Second South African Symposium on Teacher Education for Inclusion 2017: Linking Research to Practice

 

The Optentia Research Focus Area on the Vaal Triangle Campus, and the Faculty of Education Sciences, on the Potchefstroom Campus of North-West University (NWU), in collaboration with the Flemish Association for Development, Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB), and the sponsorship of the European Union, are pleased to announce that they will be hosting the 2nd Bi-annual Symposium on Teacher Education for Inclusion: Linking Research to Practice from 7-8 June 2017 Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.

 

Aim of the Symposium

 

Advancing teacher education for inclusion should be a key focus of Higher Education Institutions with the support of Departments of Basic and Higher Education, as well as practitioners. Such efforts are essential to ensure the quality training of pre-service and in-service teachers to become fully inclusive in their teaching.

 

A key strategy for this will be to bring teacher educators, researchers, practitioners and policy makers together in the second symposium to share knowledge and experience to ascertain a constructive way forward in classrooms and lecture halls. This symposium will, therefore, provide opportunities for practitioners to share good inclusive practices, researchers and teacher educators to report recent findings and policy makers to disseminate the latest conceptual thinking and policy developments.  There will be keynote presentations from experts, informing us about national and international research, policy movements, as well as best practices. Paper presentations are invited, but importantly, we will use roundtable discussions in small groups to discuss the way forward. The roundtable discussions will focus on themes that will derive from the keynote- and paper presentations. A projected result of this symposium will be to establish working groups, representing all stakeholders, ensuring that the teacher education for inclusion movement is taken forward.

 

Inclusion means creating a school where all children feel welcomed, where differences are recognised and accepted and each child’s needs are identified and support is in place to accommodate these.

 

Invitation to Submit Abstracts

 

We invite teacher educators, researchers and practitioners to submit abstracts for paper presentations on new research findings and best practices. Please submit abstracts with reference to the theme of the symposium: Teacher Education for Inclusion: Linking Research to Practice.

 

Paper presentations will be 15 minutes with a 10 minute discussion time afterwards. Please submit a summary or abstract of no more than 300 words on your presentation on the following website (www.optentia.co.za). You will be notified of the acceptance by the second week of April 2017.

 

Registration

 

You can register on the website: www.optentia.co.za

 

Important Dates

 

Last date for submission of abstracts: 30 March 2017

Last date for registration: 08 May 2017

Payment due by 22 May 2017

 

Symposium Venue

 

The symposium will take place at the Emerald Conference Centre in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.

 

Accommodation will be available at the Conference Centre as well as at a wide variety of guest houses in the area. A list of possible accommodation appears on the Optentia website.

 

Costs

 

Payment instructions

The costs of the symposium are as follows:

 

Registration

R1500.00 (VAT included)

The fees for the symposium and workshops include attendance of all sessions, handouts, materials and refreshments.

 

Key Information

 

Second South African Symposium on Teacher Education for Inclusion 2017

Optentia Research Focus Area

North-West University

PO Box 1174

Vanderbijlpark

1900

Website: www.optentia.co.za/symposia

www.optentia.co.za

Tel: +27 (016) 910 3515 (Marinda Malan)

Email marinda.Malan@nwu.ac.za