An invitation from the 2018 HELTASA Conference Committee to add us to your dance card on 20 – 23 November 2018

We are incredibly privileged and excited to invite new, current and future members of HELTASA to the waves of Nelson Mandela Bay and Nelson Mandela University, which beats the drum and sets the rhythm of our teaching and learning dance.

Reflecting on the conference theme ‘Dancing on the Teaching and Learning Waves of Change in Africa’, various proverbs, expressions and quotations come to mind. However, in celebrating of the centenary year of Nelson Mandela’s birth, the following quote, by Nelson Mandela, resonates with the committee, “You can start changing our world for the better daily, no matter how small the action”.

Our action, as hosts for the 2018 HELTASA conference, is to move to a different rhythm, to share and learn new steps, while we collaborate and dance together on the waves of change in the higher education context.

In moving away from the conventional ‘sub-conference themes’ we hope to stimulate and disrupt traditional thinking and paradigms to encourage a measure of freedom, collaboration, liveliness and innovation within the rhythms present in the academic project, such as:

• Responsive Curricula, and Curriculum and Career Pathways
• Relevant Pedagogies and Assessment approaches
• Student Access and Success
• Learning Analytics to inform transformative teaching, learning and support
• Leadership to respond to complexity and uncertainty in novel ways
• Transformative teaching development across the academic career trajectory

If there is another rhythm that you would like to dance to when sharing your insight into promising innovations and responses to some of the waves of change in your teaching and learning context, please include it in your abstract submission.

We would like to encourage students, academics, academic developers and academic leaders that are taking the lead, setting the beat or those who have found a different song to dance to, to share their innovation and creativity to systemically and organically transform teaching and learning. In order to enable student participation at the conference, we are introducing a reduced student fee and we would like to encourage students to submit abstracts, either individually or as co-presenters with academics they have collaborated with.

In addition to scholarly engagement and collaboration, we would like to connect with fellow delegates while we sway to different tunes at the various social events, including the cocktail evening, a cultural celebration, and of course, the Gala Dinner.

As we gear up to engage with you, please take note of the revised deadlines below.
• 29 June – Deadline for submission of abstracts (first call)
• 30 June – Closing date for Early Bird registration
• 16 July – Second call for abstracts
• 31 July – Notification of acceptance of abstracts (first call)
• 14 August – Deadline for submission of abstracts (second call)
• 14 September – Notification of acceptance of abstracts (second call)
• 15 September – Closing date for Registration
• 15 October – Closing date for Late Registration

Additional information, including the call and submission of abstracts and registration costs and procedures, will be made available on the conference website http://heltasa2018.mandela.ac.za/.

Any updated information on the website will be tweeted using the hashtag #HELTASA2018. Please keep an eye on the HELTASA social media pages, such as Facebook and the official HELTASA Twitter handle @Heltasa01.
Any questions regarding the 2018 HELTASA conference may be forwarded to conference@sereni-t.co.za.

We look forward to dancing with you on the teaching and learning waves of change in Africa.

– The 2018 Conference Committee at Nelson Mandela University