The Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence (KIITE) is delighted to announce the programme for the KIITE Student Education Conference 2020.

The theme of the conference, to be held on 29 January 2020, is ‘Sustaining a ‘Healthy’ Curriculum’, and we will be exploring the broad definition of a healthy curriculum, but focusing especially on ways you can design and embed wellbeing into the content and ‘life’ of a curriculum.

This year we will be looking to explore, share best practice and debate what Keele does - and could do - to make its curriculum ‘healthy’, intellectually, behaviourally and financially.

Rafe Hallett, Director of KIITE and co-organiser of the conference commented:

“The standard of proposals we received for the conference was extremely high, and we are delighted to have accepted 21 proposals for presentations, and 12 carousel stations. There is a fantastic, cross-disciplinary line-up of speakers from across the University, and I’m looking forward to hearing more about the exciting work that is taking place at Keele to embed elements of health and wellbeing in the curriculum.”

We are delighted to have two conference keynotes from Dr Chi Baik, Associate Professor in Higher Education from the Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education, and Kate Lister, Learning & Teaching Development Manager (Accessibility) from the Open University, who is the lead facilitator on the Advance HE project ‘Embedding wellbeing in the Curriculum’.

Following the conference introductions and the first keynote of the day, there will be two parallel presentation sessions in the morning, with the first offering delegates the chance to choose between exploring the themes of The Student Voice as a Driver of Healthy Curricula, or The Holistic Approach to Curriculum Design: Physical, Virtual and Community.

The second parallel presentation session will offer three choices: Curriculum and Induction, Pedagogy and Practice, or Qualities and Skills.

In the afternoon, Professor Pauline Walsh will introduce Keele’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy, and there will be a session led by KIITE to discuss institutional developments in curriculum design. Focus will be on the Keele Elective Pathways, and time will also be spent thinking about the way the Health & Wellbeing Strategy can be embedded in the curriculum.

Following the second keynote of the day, there will be the KIITE Carousel, a communicative, interactive opportunity for conference delegates to engage with various educational challenges.

The Conference expands on the success of previous Learning and Teaching Conferences, which have been hosted at Keele since 2016, and responds to sector-wide interest in what it means to embed wellbeing in the curriculum.

Visit the conference web pages for the full conference programme, and to register to attend the conference.