UK | USA | Denmark | Mexico | Thailand | Japan

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Call

Education can be seen as a practice in constant flux. Today, AI is transforming how we teach and learn. A few years ago, it was online teaching that reshaped classrooms worldwide. Before that, social justice movements were shifting our focus away from the ‘canon’ and, for several decades now, new theories like transformative learning and connectivism have been reshaping our roles as teachers. Teaching and learning then, are clearly phenomena in continual evolution.

What is of interest at this conference is how theories of learning, educational technologies, teaching models, and social contexts not only change, but evolve together across time —sometimes in sync, sometimes in tension. As a result, the academic landscape is always complex: a world of experimentation and tradition, subject specialisms and interdisciplinarity, shared practices, individual innovations and changing social norms.

The Focus on Pedagogy 2026 conference, Across Teaching, Theory, Technologies & Time seeks to explore this diverse and dynamic concept. Amoung the aims is to learn about the past, present and future of education from across disciplinary boundaries, whether they be:

ART, DESIGN, SOCIAL SCIENCES, STEM, HEALTH, MEDIA, HUMANITIES, THE ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES, or others

We are interested in forward-thinking teaching practices in each of these disciplines, as well as methodologies grounded in tradition. We are interested in studio-based teaching, problem-based learning, the flipped classroom, ungrading, socially engaged pedagogy and peer-to-peer learning. We are especially curious about how practices from one domain not only function on their own terms, but also how they inform each other and how they evolve.

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With this in mind, the conference brings together departments from across different disciplines and institutions from multiple countries:

Glasgow School of Art: Critical Thinking in the Art School  |  Bangkok University: Valuing Local Intellect in Education

University of San Francisco: Race, Cultural Belonging, Skills, and Assessment  | Chuo University Tokyo: Professional Education in the Age of AI  |

UC Copenhagen: Everyday Spaces  |  Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes: Pedagogies of Resistance

Running throughout the conference are concerns for issues like AI, the psychology of teaching and learning, the art & design studio, STEM, problem-based learning, ‘engaged’ teaching, student health & wellbeing, academic-industry partnership, educational theory, learning technologies, and more.

Image: Calgary Public Library, Elsi Hui