International Faculty Members presenting in a Conference on Education in Slovenia

Between June 12th and 14th, Prof. Petros Kefalas, Dr Paschalia Patsala and Dr Suzie Savvidou participated in the International Conference on Education and New Developments (END2016), which took place in Ljubljana. During the Conference, speakers from the most diverse countries and educational cultures presented their work towards promoting teaching, learning, pedagogic innovations as well as their applications in Education, with a 27% overall conference paper acceptance rate.

Dr Suzie Savvidou discussed in detail a “Framework of Practice for Educating Novice Students to become Professional Counsellors” enjoying her audience’s full attention to this innovative work that Petros Kefalas and Lena Gassi had also contributed to. Dr Savvidou explained the challenges that the design and delivery of a training programme for counsellors involves, as it necessitates considerable enhancement of trainees’ attributes that are key factors for effective counselling. Analysing the academic, practical and ethical issues that arise, she presented a framework developed within a postgraduate programme that not only ensures high-quality academic standards in teaching, learning and assessment, but it also offers students the opportunity to exercise the acquired skills within a real working environment safely, ethically and effectively for both themselves and their clients.

During the same event, Dr Patsala and Prof. Kefalas delivered a talk entitled "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly…Practices in Higher Education" which reflected the experience of developing a newly-set-up learning environment within our University, namely the English Studies Department. Drawing on the relevant Western film in a very lively presentation, Dr Patsala and Prof. Kefalas provided the rationale and examples of various practices applied in relation to teaching, learning and assessment, student support, feedback provision, student engagement, and staff development. Practices applied within Higher Education programmes were classified into ‘good’ (worth applying and disseminating), ‘bad’ (to be avoided as ineffective), and ‘ugly’ (positive in principle, yet of questionable value or in need of refinement), and the methods employed to meet the learning objectives of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes were presented in close connection to the Sheffield Graduate Profile promoted in our University.

This International Conference on Education and New Developments has also offered a lot of opportunities for networking with scholars who deal with similar educational projects and issues, as well as for exploring new collaborations on joint research and teaching experiences with other educational institutions.

Dr Paschalia Patsala with Dr Elina Megalou, Deputy Director of the “Strategy and Digital Educational Content Directorate” of the Computer Technology Institute & Press - Diophantus