16 April 2013

We have over 300 delegates registered for the conference with the greatest number of international delegates we have ever attracted, hoefully you will have an opportunity to network and make new contacts over the next couple of days. See you tomorrow!

15 April 2013

Only two days to go!  Our conference app has been launched this morning, you can find it at:

http://app.heacademy.ac.uk/stem

We hope you find it useful and would be interested in your feedback.

12 April 2013

Getting to the venue by train.  If you are coming through New Street Station in Birmingham, get a train to 'University' it is only two stops (final destination: Longbridge or Redditch).  When you arrive at University come out of the station and you are very close to the College of Medical and Dental Sciences (also known as the Medical School).  It looks like this below!  Just come in the main doors and we will be just inside.

11 April 2013

Registration is next Wednesday from 9:00am - 9:55am.  We will be serving coffee in the foyer for the early comers.  We kick off at 10:00am with a quick introduction from our CEO Professor Craig Mahoney before our first Keynote Professor Martyn Poliakoff (see below).  This takes place in Room LD, the main lecture theatre, just follow the crowds!

10 April 2013

Our conference dinner will take place in the Banqueting Suite of the Council House in Birmingham's Victoria Square and the order of ceremonies is as follows.

• 7:00     Drinks on arrival

• 7:10     Kelly Vere to give a short talk on the value of technicians in STEM subjects and present certificates to our technicians of the year.

• 7:20     Gold Exhibitors talk

• 7:30     Lego introduce our competition for the evening

• 7:45     Dinner

• 9:00    Lego Competition

9 April 2013

At registration you will be issued with;

• name badge and lanyard (please hand these back at the end of the Conference)

• a handbook containing the programmes and details of the room numbers etc

• A USB pen drive.  This contains the full proceedings for the conference including abstracts for the poster sessions. 

8 April 2013

It is just over week until our Conference at the University of Birmingham.  We have set up a conference hashtag and hope that all you Tweeters use it, we trended at the HEA Conference last year, let's see if we can match it this year.  The hashtag is; 

#HEASTEM13 

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The Higher Education Academy's second annual learning and teaching STEM conference entitled “Where practice and pedagogy meet” will take place on 17-18 April 2013 at The University of Birmingham.

Higher education has changed dramatically over the past ten years with advances in technology, the changing expectations of students, growing diversity and the increasing variety of higher education institutions. This conference aims to disseminate evidence based, effective practice and to examine how this impacts on STEM disciplines.

Martyn Poliakoff has accepted our invitation to be the Keynote speaker at our annual conference this year. Martyn is a Research Professor in Chemistry at the University of Nottingham and is the narrator of a series of over 400 short videos called The Periodic Table of Videos. Martyn's videos on YouTube are worth watching and are very popular, his one on supercritical fluids has had 153,748 hits!

 The Conference will explore the relationship between pedagogy and practice across the full range of HEA STEM disciplines (see below for the full list of HEA STEM disciplines).

• Improving the employability skills of STEM graduates;
• Innovative approaches to teaching and assessing large classes;
• Giving effective feedback to students;
• Growing diversity in the student population;
• Practices in peer mentoring;
• Impact of information technology in learning and teaching;
• Students as partners
• Lab skills There are dedicated laboratory learning and teaching sessions at the conference aimed at technical staff from all STEM backgrounds - these will look at lab teaching innovations and issues across a range of disciplines

Carl Gombrich is the Keynote speaker on day two.  Carl has degrees in Maths, Physics and Philosophy and was a professional opera singer before joining UCL in 2002. He enjoys making interdisciplinary links between all these areas (and more!) and has taught maths, physics, music and philosophy at a number of institutions in the UK and privately. Carl was the Principal of UCL’s international preparatory certificates before being appointed to Programme Director, Arts and Sciences (BASc) in September 2010.