‘Working WISER in Higher Education’
23-24 April 2024 (in person) at Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK
We are delighted to welcome all National Teaching Fellows, aspiring National Teaching Fellows, CATE and aspiring CATE winners to this 2024 symposium. Please join the most inspirational national educators in the UK for our two-day symposium. Come and present, showcase your work, join our workshops and sessions, or find out more about the NTF and CATE schemes.
We are a warm, friendly and inclusive community.
We will be using the hashtag #ANTF2024 on social media (X); if you’re posting about coming, please do the same so we can find you and share!
Submissions
Please submit an abstract of no more than 200-words, relating to the conference themes below using this Google form before 17:00 GMT, 15 December 2023.
Please include three keywords and an X (Twitter) message about your session. We will also ask you whether you would be willing to write a synopsis of your session for our blog page, so please don’t forget to indicate this on the form.
We hope to respond to your submission by the 26th January 2024 at the latest. We will then ask you to confirm your attendance at the conference. We hope to open bookings in early February 2024.
Conference themes
(Please see appendix to call at end of this document, for complete description of themes)
Following our successful ANTF symposium in 2023, we continue to call for papers within the themes of ‘becoming WISER‘ – in Wellbeing, Innovation and impact, with Students, Staff and Stakeholder collaborations, in Equity and Ethics and in Reward and Recognition.
- W – Wellbeing
- I – Innovation and impact
- S – Students / Staff / Stakeholders collaborations
- E – Equity and ethics
- R – Reward and recognition
Presentation options
- 1 hour workshop
- 30 minute resource showcase
- 15 minute paper presentation
- Poster (all speakers invited to bring/submit a poster)
- Lightning talk
Preferences
If you have a preference to present (if accepted) on a particular day, then please indicate this when you make your submission. We cannot guarantee to be able to accommodate, this but we will make every attempt possible!
Symposium Venue
Our symposium will be hosted at the City Campus of Nottingham Trent University, within the Grade II listed Newton Building. NTU’s City Campus is situated in the heart of Nottingham city centre, with easy access to Nottingham Railway Station, East Midlands Airport, and excellent tram and bus links. The conference rooms are all accessible, and located together within the same self-contained conferencing area.
Symposium Fees
We plan to offer conference attendance at affordable day rates again this year; we will operate on a ‘not-for-profit’ basis. Full costings are still underway, and details will be circulated soon. Delegates will be responsible for making their own arrangements for accommodation, but a list of suggested venues will be provided with the joining instructions upon booking.
Gala Dinner
We are being hosted by the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Nottingham City Centre for our gala dinner this year. It is a short walk away from our conference venue at Nottingham Trent University, and is close to tram stops, bus stops, and Nottingham railway station.
We would like to thank Advance HE for their support of our annual symposium. Bookings are expected to open in early February 2024.
Appendix: Description of themes
Wellbeing:
Wellbeing of both staff and students has become an urgent priority in higher education, with concerns around mental health, the cost of living, and increased pressure and workload for staff. We welcome contributions around human flourishing, efficient and effective practices, self-care, compassionate education, and other work that you have been involved in to enhance wellbeing in the higher education community.
Innovation and impact:
Higher education is faced with rapid change, in the context of technological opportunities, creating a new normal following the pandemic, forthcoming changes to the QAA subject benchmarks, enhancing learning environments, equipping future-proof and employable graduates, and so much more! How do we balance innovation with ensuring effective teaching practices? And if innovations are effective, how do we ensure they can benefit others? We would welcome contributions around your own innovative practices, ways to evidence effectiveness, and ways to ensure and evidence the extent to which innovative practices are impactful and implemented by others. How can we be leaders of positive change in our institutions and across the sector?
Staff, students, and other stakeholders:
Successful projects in higher education frequently involve collaborations – with colleagues, with students, and with external agencies (such as employers, higher education organisations e.g. Advance HE, the charitable sector). We also seek to disseminate our work beyond our own immediate spheres of influence, to maximise impact across the higher education community. Sometimes this involves using social media, conferences, publications, and resource sites such as the National Teaching Repository. We are calling for contributions that address ways of growing our networks, building collaboration and working in partnership, and raising awareness of our work to improve higher education.
Equity and ethics:
Amidst calls to close awarding gaps and improve the student experience for marginalised students and to support minoritised staff within higher education, alongside increasing use of ‘big data’ to evaluate teaching and learning, there is a need to ensure that our pedagogic research is inclusive, and to consider our research and teaching practices from an ethical perspective. This theme encourages submissions relating to being more ethical, more inclusive, and celebrating diversity, in all of our higher education practices.
Reward and recognition:
Award winning higher education practitioners are often celebrated by the sector, but can remain relatively unrecognised by their own institutions. Teaching-focused academics, colleagues engaged in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, ‘pracademics’, and professional support staff can sometimes struggle to gain promotions or to feel valued by their own universities. Minoritised staff groups may be particularly vulnerable to being ‘overlooked’, especially when they are in these roles. You are invited to share practices, ideas, and projects that seek to empower colleagues, to support their career development, and help to create new opportunities to progress.
