OPEN TO INDIVIDUALS FROM SCoTENS’ MEMBER INSTITUTIONS ONLY

The Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South (SCoTENS) invites proposals for participation and working papers at the 2^ndSCoTENS Doctoral Studies Roundtable.  The Roundtable will provide a mix of short presentations by participants on their work in progress and from speakers who are leaders in the field of Teacher Education and related research in Ireland and beyond.  It will be held in conjunction with the 15th Annual SCoTENS Conference, which takes place on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 October 2017 in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dundalk. The conference theme this year is Educational Innovation: the challenge of evidence-informed change. The doctoral roundtable will take place on the Saturday morning.

This Roundtable will bring together doctoral researchers working on topics relating to teachers, teaching, and teacher education in its broadest readings on the island of Ireland. We will explore the changing landscape of teacher formation, the emergence of new voices and perspectives, and the evolving debates around teacher professionalism as a primary concern, both as a focus for our community and a methodology for constructing knowledge.

We invite doctoral students interested in these and related issues to apply for a place at the roundtable to discuss their work with like-minded peers and SCoTENS network colleagues.  Accommodation, conference entry, and meals will be provided for invited participants.

Accepted contributions will address issues in the general field of teacher education, teaching, teachers lives, and teacher professionalism – ideally in light of the concerns of the conference theme. The roundtable will provide a space for researchers who are university-based and/or from the wider professional arena to meet and discuss their interests, to showcase their work, and to participate in the conference more broadly. This will include invitations to the Conference keynote sessions by Professor Viv Ellis, King’s College, London, and by Prof Colleen McLaughlin, University of Cambridge, both leading lights in their respective research fields.

Proposals for presentations are due Friday, 22 September.  Invitations to participate will be sent out on September 25^th / 26^th along with joining instructions for the roundtable & conference. Please use the short form provided to structure your application.

Conor Galvin, Noel Purdy, Linda Clarke and Maria Campbell
SCoTENS Doctoral Roundtable Co-convenors

conor.galvin@ucd.ie   for further information

Communities of practice: Learning together to teach together

The 2016 Annual SCoTENS Conference theme is intended to facilitate an open and engaging exploration of the value of collaborative learning to support teachers’ professional practice.   The Conference will draw upon the expertise of the key learning theorist Etienne Wenger whose scholarship on learning and particularly his concepts of ‘communities of practice’ and ‘boundary’ have enriched our understanding of how we learn and how we teach.  Wenger reminds us that we all participate in multiple communities of practice and how this multi-membership often involves crossing boundaries and negotiating meaning with others outside our immediate CoP. Boundary, he suggests, is not only for outsiders, it keeps insiders in but in weaving and crossing boundaries we extend the possibilities for action and mutual engagement. SCOTENS 2016 offers us a chance to reflect on the important communities of practice of which we are a part and how we can continue to collaborate to extend and enrich our professional practices. Keynote addresses on the conference theme of learning together to teach together are designed to invite delegates to collaborate and talk about their practices. Workshops are built around cross-border partnerships and will seek to develop our understanding of collaborative professional learning. We look forward to welcoming you to our conference and hearing what you have to say.