Conference conversations

6 June 2024

Read time: 5mins

‘An online “room” full of advocacy for geography and practitioners keen to share their thoughts and ideas.’

Denise Freeman, GA President

The GA Annual Conference occupies a special place on the calendar of so many who are involved in geography education. It is an opportunity to celebrate all things geography but also to share ideas, develop our practice and enhance our subject knowledge. There are opportunities to take part in field trips, workshops, a TeachMeet and to attend lectures (and so much more).

The discussions that take place at the Conference, both during formal sessions and informally, over lunch or in the evening, are rich and varied. Seeds are planted and ideas begin to grow. However, back in the ‘real world’ and back at work the energy of the Conference can quickly ebb away. It can be easy to forget about new ideas, until the next year, when we gather again; a confluence of geographers keen to share our passions.

This year, following a discussion with the GA Secondary Phase Committee (one of the GA volunteer groups) at one of their meetings, I suggested hosting a series of online sessions aimed at revisiting the Annual Conference. The vision was to share key takeaways from the event, to discuss ideas that people had tried and to reflect upon the experience of attending the Conference.

In the spirit of my conference theme – Geography for Everyone – those who couldn’t attend Conference were also very much invited to attend the online sessions and several did. These Conference Conversations have been well received and I felt I gained so much from the first one that I was inspired to write this blog.

Celebrating our community

Our inaugural conference conversations session took place on 20 May 2024. The enthusiasm and positivity amongst those who attended was one of the most tangible outcomes of the session. An online ‘room’ full of advocacy for geography and practitioners keen to share their thoughts and ideas. Positivity about the Conference was a theme running throughout the session.

Mark Hadley spoke about the enjoyment and excitement of attending and the ‘uplift’ felt during and afterwards. He explained that attending the Conference ‘drives you forward, it makes you want to try new things’.

For Mark, it also made him want to reach out and connect with people. Most powerfully, the Conference helped to ‘restart his imagination’. Such reflections are a testament to the strength of the geography community and the Annual Conference. However, it doesn’t end there.

There was a recognition that geography connects us with many ideas and people beyond our own discipline. As Samual Lickiss so eloquently put it, geography may be seen as a ‘nexus of different subjects’. This notion supports Hina Robinson’s theme for next year – Connected Geographies.

Pushing our pedagogy

One of the key aims of the Conference Conversation sessions is to enable people to share knowledge and ideas which originated at the event, which this year took place in Manchester. For me, this was a wonderful opportunity to catch up with sessions I hadn’t been able to attend.

With a packed programme, there are always so many sessions to choose from. Throughout the online session I made a note of lots of helpful resources and also some questions to ask myself about my teaching. We discussed so many great sessions and lectures, too many to mention here, but there were a few key highlights for me. A powerful point was made by Eve Draper, who spoke about how we often ‘don’t see the middle’ in geography.

Eve spoke about how we often look at extremes and don’t see places, events or data that could be considered to be in the middle, which often most places are (as Hans and Ola Rosling’s work on Factfulness and Gapminder often show). This really resonated with me. Such comments and discussions can change the way we teach and enhance the quality of our practice.

GIS and the importance of ensuring it has a strong place in school geography, now and in the future, was a key feature of my Presidential Lecture. There was much praise for the session entitled ‘Seven GIS ideas for everyone to use in the geography classroom’, presented by members of the GA ICT Special Interest Group.

In particular, the idea of using crowd sourced data and maps presented by Kit Marie Rackley. With teachers feeling shy about GIS and many lacking confidence to use it in the classroom, Alistair Hamill asked how we can help teachers to start their GIS journey and what that journey may look like. Alistair also suggested the need to consider ways of helping teachers to take manageable steps on their GIS journey, rather than feeling the need to take leaps.

Finally, and again in support of Hina’s theme for Conference 2025, there was much enthusiasm and support for the inclusion of specialist voices, from outside geography education, at the Conference. In this case, a lecture by Marianne Anton, a law professional, focusing on offshore wind power.

Always looking to the future

In a community as passionate and supportive as the GA membership, there is a danger of navel gazing and endless congratulations. However, there is always a need for critical reflection and for us to seek to enhance the experience of the Conference as much as possible, for all.

At the first conference conversations session, time was taken to ask important and critical questions about the GA Conference 2024. In our first session, David Preece helped to begin this discussion, and provided a useful summary of what many in the community have written in blogs and other online spaces.

For example, Iram Sammar shared her reflections of attending the conference in her blog, as did David (blog). Some of the questions asked during our online session were:

How can we tell the people leading conference sessions that they have had an impact? How can we share the follow up successes with them, particularly if they are not on social media?
How can we ensure speakers and delegates are all willing to come back and to bring new people with them?
In the light of a current recruitment crisis, how can we get more people, and a more diverse range of teachers and geographers at the Conference and ensure numbers remain high?
With quite a lengthy lag time between proposing sessions and the Conference itself, how do we include space in the programme to discuss contemporary issues/events? How can we allow space for dynamic/responsive sessions, as well as booked in sessions?

Thank you to all that attended the first Conference Conversations session. It was powerful and representative of the great work that takes place within the geography education community.

The final Conference Conversation session is taking place on Monday 10 June at 4.30pm. Do sign up here. Find out more about getting involved in the GA and its volunteer groups here.

Finally, presentations and resources from some of the conference sessions can be found here.