Submissions now open
Deadline for submissions: 1 December 2025
Call for proposals
Conference papers and proposals are invited from teacher educators and educational researchers across the wide range of issues related to teacher education and development and which may connect to one of the themes below:
Themes:
- Supporting the scholarly professional learning of teacher educators.
- Developing powerful pedagogies for teacher education.
- Working for social justice through teaching and teacher education.
- Tackling the tensions between professional values, policy and practice.
- Critically engaging with technology including generative AI in education.
- Developing high quality close to practice educational research.
- Promoting two-way knowledge exchange across teacher education partnerships.
- Building strong collective leadership in teacher education.
- Connecting and collaborating with other teacher education networks.
Proposals that push on the boundaries of these themes, or go beyond them, are also welcome.
Proposal Title and Abstract
All proposed contributions require a clear and concise title with a maximum of 140 characters. The title should be clear about the issue or topic of the presentation and, if possible, might give a hint of the main findings. Please avoid any acronyms or specific local details in your title, so that it is clearly of interest to an international audience.
Proposers must also provide an abstract of up to 400 words. The abstract should clearly state the key issue, provide some indication of relevant theory and research, briefly outline method of investigation and give at least a hint of key findings. The abstract should include within text citation (Smith, 2020) of up to five key references which are then listed at the end (see guidance for reference style below). Again, it is usually best to avoid acronyms, because they are often not recognisable to teacher educators from a range of international settings. Aim to use terminology that is familiar to an international audience, for example ‘student teacher, pre-service teacher, or beginning teacher’ and ‘teacher education’.
Proposers should aim to make clear what teacher educators might take away from the session for practical application in their teacher education research or practice. The title and abstract are important because they will become part of the conference programme and help to attract delegates to your session.
References style guide
You are asked to include in-text citation of up to five key references within your abstract (Cottrell, 2019). It is very helpful if at least some of your references are open access so that a wide range of delegates can access them easily. Please follow the style in the examples below which will help to create a consistent style across the conference programme (note the sections of these examples that are in italics).
Book: Cottrell, S. (2019) The study skills handbook. 5th edn. London: Red Globe Press.
Chapter: Jenkins, L. (2016) Respiratory tract infections, in Blythe, A. and Buchan, J. (eds.) Essential primary care. Oxford: Wiley pp. 321-333.
Journal article: Armstrong, J., Green, K. and Soon, W. (2011) Research on forecasting for the manmade global warming alarm, Energy and Environment 22(8): 1091-1104.
Online resource: Author or organisation (Year last updated) Title of site or page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).
Session Formats
Each of our conference sessions has a chair who will welcome delegates, introduce presenters, clarify the session format and help to manage discussion. We aim for 50% discussion time overall at conference, so presenters are required to keep to time. During discussion delegates are asked to make their questions short and focused, presenters are also asked to be concise in their responses so that we hear from a range of voices.
There are four different formats available for TEAN conference 2024, each with distinct advantages. In making your submission you should choose one of the following formats:
Research or practice exchange presentations: Your 15-minute presentation is followed by 15 minutes for discussion. This standard format provides an excellent opportunity to report on a current well-developed research project or critical evaluation of innovative practice in teacher education.
Poster & Pitch presentation: You will give a 5-minute oral presentation (the pitch) to support your displayed (A0) poster. The poster format requires some creativity and time but does create a lasting digital object for further dissemination. Following four or five poster pitches, you will have half an hour for discussion with those members of the audience who want to find out more about your project. This is a popular format because, although you share the one-hour session with other presenters, you get substantial time to discuss your project in detail with interested colleagues.
Round table presentation: You will give a 5-minute oral presentation. You may accompany your oral presentation with a concise handout. After each of four or five presentations, the chair will manage discussion which will go ‘round the table’ to involve all participants in exploring aspects of your project relevant to their own research or practice. This format is useful because it encourages a wide-ranging discussion in response to your project. We try our best to make up the round table sessions so that the presentations are on a theme or at least have some connections.
Mini keynote presentations: This is a challenging format which requires careful planning and a high-quality proposal with a well-constructed argument. You have just 5 minutes to present your big idea, perhaps supported by half a dozen slides with mainly graphic image and minimal text. There is time for a brief discussion afterwards. The main advantage is that you get to address the whole conference audience and the session is often great fun and inspiring. Getting a mini keynote is highly competitive so we welcome submissions but with limited space may offer an alternative format for your proposal. It is important to note that you will submit your slides three days in advance of conference, so that they can be combined with others to ensure smooth running of the session.
Deadline for submissions: 1 December 2025
Decisions confirmed: 15 January 2026
Registration deadline for presenters: 10 February 2026
