JFDP regional conference took place in Zagreb, Croatia, at the Faculty of Social Work, Nazorova 51 and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, I. Lučića 3 from March 12-15, 2009. The conference was a regional project funded by the US. Department of State and the embassies of the USA in the region, and organized by JFDP alumni from Croatia, Albania, Macedonia and Serbia. The conference title was "Teaching Methods and Techniques at Universities in SEE".

Four JFDP alumni from Albania, eight from Croatia, five from Macedonia, and three from Serbia participated in the conference, along with embassies of the USA representatives from Croatia and Serbia, ambassador of Albania to Croatia, and FRACTAL NGO, American Councils staff.

The following JFDP alumni participated in the conference:

Albania:
Sidita Dibra
Fatos Lazimi
Gami Loran
Esmeralda Subashi

Croatia:
Nina Begičević
Gordana Berc
Bojana Ćulum
Ljerka Sedlan Konig
Krešimir Krnic
Elenmari Pletikos
Nives Mikelić Preradović
Nena Rončević

Macedonia:
Dame Dimitrovski
Ana Frichand
Nikola Levkov
Maja Muhik
Divna Pencik

Serbia:
Sladjana Benković
Nikola Bodiroga
Ana Jovancai


JFDP alumni have conducted surveys in their countries about the teaching techniques their colleagues in their home countries use and presented country-specific reports. These reports will be compiled, more elaborated and published in a booklet as a regional follow-up activity of the conference.

Some JFDP alumni presented the teaching techniques they specifically use. Among others, service learning, e-learning and diaries writing caught the most attention of all alumni.

Alumni have committed on spreading the word among their colleagues about new teaching approaches, and conducting another research on the teaching techniques used in their home countries six months, or a year from now, to see whether some changes have occurred in the meantime, and perhaps organize another regional conference, if the budget allows it.

Even though alumni think that service learning has a great potential and have already implemented or intend to implement it at their home universities, alumni have also expressed some concerns about legalizing service learning. JFDP alumni fear that the full professors may find the way to legalize the exploitation of teaching assistants and students under the umbrella of service learning. As some JFDP alumni stated, full-professors often take advantage of their assistants and students by giving them tasks to conduct the research, and the professors then use those results in their publications, without proper mention of who conducted the research, but merely a “thank you” note. There was a dispute about that concern among alumni - some didn’t see that the service learning will be misused, or claimed that such examples did not fall under the service learning, but others, especially those who have been exploited by their professors in the past, were firm in their beliefs that legalizing service learning could potentially harm the students, and legalize the corruption. Anyhow, when the time comes for service learning to be widely accepted in the region, these concerns are something to keep in mind and address properly.

To dowload a program from the conference, click here.

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