UCOL hosting national teaching conference

UCOL hosting national teaching conference

The Universal College of Learning – UCOL – is hosting this year’s national conference on tertiary teaching and learning.

The annual Teaching and Learning Conference, being held this week at UCOL in Palmerston North, is supported and funded by Ako Aotearoa, the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence. It will be attended by delegates and speakers from universities, institutes of technology and polytechnics, and private providers from throughout New Zealand.

For the first time, the annual teaching conference is being held in conjunction with the education sector’s eFest, usually a stand-alone conference on the use of technology in tertiary education.

Conference Convenor, UCOL’s Janet Walke, says because the two annual conferences are joining forces for 2009, there is even greater interest than usual in this week’s events, with more than 210 educators registered.

The combined conference will run from Tuesday 29 September to Friday 2 October 2009. As part of the event, eFest is holding an ‘Open Space’ day on the Tuesday.

Janet says the themes for this year’s conference are ‘Teaching excellence – excellence in teaching’ and ‘The changing role of the teacher – 21st century learning.’

She says for delegates it is a unique opportunity to attend an event that combines the expertise and momentum behind two established education conferences. “It provides an excellent platform for active debate around excellence in teaching and the changing role of the educator,” she says.

Two of the country’s leading educational administrators will be at the conference. The Chief Executive of the Tertiary Education Commission, Dr Roy Sharp, will give the opening address, after a welcome by UCOL Chief Executive Paul McElroy. The Director of Ako Aotearoa Peter Coolbear is also a keynote speaker on Friday.

Other speakers and contributors include senior lecturer in Drama and Creative Processes, Dr Angie Farrow from Massey University, and Derek Wenmouth, director of eLearning at research and development centre CORE.

Janet Walke says more than 30 leading educators and researchers from throughout the country will speak and run workshops at the conference.

“They will cover key challenges for 21st century teaching and learning, including literacy and numeracy, technology and online activities, flexible learning, collaboration amongst teachers, and the contribution of wananga”.

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