How research on learning contributes to university teaching practice
Friday 22 February 2019, ETH Zurich
Call for Papers
Educational development at universities focuses primarily on the professional development of university educators. The positive effects of educational developers’ work are mostly discernible in the revision of degree programmes and courses, in changes made to learning activities and forms of performance assessment, and in the introduction of new teaching and learning forms. The aim of all of these is to improve the learning processes and learning success of students. To judge the effectiveness of organisational and pedagogical change, however, it is necessary to collect and present evidence on their actual impact on and sustainability with regard to student learning. Here the approaches and concepts of “learning science” may very usefully broaden research into teaching and learning.
The SFDN Conference 2019 is an opportunity for educational developers and university teachers to come together, exchange experiences and – deploying the results of their own practice-oriented investigations – to draw conclusions which will benefit current developments in university teaching. The 2019 conference will target both conceptual and didactic changes in higher education, and their consequences for student learning processes.
The Swiss Faculty Development Network therefore welcomes paper and poster submissions on topics which include the following:
- The connection between teaching strategies and learning outcomes
- The integration of transferable skills into university courses and study programmes
- The challenges of organising group and project work, and how to address them
- Forms of assessing student skills in classes, seminars and workshops
- The integration of cross-disciplinary competences into teaching
- The impact of formative assessment and feedback on student learning
- Didactic concepts and methods for teaching in different disciplines
- Teaching evaluation as research data
Papers on other themes related to improving teaching and learning at universities may be
accepted, but priority will be given to papers that explicitly address one of the above topics.
Conceptual, theoretical and descriptive papers are definitely potential candidates, but note
that we are primarily looking for submissions which are based on quantitative or qualitative
research data.
Submissions should take the form of a 300-word abstract outlining (a) submission title; (b) nature of the submission (i.e., paper or poster); (c) the above topic(s) addressed by the submission (if any); (d) a brief note on the relevant literature; (e) the research methodology; and (f) key findings. A bibliography should be included (this is not part of the 300-word limit).
Deadline for submissions: 30 November 2018
Please send your submissions to: Katherine Hahn Halbheer (LET)
