Dr Bo Kelestyn 

Associate Professor at the University of Warwick and Innovation Consultant at Sprint Valley

What does it mean to innovate in your teaching and learning? Lessons from design thinking.

Innovation in teaching and learning, particularly in the pandemic and post pandemic world, is expected. But it does not happen by chance. There is a need to understand and pinpoint the ways in which we can co-create innovation within the enabling constrains we are working in.  

Design thinking, as a way of thinking and doing things differently, can help us reframe this challenge into opportunity. It presents new possibilities for the teaching community. With its multiple touch points to psychology, it has the potential to reinvent what and how we teach and inspire ourselves in the process of inspiring the next generation of psychologists.  

In this keynote, we will explore design thinking as a tool and a mindset. Used by some of the most successful organisations worldwide it builds on multiple concepts from the discipline of Psychology. Together we will uncover practical steps in which you can embed its principles into your teaching and learning innovation, as well as your personal and professional development.

 Dr Niamh Stack 

It takes a village to raise a gifted child

There is an old proverb which says that it takes a village to raise a child. The premise being that a child has the best chance of having all their needs met if the parents, schools and wider community take an active and collaborative approach to supporting each child’s development. Within any educational context, teachers are faced with a diverse group of young people with a range of abilities, experiences, personalities, challenges and strengths. As an individual educator, with their own strengths and limitations, it can be a challenge to support this range of diversity among learners.  This is particularly true for gifted young people who can have a complex set of needs. Within this talk I will argue that by working collaboratively with families, community partners and gifted young people themselves educators can exponentially increase the resources and skills available to support them and the gifted young people in their care in an inclusive way that provides challenge for different ranges of ability.

 Professor Barbara Wilson 

Prof. Barbara Wilson OBE is the founder of the Oliver Zangwill Centre for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation in Ely, Cambridgeshire. She was awarded an OBE for her work in brain injury rehabilitation over 40 years for "medical rehabilitation". She was a clinical psychologist and is now retired. She was shortlisted for a Lifetime Achievement Award in the NHS70 Parliamentary Awards in 2018 for her dedication to brain injury rehabilitation. She is well known for her longitudinal research on Clive Wearing.