EDU’s recent participation in education-related conferences
The month of October came with multiple participations from various team members of EDU in different conferences, all relating to educational topics. Some keynote speakers focused their presentations on EDU itself, while others dove into various aspects of EDU’s model or didactic. The following is a short overview of each of these participations.
Dr. Iveta Hlinkova – Reflect Festival, Cyprus
Our Chief Academic Officer and Pro-Dean of academic teaching at EDU, Dr. Iveta Hlinkova was speaking at the Reflect festival in Cyprus last Thursday about how we apply the science of learning and the latest neuroscience research to achieve the best learning experience for our students at EDU.
The Reflect Festival is an event that celebrates the future, highlights tech advancements, and brings forward the best of innovation while connecting the doers from Europe and the Middle East.
Dr. Hlinkova’s talk “Do schools prepare students for real life?” regarded how the quality and purpose of education have certainly been in the spotlight, especially in the past “remote” year. Do schools use effective strategies when preparing young people for life in the 21st century? Some of them claim so. However, many schools struggle when bringing evidence-based pedagogy and the latest neuroscientific research into their classrooms.
Alternative online and hybrid forms of learning have brought life-changing opportunities for learners and educators. Putting students in the centre of education makes all the difference. Thus, Dr. Hlinkova revealed successful ways to provide students with the skills and knowledge for a career in an unpredictable future:
“The core message was to present how we apply student-centred learning based on the evidence-based pedagogy and science of learning at EDU and what benefits modern technology in education brings to our students.”
Brian Webber – InnovateELT conference
EDU Tutor Brian Webber recently participated as a speaker at the InnovateELT conference by OxfordTEFL. The InnovateELT conference (ELT= English Language Teaching) was set up in 2015 with the aim of discussing the role of innovation in language education. The themes of the 2021 conference included new developments in the context of hybrid and online teaching, teacher training and sustainability.
Mr. Webber’s presentation, titled “Squeeze it in – improving ESP exercises with the lexical approach”, covered how in-sessional ESP students (ESP=English for Specific Purposes, known as Medical English at EDU) often have to efficiently learn large amounts of specialist vocabulary and know how to use it in context. He discussed ways to make the most of a virtual class by transforming standard vocabulary exercises into something richer with the help of the lexical approach.
Brian’s workshop focused on how to adapt the teaching of English for specific purposes (Medical English in particular) to the online environment. Participants looked at how to create effective vocabulary exercises to use as an anchor for other activities in the virtual class. They explored ways to find collocations and authentic usage from corpora and looked at how to use this data to build more engaging exercises.
Jürgen Laartz – UCAN Conference
EDU’s Head of Institution and Founding Rector Dr. Jürgen Laartz spoke at the UCAN Conference 2021. This year’s theme, titled “(E-) exams today. Best practice and future developments”, included topics surrounding digital technologies and how current developments in the field of electronic testing show that the use of computerized systems and mobile devices will change the way in which we evaluate knowledge and competencies in the future. Thus, said conference aimed to talk about experiences and limitations of this.
In the plenary sessions, Dr. Laartz’s keynote “Best Practices: International and regional on the internet – a new approach to medical studies” discussed on expanding and strengthening the health workforce in underserved areas, and discussed EDU’s approach:
“EDU created an innovative model for medical education and is bringing it where it is most needed.
Interested in helping us shape the future of medical education? Apply here for the position of Medical Curriculum Developer.
