IERG International Conference on Imagination and Education, July 16-19, 2003, Coast Plaza Hotel, Vancouver, BC Canada

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At the heart of education is the desire to help people learn.

As any teacher knows, and many students will tell you, the quality of teaching is closely tied to the ease with which people learn. We believe that by better understanding the nature of students' imaginative engagement at different ages, we can learn how to draw on and further stimulate their imaginations.

We believe, in short, that students' imaginative engagement is vital for effective learning. It is with this belief in mind that we are organizing the first International Conference on Imagination and Education.

Our conference will explore various ways in which we can better understand imaginative teaching and imaginative learning. It will bring together educational practitioners and researchers from British Columbia, Canada, and a number of other countries, in more than 120 sessions that will explore the relationship between imagination and education.

Conference Overview

This year’s event will focus on four main themes:

Theme A:

Imaginative Curriculum Design across the Disciplines (such as math, the natural sciences, social sciences, teacher education, etc.)

Theme B:

Imagination in Educational Philosophy, Research, and Administration

Theme C:

Imagination and the Arts (drama, visual arts, music, etc.)

Theme D:

Imagination and Language (including ESL instruction, literacy, language arts and storytelling).

Our conference will give participants a chance to meet a number of prominent educational thinkers through workshops, research presentations, and plenary sessions.

For a detailed description of our conference program, click here.

Keynote Speaker

Elliot W. Eisner

Professor of Education and Art, Stanford University


Featured Presenters

Kieran Egan, Simon Fraser University, Canada

Cedric Cullingford, University of Huddersfield, United Kingdom

Maria do Ceu Roldao, Polytechnic Institute of Santarem, Portugal

Clyde Coreil, Center for the Imagination in Language Learning, New Jersey, USA

Steve Bell, Storyline, Scotland

Stimulating discussions, innovative ideas, and summer on the West Coast of Canada…just imagine the possibilities!