Annual Report 2010, Helsinki

The 106 proposal submissions to Network 1 in 2010 included 2 symposia, 98 papers, and 6 posters.  Reviewers rejected about 25% of the total proposals and redirected 17 proposals to other networks.  This year saw a significant increase in submissions from thesis/dissertation candidates and from non-European countries (27% from 12 countries outside Europe).

Participants in Network 1 enjoyed 15 paper or symposium sessions revolving around the following themes: influences on teacher identity; teacher quality; understanding teachers’ decisions; innovation and action research; collaboration and collegiality; internal/external influences on CPD; whole school influences on CPD; organisational influences on CPD; coaching/mentoring; early career development; external impacts on CPD; leadership development; CPD and potential leaders; strengthening instruction through holistic education and teacher logs; increasing academic success through distributed pedagogical leadership.

This was the first year for required implementation of EERA’s new rule for scheduling symposia at the end of the conference and reducing five symposium presenters to a single session.  As anticipated, the rule created schedule conflicts and time problems for presenters.  It also prevented Network 1’s programmers from scheduling symposia and papers in a preferred, logical order.

One possibility to avoid this dilemma may be to organise a session of three presenters who would each submit an individual paper proposal but alert convenors both by email and in the submission ‘Comments’ box that the three papers are intended as a session presentation pending acceptance by reviewers.  Symposium proposals intended for joint network sessions should alert the EERA Office of a joint submission.