by Dr Charlie Crouch, Academic Developer

Following the success of last year’s inaugural Education Festival, we’re excited to announce a Call for Participation for the Sussex Education Festival 2024. Hosted over two days (10^th July in person and 11^th July online), the festival will provide a space for colleagues from across the University to share their experiences, insights and innovation in teaching, learning and assessment.

The festival will have the three drivers of change from the upcoming Sussex 2035 strategy as its core themes: Human Flourishing, Environmental Sustainability and Digital and Data Futures. We have a variety of presentation and discussion formats to choose from, and we particularly encourage presentations co-delivered with students. We have some student participation vouchers we can offer – please get in touch for more information.

The three core themes of the festival can be interpreted as broadly as possible. Some suggestions for potential topics could be:

Human Flourishing:

• Building student belonging
• Supporting inclusive learning communities
• Social justice pedagogies, decolonising the curriculum
• Student creativity and self-expression
• Student resilience and wellbeing

Sustainability:

• Education for Sustainable Development
• Authentic assessment and feedback literacy
• Community engagement and co-creation
• Pedagogies of hope
• Learning through the landcape

Digital and Data Futures:

• Generative AI in teaching and assessment
• Digital innovations in teaching and learning
• Embedding learning technologies
• Accessible and inclusive online teaching

We’re excited to celebrate and reflect on all the amazing work that goes into teaching, learning and assessment here at Sussex. We hope the festival will appeal to colleagues who would like to share their experiences and reflections at any stage of their projects. To reflect that aim, we’re asking for contributions in a variety of formats.

Choose your format:

Work-in-progress lightning talks will last 7 minutes, providing short reflections on current practice, or a pedagogic development you would like to make.

The 30-minute interactive sessions can be run in any way you’d like; they could be used to demonstrate a new tool or teaching technique, or workshop an idea or challenge with fellow colleagues interested in teaching and learning.

The 60-minute facilitation slots are open for colleagues to suggest longer workshops and discussions on a dedicated topic. Do you have a ‘wicked problem’ within teaching and learning you’d like to dissect with colleagues in a solution room, a provocation to push our boundaries and thinking on current practice, or a wider theme you would like to explore through a global café? Please let us know on the CFP- the Academic Developers would be very happy to help you plan and facilitate a session.

Any of these sessions can be presented in person or online. Please note that the majority of the in-person content will take place at the Student Centre on Wednesday 10^th July, and the online content will be hosted on Zoom on Thursday 11^th July.

Please submit your ideas through the Call for Participation Form by Friday 19^th April. If you would like a document version of the CFP, or if you have any questions, please contact the team.