Conferences: 10th Annual SEDA Conference

Professional Standards and Continuing Professional Development:
Constraining or Empowering?

29 – 30 November 2005
Novotel, Birmingham City Centre

This is SEDA’s 10th Annual Conference and we have chosen to focus our reflections on the key issues of professional standards and CPD in further and higher education. Colleagues in the further education sector have been working with standards based curricula for some time. More recently HEFCE and the Higher Education Academy have undertaken a major consultation exercise on introducing professional standards in learning and teaching in higher education. These developments clearly relate to SEDA’s championing of initiatives to enhance and professionalise teaching in higher education over the past decade and more.

However:

• Do professional standards limit notions of professionalism and lead to technical rationale approaches to education?
  
  
• How do standards based approaches to learning and teaching enhance the student experience?
  
  
• Are standards a move to regulate further and higher education teaching in a new consumerist era?
  
  
• How can professional standards in learning and teaching be measured in a sector that values innovation, individuality and professional autonomy?
  
  
• Do attempts to measure and accredit CPD actually constrain and devalue true life-long learning?
  
  
• What difference has SEDA made to the debate over the past 10 years?

These are challenging questions for a sector that delivers many programmes that are underpinned by outcomes based approaches to curriculum design and assessment. This conference will explore competing notions of the role of professional standards in the context of further and higher education.

Conference Themes

Proposals for sessions are invited that address the key themes of working with Professional Standards and CPD frameworks. Sub themes, which could be addressed, include:

	The role of professional standards in further and higher education
	The role of educational staff developers in developing and promoting professional standards
	SEDA Values, the SEDA Professional Development Framework and their role in enhancing learning and teaching
	Using professional standards to enhance curriculum design and delivery
	Standards and assessment: moving to constructively aligned curricula
	Standards for e-learning
	Developing, implementing and evaluating frameworks for CPD
	Possible tensions between creativity, innovation, standards and frameworks

The SEDA Conference Experience

SEDA prides itself on creating a relaxed, welcoming and positive atmosphere at conferences, which encourages open, constructive and supportive sharing of ideas, experience and practice.

Feedback from participants at recent SEDA conferences:

	Great efforts to integrate new people, much appreciated.
	Format of sessions encouraged discussion and feedback and not just being ‘talked at’ with PowerPoint.
	A thoroughly enjoyable time from first to last, inspiring, rewarding, great people, great venue!
	An opportunity to present own work and discuss with others.
	A new conference contributor recently wrote: I attended last year and was thoroughly impressed and found it extremely useful. I’m impressed all over again that someone from the committee is making contact to provide some support for first time presenters – I’ve never struck that before with any other group!

Participants

The conference will be of particular interest to all those involved in the development and application of standards or CPD frameworks in HE or FE. This includes:

	Educational and staff developers
	Higher Education Academy staff
	Lecturers and Teachers in further and higher education
	National and institutional teaching fellows
	Centre for Excellence and FDTL staff
	Managers of academic departments
	Educational technologists
	Quality assurance and enhancement policy makers

Conference Venue

This year’s conference will return to the Novotel, Birmingham Centre, located on Broad Street in the heart of the City Centre. Fully residential delegates will be accommodated on-site – all rooms are en-suite.
Birmingham is well served by the motorway network and parking is available at the hotel. New Street station is a short taxi ride away with regular rail links to Birmingham International Airport.

To view the conference programme and session outlines click here 
To download a call for contributions form click here 
To download a registration form click here 

Pre-Conference Day: Writing for Publication about Teaching, Learning and Academic Development

To download further details and a registration form please click here 

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©SEDA this page last edited 31 May 2005