Keynote Speakers
Dr Emily Danvers
Dr Emily Danvers is an Associate Professor in Education at the University of Sussex and a National Teaching Fellow. She leads the PGCert in Higher Education, which supports developing lecturers to enhance their practice in higher education teaching, learning and assessment. Her research interests are around everyday exclusions faced in higher education, specifically on how disadvantaged groups experience exclusion beyond the level of access and in the everyday e.g. via pedagogies, practices, policies and relationships.
Title: Thoughtful Pedagogies: Orienting to Care, Complexity and Criticality in Higher Education Teaching
In an education landscape marked by contradiction, uncertainty, and intensifying pressures, this talk argues for moving beyond fixed assumptions about how we know and how we teach. Instead, it proposes a pedagogic praxis grounded in compassion, attuned to complexity, and willing to engage with ambiguity. Central to this vision is a rich understanding of thoughtfulness: as an ethic of care and attentiveness to students, colleagues, and the socio-material world; as a mode of critical provocation that unsettles taken-for-granted academic norms; and as a reflective stance that resists the drive for certainty. Drawing on research and professional reflections, Emily will share the vision for thoughtful pedagogies, show what it looks like in practice and invite you to consider your own pedagogies in thoughtful ways.