It is some while since I have been at NAAEE's\u00a0research symposium, but coming back is like visiting old family friends, with so many familiar faces \u2013 and ideas. \u00a0I was touched by the warm 'welcome-back' reception that I received.<\/p>\n
What strikes you immediately is how few men there are here, and, at the same time, how non-diverse the group seems to be \u2013 a euphemism for 'not many people of color'. \u00a0There are men, of course, ~10% by my reckoning, but many are now greybeards. \u00a0Indeed, I am one such, literally and metaphorically. \u00a0It's rather like the UK, whose graduate students in the EE\/ESD field are mostly women. \u00a0There are, no doubt, sound sociological explanations for all this. \u00a0One positive is the number of women in the group now in senior positions in universities here \u2013 with surely more to come.<\/p>\n
The programme was a familiar mix of keynote, posters, roundtables, workshops, and facilitated discussions, with so-called\u00a0skill-building workshops thrown in. \u00a0What follows is a personal comment on my partial and small sampling of it all.<\/p>\n
Interaction and participation were in,<\/em> and presentations were frowned on. \u00a0So, even in a 30 minute facilitated discussion there had to be\u00a0time to draw a poster; indeed, there was something of a poster fetish about the whole thing, as if the organisation had been sponsored\u00a0by flip-chart makers [*]. \u00a0Maybe it's those smelly marker pens they over use over here \u2013 are they addictive, I thought? \u00a0Anyway, I wondered whether all this participation was inhibiting discussion, especially the asking of probing questions. \u00a0Mind you, I have never thought that NAAEE encouraged this.<\/p>\n There were lots (~40) of posters presentations, and, my, how slick and glossy these now are. \u00a0But they were mostly crammed with words in small print. \u00a0They were remarkably similar methodologically, and covered much familiar territory. \u00a0A new phenomenon, for me, was people photographing the posters. \u00a0Good luck with that, I thought. \u00a0I had a few conversations with poster owners, but many seemed to abandon their posts \u2013 maybe to read other posters. \u00a0I'm inclined to think traditional posters\u00a0have had their day, particularly as they are all so information heavy. \u00a0New thinking needed, I'd say. \u00a0Maybe the idea of a mini-seminar gathered round a focused poster where ideas are tried out or feedback gained \u2013 treating the audience as if it had something to offer.<\/p>\n The symposium\u00a0concluded\u00a0with Alan Reid's getting a much-deserved award for his outstanding contribution to research. \u00a0This was followed by deliberations he had organised on 2020 vision scenarios (more group work but no posers) looking at how the research symposium might re-focus itself to engage (or not) with existential issues. \u00a0One scenario\u00a0was to focus on climate change (education). \u00a0Chance would be a fine thing, I thought. \u00a0I thought the scenarios\u00a0were well-conceived, through it all ended with rather an inconclusive whimper. \u00a0The convenors of the research symposium say they will take up this thinking.<\/p>\n The final act was a panel reflecting on (that is, self-indulgently rambling endlessly on about) the symposium highlights. \u00a0Inevitably, this was rather tedious. \u00a0Still, it was an inclusive panel, so that was a box ticked.<\/p>\n ..............................<\/p>\n [*] New Verb Alert<\/strong><\/em>:\u00a0To flipchart<\/em> \u2013 To use\u00a0multi-coloured pens to scribble and\/or doodle inconsequentially on a large piece of paper prior to sticking it on a\u00a0wall for other people to\u00a0ignore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is some while since I have been at NAAEE's\u00a0research symposium, but coming back is like visiting old family friends, with so many familiar faces \u2013 and ideas. \u00a0I was touched by the warm 'welcome-back' reception that I received. What...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}