PBL Symposium, Republic Polytechnic

Call for Proposals

1.Abstract submissions

Abstracts submitted, applicable to all presentation formats, should be no more than 300 words in total and should consist of the following:

Purpose
Methodology
Results/ Outcomes
Discussions / Conclusions

All interested presenters are invited to first register by filling in the online registration form. As soon as the registration form is submitted, a notification will be sent to the email account you have provided. Follow the link in the notification email to activate your account. Once your account is activated, you could login to submit your abstracts/papers at the abstract submission webpage. A notification email will be sent to you once your abstract has been reviewed by the panel. Thereafter, you can login anytime to your account and view the feedback by the panel.

2. Presentation Formats

Presenters at “PBL and the Problematization of Teaching and Learning” will have a choice of one of the following presentation formats:

Symposia
Seminars
Posters
Workshops
PBL-in-Action

Symposia

We welcome papers that put forward claims, conclusions and research findings that are significant and are supported by substantial justification. Researchers have the option to present their findings in a PBL-styled symposium. A symposium is an integrated engagement between two or more presenters and the participants.

In the PBL-styled symposium, there will be a ‘problem’ which would trigger discussion around an educational issue. Authors of related papers will make brief presentations (approximately 10 minutes) about their research which may serve as resources to address the problem. A facilitator will work with the symposium participants to gather responses to the problem.

Each symposium is designed to run for 90 minutes including at least 50 minutes for discussion.

Seminars

We welcome papers that put forward claims, conclusions and research findings that are significant and are supported by substantial justification. Researchers have the option to present their findings in a seminar. Each author has an opportunity to present an abbreviated version of his or her paper. Each seminar session will consist of four papers.

Each presenter will have 20 minutes (including 5 minutes of question time).

Posters

Presenters may choose to present posters. Posters can display work such as research findings, interesting PBL triggers and PBL curricula. Presenters will be grouped together thematically and should prepare a presentation for the poster sessions. The poster session will also provide opportunities for presenters to hold informal discussions with fellow delegates.

The recommended size of the poster is 90 cm by 150 cm. E-posters are also welcome. Up to two posters will be allowed per presenter. Text and pictures should be easily viewed from a distance. (Font size of at least 30 is recommended.) Presenters may wish to provide hand-outs which include a brief abstract and/or explanation of their poster ideas.

Workshops

Participants may choose to conduct a workshop which would help delegates gain new ideas about PBL, teaching and learning, staff development, or employ novel technologies in the classroom. While a new research paper is not a pre-requisite for this mode of presentation, the workshop should fit within the various sub-themes.

This format provides for 90 minutes of highly interactive, collaborative session and should include hands-on activities that would involve the conference participants in active learning.

PBL-in-Action

‘PBL-in-action’ is ideal for those who wish to demonstrate some aspects of a PBL lesson within a specific discipline. As the objective of this presentation format is to facilitate an exchange of ideas, educators, teaching and educational organisations, private training consultants are welcome to share their best practices and PBL examples adapted from their own full-length programmes.

This format provides for 60 minutes of demonstration and 30 minutes of discussion about the lesson.

3. Screening Rubrics

The abstract submissions will be blind-reviewed by a panel. As a general guideline, abstracts will be evaluated according to the following criteria as stipulated in the rubrics below:

Is the title of the abstract and keywords relevant to the symposium?
Is the abstract focused on the theme or subthemes?
How well does the abstract articulate the purpose and objectives?
How well does the abstract describe the study design/methodology of the research? (NA for conceptual papers)
How well are the results and findings discussed in the abstract?
How well does the abstract discuss conclusions and recommendations of the research, posters, PBL-in-action and Workshop sessions?

4. Guidelines for Submission A 6 page (maximum) summary paper is required for all paper presentations.

Style Sheet
The attached style sheet is formatted with the exact spacing and format as required. Please download the attached style sheet for use. You can then save it under a new name and start working on it.

Margins
The margins are approx. 25mm (1") for left and right, and 30mm (1.2") for top and bottom.

Titles and Headings
Please use Times Roman 16pt font, upper case, bold and centred for the Summary Paper title. Leave seven blank lines to position the paper title. Leave 2 blank lines between title and author's names and 1 blank line between authors' names and affiliations. Leave 3 blank lines between the last affiliation address and the Abstract section heading. Always leave 2 blank lines between sections. For exact spacing and format, please refer to the attached style sheet.

Text and Illustration
Please use a Times Roman 12pt font and single line spacing for text. For exact spacing and format, please refer to the attached style sheet. Please ensure that the text, illustrations and formulae are of high definition with good contrast. Digitised images should be set at a print resolution of at least 300 dpi. If scanned photographs or images are used, please submit the high quality originals together with your summary paper.

Software
Please prepare your summary paper as a Microsoft Word document or RTF file.