecturers, as well as frustrations with a general lack of interactive communication between students, lecturers and peers’ (UFS Centre for Teaching and Learning 2020:8–9). Many students find it difficult to engage in online platforms with lecturers. This ultimately creates a culture of exclusion.

Some students actually verbalised this sense of exclusion from their teaching and learning process. Their responses can be summarised from a UFS Institutional Report called ‘Emergency Remote Teaching at the UFS’. When students were surveyed, they said things like:

The proliferation of students feeling excluded from the online (Blackboard) teaching and learning process can also be particularly ascribed to lecturers’ lack of effective use of, and development and training in, the UFS Learning System, Blackboard. Consequently, this then adds to the lack of creating and enabling an online environment that delivers quality students.

The work of Freire (1972) can be used to summarize the concepts of dialogical and critical engagement, care, and socially just pedagogies, who notes that:

According to Freire’s idea, educators and facilitators cannot simply consider themselves as people who force their opinions on those who are less educated or as passive recipients of information waiting to ‘digest’ it without question. This would be the result of deliberately ignoring the voices of the students on the online teaching and learning Blackboard platform. This should never be the case, even if it means drawing stakeholders such as students out of their comfort zones (Freire 2000).

The following quotation serves to clarify the fundamental point stated by Freire et al. (2005), which is truly the goal of this article:

Moreover, lecturers have a lot of responsibility for ensuring that all parties involved in the process of any online education platform are included and that, they also need to be progressive in how they use and perform teaching and learning tasks on teaching and learning platforms like Blackboard.

Adams and Waghid (2005), in relation to the critical theory of dialogue of Freire, use dialogical pedagogy to frame critical engagement of the teaching and learning process (Dhungana 2021). In other words, students, as well as lecturers, add value to the learning and teaching process of LMS platforms such as Blackboard, and their input must be considered of primary importance.

Teaching and learning is a process of education. However, it is also measurable. According to Peters (1966), for proper education to take place on any platform including LMS platforms such as Blackboard, being measurable must be central if teachers and facilitators are to be impactful. Peters (1966), suggests:

Peters’ view that it is critical for a teacher and lecturer to also foreground the dialogical and deliberative pedagogies is noteworthy, and also that teaching and learning and education in general are transmitted by teachers and lecturers and that these also translate into how prepared they are in the use of learning tools such as Blackboard. Not only this, but also critically important is how students perceive the actual use of such tools in the knowledge and understanding process.

Moreover, Biesta (2013) highlights what the underlining antithesis to the teaching and learning process is:

Therefore, the relationship between student facilitator or lecturer and how they relate and collaborate in the aforementioned process needs to be carefully considered, especially if the powers of lecturers and students are different from a power relation perspective (Joorst 2021:6). The attempt to achieve this can be summarised by Greene (1986:430), when she asserts that ‘[teaching and learning is a] joined to justice or equity process’. This process ought to prompt students, as well as lecturers, to question meanings and ideas, to imagine alternative possibilities and outcomes, to modify practical judgements and to develop respect and critical engagement in their field of study. In this way, critical assignation and deliberation is ‘unhindered communicative liberty that involves both rational opinion’ and wilful allowance of information, ‘which can almost always potentially lead to a transformation in people’s preferences and perceptions of their learning’ (Adams & Waghid 2005:28).

Before going any further, it is important to justify why and how the research problem arises out of this study. In other words, what are the factors that contribute to the research problem? Because my experience is based in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, I believe that the research problem unwittingly forms part of the UFS, and the UFS, like many transforming higher education institutions, also unwittingly forms part of an unevenly distributed education and training system that has too many barriers to growth. It is my conviction that quality education ought to be evenly distributed and should be available to all South African students regardless of background or location. Therefore, educational entities such as the Faculty of Theology and Religion, and many other transforming higher education institutions, need to set equitable teaching and learning standards for every student coming through their halls, and they also have the responsibility to create teaching and learning outcomes that are achievable in students ‘becoming’, as a means to empower students to be part of their own learning process. And, when setting the content and standards for teaching and learning online programmes such as Blackboard, it should be kept in mind that all students need to be developed to reach their full potential as persons, not just for academic brilliance but also further afield (Bloch 2005:9).

