​​​SoTL conference

The 11^th annual SoTL Conference took place at the Lord Charles Hotel, from 29 to 31 October 2018, with the theme Academic Leadership. Participation has grown exponentially since the inception of the conference in 2007 with 84 presentations and 250 registered participants this year.

This event aims to address all aspects of teaching and learning at SU in an open, supportive and intellectually stimulating atmosphere. It provides a platform where academics share and celebrate teaching and learning practices and research. This is an in-house conference offered to Stellenbosch University staff.

Seven pre-conference workshops were presented on 29 October.  140 participants attended the workshops. Examples of topics were 'Engaging students in an online learning environment', 'Developing a teaching portfolio', 'Research in Teaching & Learning – first steps in becoming Teaching Scholars' and 'Transforming Assessment Into Great Learning Experiences'.

One of the keynote speakers, Dr Kathleen M Quinlan, offered a workshop for programme leaders entitled 'Teaching characteristic ways of thinking in your field'. Programme leaders articulated the characteristic habits of mind and heart of their fields, considered the key challenges students face in learning those ways of thinking, and explored ways their programmes could scaffold students' practice of those core habits to overcome the challenges. 

The two keynote speakers, Dr Kathleen M Quinlan (Director: Centre for the Study of Higher Education, University of Kent) and Prof. Magda Fourie-Malherbe (Centre for Higher and Adult Education, Stellenbosch University), challenged the audience with thought-provoking presentations. Dr Ouinlan's presentation was entitled Leading for Learning: Building on your Values and Teaching Expertise and Prof. Fourie-Malherbe addressed the audience with the following topic: Countering carelessness: A case for academic leadership as citizenship. [see photograph:  top right]

For podcasts and PowerPoint slides of the keynotes' presentations, please visit:

http://www0.sun.ac.za/sotl/keynote-speakers/ .

Since 2017, PREDAC participants have joined the celebration of teaching and learning at the conference. PREDAC is the Professional Educational Development of Academics programme offered to newly appointed academics at SU. During a PREDAC break-away earlier this year, participants designed learning opportunities that they would like to implement in their modules. Once back, they implemented the learning opportunities and obtained feedback from students. The results were presented at this conference in the form of a poster presentation. Seventeen groups presented posters at the conference. The posters demonstrated a depth of reflection and understanding of what they wished to achieve and the process(es) involved.

The closing session of the SoTL Conference functions as an inter-faculty 'think tank' about teaching and learning at SU that takes new ideas into the faculties through participants' intervention. This year the closing session engaged representatives of the SU teaching community in a free-thinking discussion about the journey to academic leadership, and specifically, teaching leadership.

Participants explored the SU teaching trajectory towards becoming leaderly teachers, with the journeys of the SU Teaching Fellows and national TAU (Teaching Advancement at University) Fellows as a point of departure. The SU Teaching Fellows who facilitated the sessions were Profs. Geo Quinot, Ian Nell, Dana Niehaus, Nicola Plastow and Ingrid Rewitzky, Marianne McKay, and Drs Berna Gerber, Elize Archer, Michael Schmeisser, and Marianne Unger. The SU Teaching Fellows who have moved on to become national TAU Fellows are Profs. Geo Quinot, Ian Nell, and Dr Berna Gerber. Prof. Ian Couper joined SU as a TAU Fellow.

The session ended with participants having a new or renewed sense of their 'journey to academic leadership' after thought-provoking buzz group discussions within and among faculties.

The final event of the conference was the cocktail function and continued the celebration of teaching and learning at SU. Various contributions to teaching and learning at SU were celebrated.  PREDAC participants who had completed the programme received their certificates.  National and SU Teaching Fellows, HELTASA Award winners and SU Teaching Excellence Award winners were all thanked for their role as academic leaders who promote teaching and learning at SU.

Eleven presentations were shortlisted as possible prize-winners. Four judges attended the shortlisted presentations. These presentations were:

The highlight of the conference was the announcement of the winners by Prof. Arnold Schoonwinkel: 

• The 'Delegates choice' award received Heltasa 2019 attendance (or any other disciplinary educational conference of preference): Dr Philip Southey with the paper entitled 'Concepts in context'. [see photograph:  bottom left]
  
• The best practice-based paper received Heltasa 2019 attendance (or any other disciplinary educational conference of preference): Prof. Faadiel Essop with the paper entitled 'Unique ways to enhance critical thinking in Physiology undergraduate classes'. [see photograph:  bottom right]
   
• The best research-based paper received attendance of an international teaching and learning conference in 2019: Ms Magda Barnard, Ms Samantha Adams and Prof. Ronel du Preez with the paper entitled 'Gamification For the Win!... or not? Evaluating Student Perceptions'. [see photograph:  top left]

We would like to thank all participants in this year's conference for dedicating time and effort to enhancing their professional learning and sharing innovative ideas regarding their teaching and their students' learning. We are privileged to have a complement of academics at SU who are becoming leaderly teachers at the university.

For photographs of the conference, visit:  http://www0.sun.ac.za/sotl/