Learn about learning (and teaching)

Upcoming education conference probes post-secondary experience

Andrew Sain Staff

Education scholars from all over North America and Europe are set to converge on the University of Manitoba for an upcoming conference on education in a post-secondary setting. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: an evidence-based perspective, is aimed to serve both students and faculty by bringing together researchers who examine the process of post-secondary education.

This multi-disciplinary conference, to be held April 4-5, is organized through the department of psychology. Raymond Perry, a professor in the department, is responsible for bringing together these experts in their fields.

“Basically people have been studying teaching effectiveness and classroom learning in a college setting for almost 80 years now. It’s one of the oldest areas of systematic research in the social sciences . . . so what you’ll see there is people who are working in a literature that is very well-established, and some of the best social science research has been done in the area,” he said.

One of the questions that the conference will examine is the effectiveness of student ratings of professors. One of the speakers, Herbert Marsh, designed the system of student evaluation used at the U of M and will be presenting on the subject.

“The question they are going to ask is the question everybody asks about student ratings: Are they valid? Are they reliable? Do your ratings really reflect the effectiveness of that teacher?” said Perry.

He described all the speakers as keynote — researchers from institutions such as Stanford University, Oxford University, the University of Munich, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Concordia University and the University of Iowa are being represented at the conference.

“It’s going to be a high-quality conference that you couldn’t duplicate very easily,” said Perry.

“Where you can get these people together in one place at one time is phenomenal, but when you can get them for three days . . . not only will people who go to this benefit, but the field of research will benefit from this conference,” he said.

Other topics include faculty cultures and college teaching, the effects of teachers’ nonverbal behaviour on students, and the role of emotions in learning.

All the sessions will feature an open discussion afterwards, so this conference presents an opportunity for students and faculty to interact with world-class scholars in the field of teaching and learning.

As seating is limited, those who want to attend must register through the department of psychology website.