Earlier this week, I was in New Zealand (first in Auckland for the ASCILITE conference, then for a few talks at University of Waikato). In Auckland, I was involved in a panel on Cascading Change. Seb Fiedler shares his views of academic engagement:
For me this is not a mere matter of delivering a good performance for an audience. I actually want to hear other voices and opinions on a particular theme and not only broadcast what I have already thought through and then finish that off with a little harmless question and answer ping-pong. The latter seems to be considered the height of audience participation in academic conferences these days
I agree with Seb’s concerns. What passes for engagement in conferences is very poor. Questions, dialogue, discussions, critiques, and debates should form the bulk of conference activity. We need a better model.