The final decision will be made during the conference by the best paper committee based on the presentation and Q&A. The award will be announced and conferred during the closing session (Thursday, 22 June at 13:30).

Best Paper nominees

Plant and plan, care and grow. A hands-on exercice using the (inner) sustainable development goals to teach research methodology to final year sociology students
Rosalina Pisco Costa

Academic rankings as a source of metrics and benchmark tools for continuous improvement at Técnico Lisboa
Carlos Carvalho Carvalho, João Fernandes

Relationship between time management and class attendance in university students: clustering techniques for detection of profiles
Santiago Porras Alfonso, Julio César Puche Regaliza, Athénaïs Marianne Sauvée, Paula Antón Maraña, Silvia Casado Yusta, Joaquín Antonio Pacheco Bonrostro

The role of financial aid in college performance: The importance of class attendance, aid amount and type of aid
Isabel De Sivatte, Patricia Gabaldón

Critical analysis of the potential of social robotics in higher education for the management of illness and bereavement
Laia Riera, Francisco José Perales, Francisca Negre

Best Student Paper nominees

About change: How institutionally aligning online pedagogy, design and technology impacts higher education teachers
Paula Charbonneau-Gowdy, Caro Galdames

Insights from a transgender student in the EFL classroom: from individual perspective to institutional change
Sergio Peñalver-Férez

Ability of Spanish preservice teachers to differentiate between creative and reproductive activities in the classroom
Eva Izquierdo Sanchis, Joan Josep Solaz Portolés, Antonio Martín Ezpeleta, Yolanda Echegoyen Sanz

Supporting teachers and students with a virtual teaching assistant

Wednesday 21, 11:15. Room 4
Talk sponsored by SOWISO

In today’s world, numeracy is an essential skill. However, teaching and learning STEM subjects can be challenging. Students in various fields—such as engineering, physics, finance, and business—often struggle with the mathematical component of their studies, feeling overwhelmed and demotivated. Teachers, on the other hand, face a range of challenges, like encouraging healthy study habits, motivating students to achieve their best, and giving fair chances to succeed to all. To overcome these obstacles, educators need assistance providing learners with personalized attention, especially as teachers’ class sizes and workloads grow.

This session will share strategies to support educators who face these common issues. We will draw on the use cases of leading institutions like Radboud University and Amsterdam University College to provide effective technology-enhanced best practices. Dr Ana Lucia Vargas Sandoval will also introduce SOWISO, the online learning and testing environment for STEM these universities use to enhance their teaching. She will showcase features that empower teachers to engage students and save time, such as interactive theory, randomized exercises, and personalized automated feedback.

Speaker: Dr Ana Lucia Vargas Sandoval
Ana Lucia Vargas Sandoval obtained her PhD in Logic at the University of Amsterdam in 2020. After that, she changed direction to focus on STEM education and its relation with technology. Now, she is the Product Specialist and a Math Editor at SOWISO.

W2. Learning Experience Design in the Age Of Metaverse. This workshop will provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of how to design effective and engaging learning experiences for the digital age, with a focus on learning in the metaverse.

W3. Reinventing University: the Digital Challenge in Higher Education. This workshop aims to promote an inter-connected higher education system and address digital transformation and innovation in learning and teaching practices. Researchers, students, educators, teachers, scholars, academics, scientists, professionals, experts, and decision-makers interested to cooperate are welcome to participate.

W5. The Future Higher Education Classroom. This workshop aims to introduce strategies to address executive function processes and teach students how to think and learn. It also introduces a new taxonomy of important types of learning beyond cognitive learning itself.

Don’t miss out on these exciting opportunities to expand your skills and knowledge!

Register now for the HEAd’23 conference and preconference workshops in the registration page.

SOWISO is a virtual STEM teaching assistant for higher education and high school. Their digital platform engages students while saving teachers time. Educators can design courses with interactive theory and exercise packages from our extensive content library on this platform. Additionally, teachers can create their content within our authoring environment. Their exercises are randomized and include personalized feedback so students can practice at their own pace. All exercises are automatically graded so educators can focus on their work’s creative and interpersonal dimensions. Teachers benefit from unlimited support from their in-house math specialists, so they can best meet their teaching needs. SOWISO is used by more than 60 leading educational institutions worldwide, supporting over 450,000 students with improved STEM learning.