University of Silesia in Katowice

ABOUT

The first Transform4Europe conference for innovative teaching will share the best educational practices, assess challenges, and share the experiences of working in post-Covid-19 conditions both within this European Alliance and beyond.

The Covid-19 pandemic induced a radical shift toward digitally enhanced learning and teaching (DELT). Daily, teachers use technology to improve interaction, engagement, and understanding within their classrooms and lecture theatres. We look forward to welcoming you to Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania) to discuss these and other questions.

One line of discussions will explore new solutions and review the experiences while the other part (the Hackathon) will focus on the practical application and development of innovative approaches and methods of teaching / learning in HE. This conference aims to foster exchange between teaching staff and give visibility to the teachers who have contributed to the delivery of innovative teaching projects and the Transform4Europe Teaching Academy’s activities as a whole.

SUB-THEMES

The sub-themes of the first INNO-METHODS conference are as follows:

Enhancing students’ globally responsible entrepreneurial mindset

Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education

Digitally enhanced learning, teaching, and assessment

Education for sustainability through active methodologies

The development of teaching excellence in higher education

DETAILED INFORMATION

Hackathon: The Hackathon’s aim is to find solutions for the implementation of inclusive education through innovative teaching and learning methods.

The Hackathon will have five sessions, each with a short presentation of experts and a workshop. At the end of the Hackathon, the teams will present the developed recommendations for inclusive education.

Call for Papers: Participants who wish to take part in the conference with the presentation of their papers should fill out the registration form and submit the abstract of the paper (up to 400 words) no later than 15 June 2022.

Expected participants and listeners of the conference are:

• Academic staff
• Presenters of the best innovative teaching practices within the Transform4Europe project (WP4 questionnaire)
• Educational consultants
• Stakeholders of the Transform4Europe initiative, etc.
• Schoolteachers
• Tech developers and providers
• Other

All proposals need to be submitted and presented in English, and only such proposals will be considered. After the reviewing process, the results will be announced on 1 August 2022. As only submitters will be able to communicate this decision to us, we strongly recommend that submissions be made by a presenting author. Registration for in-person and online participation will open thereafter. With this, we hope to enable both a lively and fruitful in-person conference while opening up for those who might find it challenging to travel to the event.

Submissions and Review Guidelines: Proposals on the conference sub-themes, especially personal research, project achievements, case studies, theoretical and conceptual work, and the creative use of educational technology, are welcome. Networking, interactivity, sharing, peer learning and discussion will be the core aspects of the conference.

All papers must be original and not submitted simultaneously to another conference or journal. The following formats are encouraged:

• Full papers – presentation of research results, reviews of existing results including empirical or theoretical studies, policy reviews, comprehensive case studies and consolidated project achievements.
• Workshops – comprehensive, substantial hands-on, practical application of open, distance, e-learning achievements within a workshop environment.
• Posters – work-in-progress, initial research results, projects in initial stages of development, and case studies. Poster presentations will be themed in moderated sessions with a short oral presentation and discussion.
• Demonstrations – a showcase of practical innovation, products, software, technologies, and tools. Demos offer an opportunity to exhibit prototypes, exchange ideas, and collect feedback from expert users.
• Synergy sessions – aim to offer meetings of fellow project coordinators, partners and researchers to share and discuss EU projects and initiatives. They are useful for partner search, dissemination, networking, and discussion of ideas under development. Following a few minutes of introduction of your idea, an extensive discussion takes place about clusters of short presentations.
• Training sessions – focusing on a particular topic, setting clear training objectives as well as competency areas and/or skills to be acquired by the participants
• Participant without presentation (listener) – save the date.

Please ensure that you have read and understood the assessment criteria.

Selection Process: Decisions on acceptance will be based on the originality, innovation and scholarly quality of the proposal, its relevance to the conference theme, and the proven experience of the author(s). Contributions not matching the conference themes will also be considered if they offer new knowledge and benefit delegates. The reviewers and the programme committee will decide on the format assigned to the accepted submissions to ensure an appropriate conference experience and structure. All proposals will undergo a rigorous review based on the assessment criteria given below. The panel will adopt a holistic perspective to review proposals and develop thematic relevance. All accepted papers will be presented either in person or online. A notice of paper acceptance will be delivered to registered participants at their e-mail addresses.

Assessment Criteria:

• Relevance: The topic should be relevant to the theme(s) of the conference. The contents presented in the abstract should be concise and coherent, indicating clearly its relevance to an audience.
• Originality: Originality of the contribution with an emphasis on ingenuity.
• Novelty: The abstract should show new and innovative information or provide interesting insights that participants can gain and apply in their institutional contexts and future endeavours.
• Academic merits of work: The abstract should indicate how the paper may serve the advancement of the field and specify how it may contribute to the development of higher education in the future.
• Clarity of presentation: The quality of an abstract will be considered indicative of the quality of the final presentation. Authors should prepare their abstracts with care and assure that the readers will understand the background of the issue(s) and the objectives of the presentation.  The abstract should also provide evidence that the work has been or is nearly completed.

Publication Opportunity: The authors of all accepted abstracts will have an opportunity to submit a full paper for publication in one of the Alliance’s scientific journals:

• “Pedagogika” (Pedagogy) is an international open-access periodical journal of scientific papers in the field of education sciences (https://ejournals.vdu.lt/index.php/Pedagogika/about ). The journal is included in the following databases: SCOPUS, C.E.E.O.L., DOAJ, EBSCO Publishing, Index Copernicus, and others.
• Other possibilities will be announced soon.

Important Dates

29.04.2022  Submission starts

15.06.2022   Submission ends

01.08.2022   Review results announced

15.09.2022   Programme announced

Social Programme

Ice-breaking tasks, informal activities (e.g., mindfulness sessions, an excursion, tasting of some Lithuanian dishes, Lithuanian handicrafts, film screening, etc.).

Scientific Committee:

Dr. Simona Pilkienė (VMU)

Prof. dr. Lina Kaminskienė (VMU)

Prof. dr. Airina Volungevičienė (VMU)

Dr. Rasa Nedzinskaitė-Mačiūnienė (VMU)

Dr. Aistė Ragauskaitė (VMU)

Assoc. prof. dr. Tullia Catalan (UniTS)

Assoc. prof. dr. Roberta Altin (UniTS)

Dr. Paolo Sorzio (UniTS)

Dr. Asunción Menargues (UA)

Assoc. prof. dr. Nikolina Tsvetkova (SU)

Assoc. prof. dr. Renata Jankowska (USil)

Dr. Andreas Korbach (USaar)  

CONTACT

Please contact us via email at Transform4Europe@vdu.lt if we can be of any assistance.

Download Call for applications
update: 17. 05. 2022