GENERAL BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The 2023 SU SoTL conference offers a space for staff to reflect, showcase, and share innovative teaching, learning and assessment practices. Stellenbosch University staff members are invited to submit abstracts/contributions through which they reflect on their teaching, learning and assessment, share what they have learnt and how it will impact their future teaching.
You may want to share your experiences of trying out something new or innovative in your teaching or assessment practice. Did it work or not? Perhaps you’ve conducted a large-scale needs analysis related to your teaching, or you’ve discovered something interesting while analyzing the results of your students’ assessments. Have you explored a teaching-related aspect in collaboration with other colleagues in your department or faculty, or even across disciplinary boundaries? Have you conducted research on your teaching or assessment? Or perhaps you have some new ideas that you would like to discuss.
Come and share your results, innovative practices and reflections with us in a presentation or as a poster, so we can all learn together and make teaching and learning at SU the best it can be!
See details below.
1. How to submit an abstract/contribution
Abstracts must be submitted for all presentations and poster submissions.
- Go to the abstract submission website: Oxford Abstracts
- If you have never used this website before, click on Create an account.
- IMPORTANT: Click on the Continue with email button and sign in with your SU email only.
- You will receive a verification email in your SU inbox. Click on the Verify email link.
- You will be redirected back to the website and the submission form.
- Complete all the fields in the submission form and click on SUBMIT. You will receive an e-mail confirming your submission.
- You will be able to edit your submission until the due date of 6 September 2023 by returning to the website link above.
2. Criteria for the abstracts/contributions
| Research |
|---|
| Is there any T-L-A topic you are currently researching or have recently researched? Would you like to share your research practices, initial findings, or conclusions/results with your peers? If so, consider a research contribution. |
| Innovation |
|---|
| Have you tried T-L-A approaches you can share with your peers? This can include any idea, tool, or method you have applied. How did it go and how can others learn from your experience? If so, consider an innovation contribution. |
| Reflection |
|---|
| Is there a T-L-A topic you are currently engaging with and would like to discuss? This could include a broad theme or a proposed study of a specific question, with a basic theoretical exploration of the phenomenon. If so, consider a reflection contribution. |
- Background, rationale, purpose
- Research question(s)
- Theoretical framing with one or two initial references
- Methods
- Results, conclusions, and/or implications from findings
- Originality or significance of research
- Background, context, purpose
- Focus of the presentation
- Description of work done
- Links to similar work
- What can your peers learn from this approach?
- Conclusions
- Background, context, purpose
- Refer to an applied reflective framework (see recommended readings)
- Description of work done
- How will this influence your future teaching and what can your peers learn from your experience?
3. General criteria and allocated time
- The title of the presentation must be no longer than 10 words.
- The abstract/contribution must be between 200 and 250 words.
- The abstract/contribution must be language edited before it is submitted.
- Abstracts should contain in-text references (author and date), but a reference list is not required.
- The abstract/contribution should be understandable to a broad spectrum of readers.
- The abstract/contribution must be submitted by 1 September 2023.
- This document contains information about how the SoTL prize winners are determined plus the criteria used by the judging panel.
- Please note that the primary investigator is responsible for obtaining the necessary (1) ethical clearance and/or (2) institutional permission and ensuring adherence to the (3) Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). Click here for more information.
4. Focus Streams
What themes or areas can you focus on? Here are some suggestions.
- Academic advising (mentoring, tutoring, faculties)
- Academic and digital literacies
- Curriculum / co-curriculum integration
- Decoloniality
- Educational leadership
- Feedback
- Technology in education
- Flexible T-L-A (Place/Pace/Mode/Scale)
- Graduate attributes
- Innovation and entrepreneurial mindset
- Multilingual mindset
- Programme review and renewal
- Social impact
- Student journeys, pathways and transitions
- Student success
- Transformative T-L-A
- Wrap-around student support
- Innovative T-L-A
- Inter / multi / transdisciplinary
