A conference for university teachers

This is a conference for practising university teachers. The emphasis will be on what is effective in university teaching: on reflection on practice and practice for reflection. Those attending the conference will come from universities in Brisbane, Queensland, and elsewhere in Australia.

Papers have been accepted from staff at nine Australian universities. They cover classroom teaching, curriculum design, assessment, flexible delivery and many other topics. There will also be a special symposium devoted to effective teaching on the World Wide Web using the popular WebCT system.

Keynote speakers

There will be four keynote addresses at the conference - one each morning and one each afternoon. The keynote speakers include two winners of Australian Awards for University Teaching and two other distinguished teachers, one of whom is a member of the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development (CUTSD).

The opening keynote address will be given by Professor Gail Hart, Director of Teaching and Learning Support Services at the Queensland University of Technology, a member of the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development (CUTSD), and herself a successful CUTSD grant recipient. Professor Hart's talk is titled Giving voice to learning.

Associate Professor Doune Macdonald, recipient of an Australian Award for University Teaching in 1998 and a Reader in the Department of Human Movement Studies at the University of Queensland, will speak on Ten lessons from ten years teaching at the University of Queensland.

Associate Professor Erica McWilliam, Faculty of Education at the Queensland University of Technology. She is an award-winning teacher whose classroom experience spans thirty years, nineteen of which have been spent in high schools and eleven in universities. She is well known for the stimulating and sometimes confronting nature of her teaching. Associate Professor McWilliam's talk is called Re/membering the effective teacher.

In 1998 Associate Professor Laurie Walsh of the Department of Dentistry at the University of Queensland received an Australian Award for University Teaching. Associate Professor Walsh is currently involved in a major review of the Dentistry curriculum at the University of Queensland and this has stimulated him to talk about Education of professionals - is there a role for a competency-based approach?

Contributions from university teachers

Over forty contributions have been accepted for the conference.

Reflection on practice: Most contributions are in this category. It includes papers detailing course developments or teaching methods and the results of evaluating or reflecting on these, as well as systematic rationales for them. The papers cover a large range of teaching and curriculum issues, from large scale curriculum design and evaluation, to the implementation of effective teaching practices in specific subject areas. There are papers discussing controversial issues such as how to assess students in large classes in the face of increasing workloads and demands on teaching staff, and whether on-line teaching stifles intellectual discourse.

Practice for Reflection: one session will be devoted to showcasing specific teaching practices. Contributors will talk about practical issues such as design of effective multiple choice questions, and the effective management of small group tutorials.

Posters: There will be a poster display on the theme of reflection on practice. Individual posters range in focus from multimedia to the use of games for teaching large classes.

Conference Web Site

http://www.tedi.uq.edu.au/conferences/teach_conference99/
The abstracts of papers for the conference can be found on the conference web site. A detailed conference program, as well as the conference papers, will be placed on the Web site in the weeks leading up to the conference.