49th International Conference on Improving University Teaching
Conference Themes: “Sustaining Academic Resilience”
Online July 12-14, 2023 with extended access. Attend live or view recording on your schedule.
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Mushtak Al-Atabi
Provost & Chief Executive Officer
Heriot-Watt University Malaysia
Professor Mushtak Al-Atabi is currently the Provost and CEO at Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia.
His research interests include thermofluids, renewable energy, biomechanical engineering, engineering education, positive education, and academic leadership. Professor Al-Atabi has published three books and delivered two TEDx talks.
He pioneered Purpose-Led Education, CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate) methodology and delivered the first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in Malaysia. He believes that the main goal of education is to mobilize an individual’s purpose into a positive impact on the world.
The title of his keynote talk is: “Purpose-Driven Education: Strategies for Flourishing in a VUCA World.”
Dr Martin Barker
School of Biological Sciences
University of Aberdeen
Dr Martin Barker has a long experience of teaching in higher education in the UK and USA. Previously, he was a schoolteacher for eight years, which has given him a good understanding of the longitudinal journey of learners through secondary and tertiary education. Martin’s particular interests in pedagogy include iterative feedback, widening access and inclusion, differentiated assessments, creative use of rubrics, and approachability in academics.
His keynote title is: “Informality and Formality in Staff-Student Interactions: A Student Perspective”
Dr. Fay Yokomizo Akindes
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Fay Yokomizo Akindes is director of systemwide professional and instructional development at the University of Wisconsin System in Madison. Previously she was a communication professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside for 20 years. She has taught internationally at the University of Abomey-Calavi in Benin, West Africa, and in Dalkeith, Scotland.
Prior to graduate school at Ohio University, she worked in broadcast marketing/promotion in San Diego (NPR affiliate) and Honolulu (CBS-TV and PBS affiliates). She is the great-granddaughter of immigrant farmers from Fukuoka, Japan, who moved to Hawai`i in the 1890s. Fay believes in the transformative possibilities of education and in second chances.
Her closing keynote title is: “Three Hidden Dimensions of Resilience.”
Professor Julie Rattray
School of Education
Durham University, UK
Julie Rattray is Professor in Higher Education in the School of Education at Durham University. Her research and teaching interests focus primarily on Higher Education and aspects of psychology as they relate to learning. She teaches on both undergraduate and postgraduate modules in the School of Education and has an extensive record of doctoral supervision.
Her research interests include the Threshold Concepts Framework, liminality, and affective dimensions of learning as well as other aspects of policy and pedagogy in Higher Education. In particular, she is interested in the ways that learners deal with troublesome knowledge and the extent to which affective characteristics and attributes might influence this. She is currently a co-editor of the online journal Innovations in Education and Teaching International.
The title of her keynote address, presented with Dimitra Kokotsaki and Michaela Oliver, is “Writing for a Buoyant Future: Using Academic Writing to Build Resilience and Academic Identity.”
Professor Dimitra Kokotsaki
School of Education
Durham University
Dimitra Kokotsaki is an associate professor at the School of Education at Durham University. She has expertise in higher education, arts and music education, creativity, student well-being, engagement, and resilience. Her research interests include the identification and improvement of the instructional, behavioral, and socio-psychological conditions in educational settings with a specific focus on creativity, engagement and attitudes to learning. She has conducted research in all phases of education, from primary and secondary mainstream schooling to higher education and is interested in exploring the connection between movement and well-being from a psychosocial and embodied cognition perspective.
Professor Michaela Oliver
School of Education
Durham University
Michaela Oliver is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Durham University. She currently teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate modules and on Initial Teacher Education (ITE) program and directs the program on BA Primary Education. Her research interests center around the promotion of reasoning and its discipline-specific aspects. She is interested in dialogic and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning with a particular focus on pedagogical task design. She is also currently involved in funded research exploring ways to improve the teaching of digital literacies in primary and secondary education through a focus on task design. More broadly, she is interested in ways to support students in developing the academic competencies required in Higher Education.
