ECTQG 2021 Conference Special Session

By Cyrille Médard de Chardon

The ECTQG is a biennial European Colloquium on Theoretical and Quantitative Geography. This year the conference will be held either virtually or in a hybrid format in Manchester on November 3-5, 2021.

Digilego is organizing a special session titled Facilitating quantitative methods pedagogy: Digitalization, innovation, and future needs.

The session is organized by:

  • Jane Bunting (University of Hull)
  • Oliver Gronz (University of Trier)
  • Cyrille Médard de Chardon (LISER)

We invite you to read our call below and submit an abstract. Please see the submission platform and criteria specified on the ECTQG submission page.

Note the submission deadline is September 10, 2021.

We invite you to submit an abstract on the EasyChair system. If you have any questions please contact Cyrille Médard de Chardon.

Special session call

Geography and related programmes have diverse skills and methods requirements needing specialized training ranging from spatial methods such as computer cartography and GIS via field and laboratory methods to qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Methods training often involves time intensive practical elements for students which have been particularly impacted by the COVID-19 restrictions highlighting the need for digital materials to complement, supplement and, where necessary, replace face to face discipline specific methods. Responding to the COVID-19 crisis has also shown the skills gap experienced by many higher education (HE) academics facing the need to increase use of digital materials. This challenge is not restricted to the current context but relates to a broader need to improve or update teaching and student skills and the use of digital technologies in HE.

This special session is part of the DigiLEGO project, funded through the EU Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership, which aims to support the geography HE community by enhancing the capacity of HE teachers through collaborative creation of high-quality, highly shareable open educational resources (OERs) for discipline-specific methods training, training in digital and blended methods delivery, and training resources on content creation and digital pedagogies.

For this special session we invite abstract submissions addressing the following themes:

  • Existing challenges to quantitative geography teaching in HE.
  • Future and emerging skills that need to be covered by HE quantitative geography teaching.
  • Innovative pedagogy methods related to specific quantitative geography topics.
  • Findings of empirical work on pedagogy of quantitative geography topics.
  • Strategies or best practices for facilitating digitalized or blended learning.