Factors that sustain excellent dialogical outcomes for a transformative higher education institution’s teaching and learning plans ought to include the views of students in the LMS process such as Blackboard, particularly when it comes to indigenous knowledge, as their views form part of their educational formation. If this is done well, students will feel that they have been included, and this will create depth and meaning. Thus, higher education institutions would have wholly developed students that are both globally and locally engaged and not be restricted by geographical borders (Bloch 2005:10). This problematisation can only be addressed by lecturers reviving the ‘eventalization of the intentional emancipation of education [online teaching and learning systems such as Blackboard]’ (Foucault 1991:41). And the way this could play out can be explained by Foucault (1991) as follows:

This discourse does not allow the possibility for any individual or group of students to be excluded from critical and dialogical and deliberative educational matters that interest them and that determine their future; this means they critically engage in the teaching and learning process. After all, the rights of students to participate in deliberation and critical and dialogical engagement are legally institutionalised and should be measured against the effective use of teaching and learning tools, such as Blackboard. This means that ‘each individual student has an equal opportunity to be heard during the deliberative and dialogue process’ (Adams & Waghid 2005), which in turn means that the viewpoints of the minority are heard, and the domination of the majority is limited. However, in order for critical and dialogical engagement and deliberation to be effective and truly beneficial, certain crucial aspects need to be constantly monitored from the perspective of the lecturer when using a teaching and learning platform, such as Blackboard (Bloch 2005:10).

One essential element pointed out by Jürgen Habermas, who offers great insights into the dialogical theory, from the perspective of how the theory of deliberation adds to the discussion. Using Habermas as a theorist juxtaposes the dialogical and deliberation pedagogies because they both foreground the conversation between the transformative higher education institutions and Freire, because both entities’ ‘purpose of education is to serve and help develop a civilised and just society, through the development of well-read, thoughtful, scholarly individuals with a well-developed capacity for independent critical thought’ (Gray & Collison 2002). Dialogical ‘consensus ought to grow out of deliberation’ (Adams & Waghid 2005), in order for it to be effective in learning and teaching. Susen (2018) accurately summarises the Habermasian view when she posits:

According to Habermas (2006), harmony should not be a qualification for dialogue, but rather it should reflect the autonomous treatise of knowledgeable discussion responsive to the weights that are responsible for vigorous community. Habermas (2006) also states:

Consequently, an expansive explanation of ‘democratic citizenship’ pursues enduring ‘deliberation’ so that it is able ‘to identify the better argument between majorities and minorities after the parties have temporarily reached a compromise for the sake of progress’ as they learn and participate together (Waghid 2005). Habermas’s perception of democratic citizenship in online teaching and learning (education process) has important implications for an institution such as a university (Warren 2016:309), in particular the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the UFS.

Students today have been impacted by their external environment, such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution and COVID-19, which has led to a volatile and uncertain learning and teaching environment. Transformative higher education institutions’ use of an LMS platform such as Blackboard and the inclusion of students from a dialogical pedagogical point of view may serve as a valuable conversation with Freire’s approach and Adams and Waghid’s theory of deliberation.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic ‘emergency critical dialogical changes in teaching and learning but has also created rare opportunities to think differently about the assumptions and processes that have become the norm’ (Higher Education and Training 2020:10), for the interaction between the lecturers and students on online LMS platforms such as Blackboard. The necessitated move to ‘remote learning’ (Akuffo & Budu 2019:1) in higher education institutions should allow differentiation, but has also precipitated a relationship of dialogical, critical, deliberative care, as well as an ethics of care, in the online teaching and learning process, where student and lecturer are involved. For us at the UFS, it may help to acknowledge that these themes go together, and that they appropriate the purpose of this research in seeing the importance of identifying ‘how students are accessing and using different forms of learning materials, and to explore how students’ experiences’ of inclusion and exclusion during the current context (Higher Education and Training 2020). Lecturers need to think about including students more from a dialogical and critical perspective, around ‘policy and practice in more digitally advanced teaching and learning spaces’ such as what Blackboard and other LMSs may offer, because this is not negotiable if we are to remain in the business of creating quality, growing and successful students and graduates (Higher Education and Training 2020:10).

It is also important to note that student success at universities has increased significantly in the past few years. Together with the surge in this research, with a particular focus on the lens of deliberation and creating relationships in the online space, it is also important to reflect on the efforts of institutions to help students transition, and successfully navigate their studies, into the future and far afield. However, what this research reframes is an invaluable contribution to our contextual understanding of student success and lecturer relations, which in turn will create the transformation of higher education spaces.