SEDA Spring Teaching Learning and Assessment
Conference 2010: Communities of Learning

Thursday 6th and Friday 7th May 2010 Park Plaza Hotel, Leeds

Call for Contributions

This year the SEDA Conference Committee invites you to explore and debate the issues around communities of learning. We are delighted to welcome Etienne Wenger as our keynote speaker: who better to launch our debates around this topic? The conference will touch upon some key topics in staff and educational development and learning and teaching with regard to the need to nurture communities, reflection on existing communities and how to respond in an ever changing world to the multifarious demands on academics in HE and FE.

What is the nature of the communities that we are wishing to create and support? What are the tensions inherent in fostering such communities? What is the nature of existing communities? How can we engage different communities?

You are invited to contribute to the SEDA Spring Conference 2010 by leading a discussion, running a workshop or presenting a poster on an aspect of your work. This could be developmental activities or research or evaluation that informs practice. This year we are exploring teaching and learning through themes linked to communities of learning.

Conference Themes

Proposals for sessions are invited that address the key themes of communities of learning:

· Building communities through teaching, learning and assessment

· Building communities through scholarship and research

· Reaching outside the university

· Supporting the student experience through communities of learning

· Sharing community stories

· Understanding communities of learning in higher education

· How to manage conflicting communities of learning

The SEDA Conference Experience

SEDA prides itself on creating a relaxed, welcoming and positive atmosphere at conferences, which encourages open, constructive and supportive sharing of ideas, experience and practice.

Feedback from participants at recent SEDA conferences:

· “The people are a wonderful resource and I feel very much at home”

· “Relaxed supportive culture” · ”The informal atmosphere made it a pleasant, enjoyable yet very useful conference with plenty of networking opportunities. Thanks!”· ”Excellent and worthwhile conference, first time at the SEDA conference and I would recommend to others and come back! Thank-you” · “Great presentations, relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Fantastic organisation”

“It is so different to Subject Discipline conferences; people are willing to share ideas and admit that things haven’t always gone to plan”

Venue

The conference will take place in Leeds at the 4 star Park Plaza Hotel, a modern and stylish hotel, which is perfectly located opposite the train station. All residential delegates will be accommodated on site in en suite bedrooms. Leeds Metropolitan University have generously offered to host a drinks reception on the first day.

Participants

The conference will be of particular interest to all those involved in promoting communities of learning in HE and FE learning, teaching and development. This includes:

· Educational and academic developers

· Staff developers and human resources personnel

· Lecturers and teachers in further and higher education

· National and institutional teaching fellows

· Higher Education Academy, Centres of Excellence, Subject Centres and FDTL staff

· Managers of academic departments

· Educational technologists

· Quality assurance and enhancement policy makers

Session Format

We welcome proposals which address the conference themes through:

· Evaluative reports of initiatives created in response to an aim to develop communities of learning

· Exploring or critiquing research which examines communities of practice concerning teaching and learning

· Reflecting upon attempts and opportunities to develop communities of learning

· Exploring the tensions and challenges in creating communities of learning

The sessions enable reflection, exploration and evaluation of activities rather than merely describing what is happening. It is also a long-standing tradition at SEDA conferences to hold sessions which involve delegates in active participation and discussion, and consequently this is a key requirement of all proposals.

We are designing the programme around interactive sessions (either 45 or 90 minutes) and posters:

· Interactive sessions: these may include sharing research/evaluation approaches and findings, or policy or practice.

· Posters: these enable you to share information about your research, evaluation, policy or practice visually.

We reserve the right to group some 45 minute proposals into themed, chaired, 90 minute sessions.

Submitting your proposal

Proposals should be submitted using the proposal form which can be found on the SEDA website (www.seda.ac.uk). All proposals should be submitted electronically to SEDA at conferences@seda.ac.uk by Friday 25th September 2009.

It is normal practice to accept only one contribution per individual so as to provide the opportunity for as many people to contribute as possible. It is a requirement that all presenters register as conference delegates either for the whole event or for the day of their session.

Criteria for acceptance of proposals

Each proposal will be reviewed for acceptance at the conference against the following criteria:

· Relevance to the conference title and themes

· Clarity and coherence of the proposal

· Evidence of active engagement with the participants in the sessions, and the opportunity to reflect upon transferability to participants’ own practice

· Reflection and evaluation of ideas around the future of educational development, locally, institutionally, theoretically and nationally and internationally

· Contribution to scholarship and evaluation of educational development in further and higher education

· Evidence of references to support the session

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