Oxford Brookes Learning and Teaching Conference 2016

The Oxford Brookes Learning and Teaching Conference was held in the Urban Design Studio on 4 July 2016. The theme for this year’s conference was 'Learning on the Edge' and set out to explore the different influences that peripheral spaces: mental, digital, physical and liminal, can have on learning. Laura Novo de Azevedo from the School of the Built Environment was invited to co-chair the conference this year - find out more about Laura's interest in using mobile technology in teaching and learning (click on the blue link).

Laura getting her chair ready (photo by Andressa Minogue)

Registration opened at 9am with coffee and poster presentations in the Abercrombie Foyer. This was followed with an introduction to the conference and the four themes from Dr Laura Novo de Azevedo (School of the Built Environment) and George Roberts (Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development) and a welcome from Professor Julie McLeod (Pro Vice Chancellor for Student Experience). The keynote speech was given by Kirsti Lonka, Professor of Educational Psychology at University of Helsinki.

Coffee (and networking) was followed by a series of conference sessions and workshops, based around the themes of: Physical, Mental, Liminal and Digital spaces. These thematic ideas were explored using a range of different traditional, unusual, peripheral and sometimes inconvenient spaces in the studios of the Abercrombie Building which provided opportunities to create different challenging and edgy interactions. To what extent can these ideas of spaces sustained by imagination, inform our creation of learning spaces as spaces of play and experimentation?

Take a look at the programme for full details of all the sessions and the twitter feed #bltc16 for thoughts, discussions and highlights from the day. The conference concluded in the Urban Design Studio with a session distilling insights from the day.

Settling into the Urban Design Studio.

Introductions from George Roberts...

...and Laura Novo de Azevedo.

A virtual welcome from Julie McLeod.

The keynote session by Kirsti Lonka.

Lunch (and networking) in the Abercrombie Building.

Conference session about Google + and its application in academic interactive students' projects (Film Studies).

For more information, take a look at the conference website and also at the twitter feed #bltc16. Photos by Rachel Dixon.