Programme

Think Like a System, Act Like an Entrepreneur

Plenary Panel Presentation I: Matthew Taylor & Professor Ann Boddington

Keynote Speaker: Matthew Taylor, RSA, UK
Moderator: Professor Ann Boddington, University of Brighton, UK

Most attempts at social change attempting shifts in people’s behaviours or attitudes fail. There are systematic reasons for this. A more effective strategy may combine two very different ways of thinking, the systemic and the opportunistic. While the case for this approach is strong, the hard part is becoming the kind of organisation or movement that is capable of thinking systemically and acting entrepreneurially.

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Transforming the Educational Experience of African Children Through Emancipatory Research

Keynote Presentation: Professor Kwame Akyeampong

Much research has been done on the educational experience of African children and youth by researchers from the global north often funded by international development institutions and organisations. As with other images of problems in Africa, the story of education in Africa projected by this research is almost always in deficit terms. Finding research that speaks of promise and potential from an African perspective and context is hard to find. Typically, research is constructed to highlight what is “wrong” and how to fix it, offering solutions based on theories constructed from other contexts. But I ask, what kind of research can emancipate African education without perpetuating solutions that are shaped by a neo-colonial research paradigm? In this presentation, I shall draw on some of my own research to show how we might generate new knowledge that can work for education in the African context. As the Sustainable Development Goals are adopted, I shall argue that it is more important than ever that the ideas that make theories of change a reality in Africa are driven by a new kind of research that can deliver real insights into what works for African learners.

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The Three Barriers on the Way to International Communication: Which Is the Most Difficult to Shatter, and How Can It Be Done?

Keynote Presentation: Professor Svetlana Ter-Minasova

There are three main barriers on the way to international communication: linguistic, cultural and psychological. All are extremely difficult for non-native speakers. However, the first two are more (linguistic) or less (cultural) obvious (which does not make them easier to shatter), while the third one is much more hidden and, therefore, less taken into consideration. The paper will discuss “the worst” of the three, its immediate connection with the cultural barrier in the context of Russian educational culture and – most importantly – the ways to overcome this barrier in Russian and other – mostly oriental – cultures.

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Teaching Difficult Histories Through Film: Examples and Perspectives from the Field

Featured Presentation: Professor David Hicks

Representation is a complex business and, especially when dealing with “difference”, it engages feelings, attitudes and emotions and mobilises fears and anxieties in the viewer at deeper levels than we can explain in a simple, commonsense way (Stuart Hall, 1997, p. 226). As the quotation above highlights, pedagogical challenges emerge when film is used to teach about the complex business of the representations of “the other”, the epistemological fragility of interpretations, and what it means to know and understand the world. In an era of divisive populist politics, the challenges educators face when introducing conflicting perspectives abound. In this presentation, we examine what makes some history difficult, and in particular difficult to engage young people. Some history can be difficult because it is traumatic, because it is difficult for most people in the present to fathom, or because it raises issues of identity, marginalisation, and oppression that are more easily ignored than addressed for many students and teachers. Second, we explore these aspects of difficult history and contextualise them using case studies and our own experiences of how film can engage students with difficult history. Finally, we introduce a series of pedagogical models and scaffolds through which educators can explicitly consider the role of film in tackling difficult and challenging histories. At the heart of the model is a recognition of the value of teaching to glean insight into the mindsets of individuals and societies and representations of the “other”.

Image | Atomic cloud over Hiroshima, taken from the Enola Gay flying over Matsuyama, Shikoku, Japan, on August 6, 1945.

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Education for Change: Addressing the Challenges of UN Sustainable Development Goal 4

Plenary Panel Presentation II: Professor Kwame Akyeampong & Professor Brian Hudson

Keynote Speaker: Professor Kwame Akyeampong, University of Sussex, UK
Moderator: Professor Brian Hudson, University of Sussex, UK

The United Nations Declaration in September 2015 on ‘Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ sets challenges for all countries through agreement reached on the Sustainable Development Goals. In particular SDG 4 focuses on ‘Quality Education’ and aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. In this panel we will discuss how we have been addressing this challenge at the University of Sussex over recent years and in particular will focus on the partnership that has been developed between Sussex and the College of Education at the University of Ghana in that time. The role of educational research to inform policy and practice is central to our way of working.

Keynote Presentation: Transforming the Educational Experience of African Children Through Emancipatory Research

Much research has been done on the educational experience of African children and youth by researchers from the global north often funded by international development institutions and organisations. As with other images of problems in Africa, the story of education in Africa projected by this research is almost always in deficit terms. Finding research that speaks of promise and potential from an African perspective and context is hard to find. Typically, research is constructed to highlight what is “wrong” and how to fix it, offering solutions based on theories constructed from other contexts. But I ask, what kind of research can emancipate African education without perpetuating solutions that are shaped by a neo-colonial research paradigm? In this presentation, I shall draw on some of my own research to show how we might generate new knowledge that can work for education in the African context. As the Sustainable Development Goals are adopted, I shall argue that it is more important than ever that the ideas that make theories of change a reality in Africa are driven by a new kind of research that can deliver real insights into what works for African learners.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

The Impact of Weekly Correction and Feedback in a French Composition Class

Spotlight Presentation: Dr Bernard Montoneri

This study aims to explore the quantitative and qualitative learning performance of a class of composition in L2 French (junior students) in Taiwan by applying statistical methods such as SPSS and Excel. The students of a French department following a course of writing during the academic year 2015–2016 are chosen as the research object. The data collected includes students’ scores, class attendance, students’ composition assignments (almost one per week during two consecutive semesters), and several questionnaires. The results of numerical analysis are used to clarify whether our designed teaching methods can improve students’ writing skills. Through discussing the effect of teamwork, the indicators selected to evaluate students’ writing level, and the impact of writing topics, we attempt to figure out a flexible teaching/learning method suitable for different levels of students. The key evaluating indicators contributing to students’ good or poor writing ability are also discussed. Using mechanical error correction methods can notably help teachers identify students’ most common and recurrent mistakes. It also appears that students who are not native speakers prefer their instructor not only to systematically highlight their errors, but also to correct their French. The proposed learning improvement mechanism presented in this study may also be applied to other fields or other languages in future studies.

Read presenter biographies on the Speakers page.

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