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UKAT offers conferences, webinars and other events throughout the year, both online and in various locations around the UK. These events provide professional development opportunities for personal tutors and academic advisors who are invested in helping students achieve academic success.

The UKAT Annual Conference is the major event of the year and provides an opportunity to learn in general sessions from experts in the field, gain knowledge and review best practices with colleagues in concurrent sessions, and participate in interactive workshops. The variety of learning formats also may include poster sessions, exhibitor presentations, and formal and informal networking opportunities.

Upcoming Events

  • Everyone is welcome in our tutorials

    Thursday 19 May 2022, 14:00 - Thursday 19 May 2022, 15:30
    Online

    Celia Greenway, University of Birmingham

    In 2021 as part of the University of Birmingham’s Framework for Educational Resilience (carefully designed to reduce student stress and increase student support during the global pandemic) the institution introduced weekly online group personal tutorials for all taught students aiming to provide students with an inclusive, friendly, kind, familiar and reassuring regular weekly point of contact. One of the key aims of the revised approach was for the tutorial to be the focal point of an open and learning academic community, mirroring the work of Dahlberg, Moss and Pence (2007) using ‘meaning making dialogue’ to direct change. This reconfigured group tutorial provided a unique shared academic social space breaking down barriers between students and faculty. Thus, creating an opportunity to introduce a series of co-constructed student and staff equality and diversity resources and activities for tutor and tutee to undertake together.

    This session aims to:

    • Explain the Framework for Educational Resilience, and outline the intuitional implementation dilemmas
    • Provide some examples of online collaborative inclusive student and staff resources
    • Share the comprehensive evaluation of the project
    • Explore the potential of the group tutorial to create an inclusive learning community
    • Consider next steps for the institution and sector
      1. An explanation of the reconfiguration of the group tutorial, situated in a compassionate curriculum (Hao, 2011; Gilbert, 2017)
      2. Stakeholders voices, a selection of vignettes portraying the student, PAT and Senior Tutor perspective
      3. Existing and potential models of peer learning within and beyond the reconfigured group tutorial (Clark and Andrews, 2011; Carragher and McGaughey, 2016; Lofthouse et al.,2020)
      4. Using ‘meaning making’ dialogue and critical discourse analysis to reconceptualise the tutorial model as a key component to create an inclusive education (Boyer, 2010; Matthews, Mclinden and Greenway 2021, Moffat, 2020)

  • Understanding Reflection and its Relationship with the Personal Tutor Role

    Thursday 16 June 2022, 14:00 - Thursday 16 June 2022, 15:30
    Online

    Nicola Clarke, Birmingham City University

    Reflection and reflective practice are not new concepts, but despite a wealth of literature in this area it remains an often misunderstood concept due to potential popularity of the notion that has led to an  assumed knowledge base.  Reflection is a process that when engaged with can heighten our self-awareness, lead to transformational change at both an affective and cognitive level, generate knowledge of what constitutes ‘I’ within the context of our experiences and others and empower us to be the best version of ourselves. This webinar will explore reflection; the importance for us as personal tutors to be an effective reflective practitioner, and how facilitating reflection in our personal students by engaging in reflective dialogue, can allow the understanding of self within our students that they can use to inform their experiences in university and their respective profession. Empowering our students to be the best version of themselves.

Events in italic typeface are not provided by UKAT but are 3rd party events which may be of interest to UKAT members