Centre for Teaching Excellence

We are pleased to invite you to 2 sessions looking at the exciting work being carried out by the Northern and Arctic Pedagogy Network (NAPN). These sessions will give insight about thoughts and theories gathered from meetings of the NAPN in January 2023 and 2024.

Seminar One

In January 2023, members of the loosely formed New Northern Pedagogies Group held a three-day seminar for teacher educators across Scotland funded by the Scottish Government under its Arctic Connections Fund. At this event, participants were introduced to a number of theories associated with education in northern and arctic contexts. Four experts from the Nordic region gave input to participants that encouraged them to question hitherto assumptions about pedagogy in ‘rural’ and ‘remote’ areas. The challenges posed helped participants to question urban-centricity when it comes to pedagogic provision alongside acknowledgement that ‘rural’ and ‘remote’ locations should not be defined by ‘absence’ but rather by the ‘presence’ these locations offer to those living, working and learning in such contexts. In this seminar, members of the group will share thoughts and ideas from the inputs given during the workshop, alongside outcomes from work members of the group have undertaken to date.

Seminar Two

In January 2024 members of the Northern and Arctic Pedagogy Network (NAPN) came together in Tromsø, in the arctic circle in Norway, to further flesh out and identify similarities and differences in pedagogic interpretations across ‘the north’. Participants were from Canada, Greenland, The Faroe Islands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Scotland. Over four days, we debated pedagogy, its interpretations, cadences, affordances, constraints and opportunities, for ‘the north’ noting both underlying principles with which all might work, and localised matters pertaining to the northern and arctic contexts to understand commonalities and differences.

In this seminar we will share thinking and theories that came from the four-day meeting, alongside mechanisms as to how participants in these two seminars might become involved. We will share thinking and future plans for development, alongside ways in which the work to date has impacted the work of network members.