2023 UCT Teaching and Learning Conference

Dear colleagues

I am pleased to announce the call for proposals for the 2023 UCT Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC 2023), which will be held in-person at Neville Alexander Building, Lower Campus on 21 and 22 November.

This year’s conference aims to provide the UCT community with an opportunity to connect, share and envision purpose-driven, innovative, inclusive and socially-just assessment practices and strategies that can unleash human potential and meet the three pillars of Vision 2030: excellence, transformation and sustainability.

Assessment in higher education is at a critical juncture. In addition to challenges posed by historical and contemporary inequalities, the rapid shifts in mode of teaching, learning and assessment (face-to-face, emergency remote, hybrid and online) have problematised traditional assessment practices. Furthermore, the rise of artificial intelligence, ongoing limitations to accessibility and worsening mental health reports prompt critical questions about the purpose of assessment in relation to learning and the meaning of academic integrity.

Writing for The Conversation during the #MustFall movements, Shay (2016) noted that “the curriculum – and particularly its assessment systems – serve to reproduce society’s broader inequalities”. Similarly, the Curriculum Change Framework (2018) report highlighted significant issues around assessment and equity, foregrounding a number of exclusionary practices that are entrenched in UCT’s assessment practices. The situation and these claims demand that we review and reflect on assessment in our context.

The focus for this year’s UCT Teaching and Learning Conference is therefore “Assessment entangled: Reimagining assessment for excellence, transformation and sustainability”.

Scholarly and practice-oriented proposals on the following themes are invited:

• artificial intelligence (AI) and assessment
• decolonial, socially just and humanistic assessments
• digital modes of assessment
• open category.

Each theme has specific threads of focus.

• View the full table with the tracks/thematic sessions and the threads of focus for each.

Please see the proposal submission form for details on formats.

• Submit a proposal to present at TLC2023.

Presentation at this event is open only to UCT staff and students (who may work with external contributors). We encourage all UCT staff and students researching higher education or education contexts to attend the conference.

Important dates are as follows:

• 1 September – call for proposals opens
• 1 September – registration opens
• 1 October – submissions close
• 2 October – proposal review begins
• 16 October – presenters are notified of outcomes
• 3 November – draft programme is released
• 21 and 22 November – conference days.

Presenters of scholarly and research papers will be supported to further develop their papers into publishable pieces.

Please register to attend the conference, regardless of whether you are submitting a proposal or not.

We look forward to interacting with you at the 2023 UCT Teaching and Learning Conference.

If you have any further queries, please contact cilt.events@uct.ac.za and a team member will get back to you.

Sincerely

Emer Prof Linda Ronnie
Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching and Learning

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• From the UCT Executive
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