Mitch Walker (University of Durham)
We report on a successful teaching symposium at Durham – and share how you can host your own!
One of the easiest but most effective ways to engage in physics education scholarship is by discussing best teaching practices with colleagues. These conversations give us the opportunity to reflect on our own teaching, often leading us to try new ideas and iteratively improve on how we deliver our sessions [1].
Many of us will have a network of closely related colleagues with whom we have most, if not all, of our discussions on this topic. This brings familiarity but can limit our access to new insights and create an echo chamber. For others, a lack of confidence, time, or awareness may prevent these conversations from happening often or at all.
A recent IOP HEG review highlights the importance of giving all colleagues involved in teaching the opportunity to engage with physics education scholarship and research [2]. Making space and time within departmental calendars for discussions on pedagogy can contribute to colleagues’ continuous professional development and helps to further increase the visibility and legitimacy of the UK PER community. The question is, what can practitioners of PER do to create these opportunities?
Starting Conversations
In our department, most conversations on individual teaching practices are informal, taking place in the corridor or over coffee. Formal meetings on teaching are typically focused either on wide-scale curriculum development or on passive information dissemination for specific teaching sessions.
We decided we needed to fill a gap in the department by giving colleagues a formal opportunity to focus on their teaching practices and exchange ideas with colleagues from across the department. To do this, we organised SymPLE: the Symposium on Physics Learning and Education. The event consisted of talks, workshops, and – importantly – open-ended time for attendees to speak to one another.
A Broad Spectrum of Viewpoints
SymPLE was open for all department members involved in delivering teaching: academic staff, PDRAs, postgraduate demonstrators, technicians, and professional service staff. We focused on scholarship over research, aiming to minimise barriers to entry for attendees and enable the widest possible range of colleagues to deliver presentations.
The highlight of SymPLE was a lightning talk session, where six presenters had the chance to briefly communicate and discuss pedagogical ideas they had been thinking about, regardless of their background. Covered topics included the role of ethics in our undergraduate curriculum, delivering neuro-affirming workshops, personal teaching philosophies, and supporting students with disability support plans in place.
Two workshop sessions, delivered by colleagues specialising in PER, gave attendees the option to actively engage on either digital teaching tools or inclusivity in teaching. The final hour of the event was dedicated to open discussion and networking, giving attendees space for in-depth exploration of ideas presented earlier in the day.
Our event was well-attended by over 30 colleagues, with representation from almost all roles and research groups within the department. We found a wide variation in teaching duties across our audience, with attendees self-reporting involvement in roles including delivery of lectures and teaching labs, administrative work, student support, and postgraduate supervision.
Building on Success
Feedback on SymPLE was extremely positive. Attendees valued the diversity of speakers and topics, especially within the lightning talk session which was viewed as a highlight of the event. When asked what we could improve next year, the clear consensus was “we want more!”: more opportunities for discussion, longer Q&As, and more sessions.
In view of the warm reception from the department, we are already looking ahead to SymPLE 2027. We plan to extend the event from a morning to a full day’s event, and to develop new sessions. To ensure the event is useful to everyone, we will ask department members for suggestions of topics they would like to see discussed, with a particular focus on including more topics of interest for our technicians and professional services staff.
We are keen to help others replicate the success of SymPLE in their own departments and institutions. To this end, we have produced a guide on how to organise and deliver a scholarship event, based on our own experiences, which is available here [3].
Bibliography
[1] Brookfield, S., Critically reflective practice, J. Contin. Educ. Health Prof. 18(4) 197-205 (1998), DOI: 10.1002/chp.1340180402
[2] Institute of Physics Higher Education Group, A vision for physics higher education research in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, https://www.iop.org/sites/default/files/2025-08/vision-for-physics-higher-education-research.pdf (Accessed 17th August 2026)
[3] Agra, E., Mackay, P., Inyang, O. A., Peach, A., and Walker, M. J., Guide to organising a departmental scholarship event, https://github.com/chronodile/SymPLEGuide/blob/main/Guide%20to%20Organising%20a%20Departmental%20Scholarship%20Event.pdf (Accessed 14th August 2026)