If you haven’t come across #InBeta before then you are in for a treat. The brainchild of Michael Rowe and Ben Ellis, In Beta is a virtual community of practice with a focus on critical discussion of physiotherapy education. The concept grew from a conversation which took place in 2016 at the ER-WCPT in Liverpool. Both Michael and Ben saw that some of the most interesting conversations took place outside of the lecture theaters. They got chatting about how they could take the good things about conferences and make it more accessible for everyone.
This has lead Michael and Ben to create their first unconference which will to take place directly after WCPT Congress in Geneva later this year. The event will be FREE and will take place at the School of Health Science in Lausanne on the 14th & 15th of May.
Register for the Conference for Free
What is an Unconference?
The idea is simple, an unconference takes a different perspective on the traditional conference approach in that the agenda is set by those who attend. There isn’t a list of speakers or focused symposia instead everyone who attends suggests ideas and discussion. The group then votes on which to work on. The point of this is to have interactive meaningful discussion between those who attend. Simple and elegant.
The Programme
Day 0 (Monday, 13th May 2019)
Entirely optional. Those who wish can make the short journey around Lake Geneva to Lausanne and meet in a venue (TBC) and enjoy the evening with the rest of the delegates. If not skip below to find out about day 1!
Day 1 (Tuesday, 14th May 2019)
Everyone is invited to bring any teaching and learning challenges, innovations and ideas for physiotherapy education that you would like to discuss. Everyone will spend the day sharing these ideas and aim to drive physiotherapy education forward. There is a prepared outline to give you an idea of what to expect:
- 08:00 – 09:00 Coffee and socialise
- 09:00 – 12:00 Discussion
- 12:00 – 14:00 Lunch
- 14:00 – 16:00 Wrapup
- 16:00 – 18:00 – Wine tasting (and continuation of the conversation)
- 19:00 – Dinner (same thing)
Day 2 (Wednesday, 15th May 2019)
Participants can choose between two parallel tracks in the morning (09:00 – 12:00):
- Another unconference session focused on developing ideas for using simulation in physiotherapy education.
- An OpenPhysio peer-supported writing workshop for physio educators who are interested in sharing their classroom interventions and experiences to a larger audience. This may be in the form of academic papers or case studies, or simply as a blog post.
In the afternoon everyone will draw together the outputs from the unconference and explore future collaborative projects in physiotherapy education. Hopefully there will be another social activity in the late afternoon, together with dinner in the evening but this may depend on the number of participants who are able to stay.
This is a unique event in the physiotherapy academic calendar and really isn’t to be missed. The fact that it begins just as WCPT Congress ends mean there isn’t really an excuse, so why don’t you extend you holiday for a couple of days?