About the Conference
The Forward Learning Conference 2027 brings together educators to explore how meaningful learning can be designed, experienced and sustained in a changing educational landscape.
Under the theme Growing the Whole Educator: Learning Through Connection, Experience and Growth, the conference examines a central question:
How can educators create learning environments that are active, purposeful, inclusive and deeply connected to learners lives and futures?
Participants will engage with research-informed pedagogies that move beyond passive content delivery. The conference will explore how learners develop understanding through movement and the body, authentic experience, purposeful talk, meaningful inquiry, interdisciplinary connections and growth-oriented cultures.
Forward Learning Conference 2027 is designed to offer both inspiration and application. Participants will encounter leading perspectives from international and Singapore-based education experts, while gaining ideas, tools and approaches that can be adapted for their own schools.
The Speakers
Forward Learning Conference 2027 brings together leading education researchers, learning innovators and practitioners. Each speaker will offer research-informed perspectives on one of the conference’s six pedagogical strands, with a shared focus on creating learning that is active, connected, purposeful and growth-oriented.
Across the two-day keynote conference, speakers will examine how schools can strengthen teaching, learning, curriculum, well-being and culture—from classroom practice to whole-school leadership.
The Six Strands
Six Pathways to Deeper Learning
The conference is organised around six complementary pedagogical strands. Together, they offer practical and research-informed ways to create learning that is more active, connected and meaningful.
LEARNING THROUGH THE BODY
Embodied Learning for Attention, Understanding and Well-Being
This strand explores how embodied learning uses movement, gesture, sensory interaction, objects and space to support attention, understanding, memory, participation and well-being. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, it examines approaches ranging from subtle gestures to whole-body activity, helping educators apply embodiment purposefully across preschool and school settings while considering evidence, limitations and future directions.
LEARNING THROUGH EXPERIENCE
From Knowing to Doing: Designing Authentic Applied Learning
This strand explores how purposeful, reflective experiences can turn knowledge into meaningful action. It focuses on authentic learning that connects classroom ideas with real-world contexts, challenges, communities and future possibilities through projects, simulations, design challenges, fieldwork, community engagement and applied problem-solving.
LEARNING THROUGH TALK
Dialogic Teaching for Thinking, Participation and Shared Understanding
This strand explores how purposeful classroom dialogue can deepen learning. Through questioning, explaining, listening, reasoning and respectfully challenging ideas, students build shared understanding. Participants will consider how teachers can create inclusive classrooms where talk develops thinking, participation and meaningful collaboration, rather than simply eliciting short-answer responses.
LEARNING THROUGH INQUIRY
From Questions to Understanding: Designing Inquiry, Reflection and
Learner Agency
This strand explores how inquiry-based learning transforms curiosity into deeper understanding. Learners ask worthwhile questions, investigate ideas, work with evidence, test explanations and reflect on discoveries. Participants will consider how educators can design structured, rigorous inquiry by framing meaningful questions, scaffolding investigation, supporting collaboration and assessing learning throughout the process.
LEARNING ACROSS BOUNDARIES
Designing Interdisciplinary Education for Complex, AI-enabled Futures
This strand explores how interdisciplinary learning helps students address complex, authentic challenges that extend beyond any single subject. By connecting disciplinary knowledge with diverse perspectives, methods and tools, educators can support meaningful connections while maintaining rigour, depth and relevance in learning.
LEARNING AS GROWTH
Creating Strengths-Based, Trauma-Informed Cultures for Learning and
Well-Being
This strand explores how schools can nurture a growth-oriented culture in which students and educators take intellectual risks, learn from feedback and persist through challenges. It examines mastery, motivation, belonging, productive struggle, resilience, well-being and supportive leadership—moving beyond simplified growth-mindset messages towards daily practices that enable sustained development.
TRANSFORMING LEARNING
Forward Learning Conference 2027 brings educators together to explore the conditions, practices and partnerships that help every learner thrive. Through research-informed ideas and practical perspectives, the conference invites participants to reimagine learning as active, connected, purposeful and growth-oriented.
Research-Informed Perspectives
Hear from leading education researchers, innovators and practitioners whose work brings fresh insight to the realities of classrooms, schools and systems. Each session connects evidence with meaningful possibilities for everyday practice.
Six Powerful Learning Strands
Explore learning through the body, experience, talk, inquiry, boundaries and growth. These connected strands offer practical ways to deepen engagement, strengthen thinking and create richer learning experiences for students.
From Ideas to Action
Leave with more than inspiration. Forward Learning is designed to help educators translate ideas into action—through practical strategies, reflective dialogue and approaches that can be adapted to different learning communities.
Building Better Futures Together
Meaningful change in education happens when educators have space to learn, connect and imagine together. Join a community committed to creating the conditions in which students, educators and schools can grow.
PRINCIPALS ACDEMY
Principals Academy Inc (PAI) was established on 14 November 2003 as a joint venture between Academy of Principals (Singapore) and Economic Development Board (EDB) in response to the Singapore Government's vision of developing the nation into a thriving international education hub. PAI was launched by then Minister for Education,
Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam on 8 November 2004.
What We Are About
To us, the most important component of the Education System is the people within it.
Our corporate vision is a personal one – the chief beneficiaries of which are Educators and Learners, people whom we aim to make a difference in their lives.
At PAI, it is our mission to become the leading provider of educational resources, complementing our schools, institutions and education environment with quality services and programmes.
Find Out More at www.principals.academy
The Forward Learning Experience
In 2025, participants valued the conference for its useful information, fresh pedagogical insights and practical approaches they could apply in their own settings. Many also highlighted its timely exploration of AI, assessment, student voice, inclusive practice and the future of teaching.
“Forward Learning gave me ideas I could take straight back to the classroom. The sessions challenged me to think more deeply about how I know my students have truly learned—not simply completed a task—and gave me practical ways to use better questions to reveal their thinking.”
“What stayed with me was the reminder that technology should strengthen, not replace, the human work of teaching. The conversations about AI, creativity and meaningful learning were timely, thought-provoking and helped me see new possibilities for designing lessons.”
“I left feeling both inspired and equipped. The speakers offered different perspectives on the future of education, but the message was clear: we can create learning that is more inclusive, engaging and responsive to every student. It was also wonderful to reconnect with fellow educators who share the same passion.”
