SMS

Developmental Sessions

A Developmental Sessions consists of 4-5 proposals that are in early stages and have a common theme. They are led by a Session Mentor who is to provide guidance on how authors can further develop their research.

  • A developmental session consists of at least one author of each of the proposals (there are typically 4- 5 proposals in each session), a Session Mentor, and audience members. The Session Mentor is not an author on one of the proposals.
  • The developmental sessions will be led by a known scholar in the session's topic. It is the responsibility of the Mentor to allocate time among participants and give constructive feedback.
  • To ensure sufficient time for the feedback discussion the Mentor will ask for an initial 5 minutes summary presentation of a presenter's study focusing only on the main motivations and findings of each paper. The Session Mentor will then provide insights and make suggestions for growth.
  • Overhead projectors or PowerPoint presentations will not be used. Authors, however, are encouraged to bring a one-page summary of their theory or their findings, as the case may be. This handout may contain an executive summary of the paper, some figures or tables that are important, or some PowerPoint slides printed in handout form. These handouts will be the main visual aids used during these short presentations.
  • We will ask presenters to upload an electronic version of their handouts for posting on the conference website. This will allow the Session Mentor and other session participants to download the handouts before the conference to open more opportunities for discussion and feedback.