Teaching and Learning Conference 2025: Future-focussed education: Ensuring successful student outcomes for all

Overview

Student success can be both personally defined, making it unique for every student, and measured through various metrics of interest to regulators, governments, higher education institutions, and students. It encompasses knowledge, skills, and personal growth, including academic achievement, career development, entrepreneurship, further qualifications, transferable skills, and less tangible concepts such as learning gain, engagement, and social mobility.

Despite this broad definition, maximizing opportunities for student success can be achieved through a strategic focus on ensuring all students have the opportunity to reach their full potential. This includes:

Support students in connecting all their achievements and having them recognised.
Clearly defining graduate attributes.
Providing experiential, authentic, and work-based experiences.
Addressing the student lifecycle: from accessing higher education to providing clear learning goals and effective assessments.
Fostering skills mastery: equipping students with the skills employers seek, supporting business ventures, and preparing for further study.
Promoting mattering and belonging: enabling students and staff to feel connected to their campus community.
Encouraging a global outlook: preparing students to be responsible citizens in an increasingly interconnected world.
Offering diverse learning options: giving students with increased choices about how, what, when, and where they learn, so they can fit studies around their lives.

Event Information

Date: 1-3 July 2025

Place: The Wave, University of Sheffield

Book now

Conference themes

The theme Future-Focused Education: Ensuring successful student outcomes for all will address the following areas and themes:

1. Future-Focused Education: Ensuring successful student outcomes for all

At this conference we are keen to hear examples of practices that have had a measurable impact on student success, this could include:

Institutional approaches: underpinned by strategies, policies, metrics of frameworks.
Co-created approaches: working with students to understand and improve student success.
Practice-led approaches: working at a school or faculty level.

2. Education for the future

Securing the sustainability of higher education in a diversifying landscape involves focusing on quality, reputation, flexibility and value for money. This can be achieved through:

Clearly define individual higher education institutions’ unique selling points (USP), such as graduate attributes and student support.
Embracing new modes of higher education, including closer collaborations with employers, and facilitating lifelong learning.
Engaging high-impact teaching at scale.

3. Education beyond borders

In a rapid globalising world, education must transcend geographical, cultural and disciplinary boundaries to prepare students for the complexities of the future. We welcome contributions that address this theme through:

Transnational Education (TNE): Facilitating cross-border educational opportunities that allow students to gain international perspectives and experiences, enhancing their global competence.
Internationalisation: Promoting exchanging ideas, cultures and knowledge through international collaborations, student and staff mobility and global partnerships.
Interdisciplinary and Interprofessional Learning: Encouraging collaboration across different fields and professions to solve complex, real-world problems, fostering innovation and holistic understanding.

4. Education beyond place and space

This theme explores innovative approaches that transcend traditional classroom boundaries, leveraging technology to explore and implement diverse learning modalities that cater to the evolving needs of students and enhance the learning experiences for all. Examples could include:

Online learning, digital hybrid or hyflex learning: Providing flexible and accessible education opportunities and creating engaging and interactive learning experiences.
Artificial Intelligence (AI): Integrating AI to personalise learning, enhance student support and streamline administrative processes.
Building belonging in a digital/hybrid classroom: Fostering a sense of community and connection among students and staff, regardless of physical location.

5. Education for social impact

In a world facing complex social challenges, equipping students with knowledge, skills, and values needed to make a positive impact is essential.
Contributions could include examples of:

Developing global and responsible citizenship: Educating students to be informed, ethical and active participants in their communities and the wider world.
Exploring global issues associated with sustainability and inclusivity:
Engaging students in critical discussions and actions related to environmental sustainability, social justice and inclusivity.
Contributing to economic stability and growth: Preparing students to drive economic innovation, stability and growth through their careers and entrepreneurial endeavours.
Ensuring access and successful outcomes for first generation, “looked after” and refugee students: Providing targeted support to ensure these students have equal opportunities to succeed and thrive in higher education.

6. Education for all

In an increasingly diverse and digital world, AI can provide innovative solutions to ensure that education is accessible and tailored to the needs of every student. Contributions to this theme could include:

Leveraging the power of AI: Utilising AI technologies to provide personlised learning pathways, adaptive assessments and tailored support that meet the unique needs of each student.
Creating inclusive learning environments: Ensuring that AI-driven tools and resources are designed to be accessible to all students, including those with disabilities and from diverse backgrounds.
Enhancing student engagement and success: Using AI to identify and address learning gaps, provide real-time feedback and support students in achieving their academic and personal goals.

7. Workforce for the future

As the sector undergoes significant changes, it is essential to equip staff with the skills and knowledge required to respond effectively. Contributions to this theme could include:

Identifying and developing key skills: Focusing on sustainability, technology, adaptability and resilience to ensure staff are prepared for the future.
Targeted Continuing Professional Development (CPD) at scale:
Providing ongoing professional development opportunities that are tailored to the needs of staff and institution.
Peer review, networks and external engagement opportunities:
Encouraging collaboration, knowledge sharing and engagement with external partners to foster innovation and professional growth.

Call for papers

In this conference, we are keen to hear examples of practices that have had a measurable impact on student success.

Proposals are welcomed from individuals or teams across a single institution or involving multiple institutions, employers and other partners, especially from individuals of underrepresented groups. Proposals are also welcomed from students, student unions or other student bodies. Creative collaborations between academic teams, professional service teams and students are welcomed. The conference aims to showcase a wide and diverse range of work, activities and creative practice. Individuals may submit against multiple session types but should select the most relevant thematic area. Submissions can be for any of the following session formats:

Interactive breakout/workshop
Oral presentation
Roundtable session
Poster presentation

Deadline for submissions: midnight 25 November 2024

Submit

Call for papers and guide to submissions

Download

Who should attend?

Any teaching practitioner, including department heads, academic programme leaders and developers, lecturers, academic and support staff, and learning technologists.

A digital badge award will recognise presenters at this event.