Saunas, seagulls and feedback – my first international conference
In this post we hear from CRADLE PhD student Turkan Istencioğlu about her experience at the 2026 EARLI SIG 4 & 11 Conference in Helsinki. Turkan’s research focuses on Teacher Feedback Literacy in higher education, specifically investigating how educators design and implement feedback to improve student learning. She shared her research outputs in her presentation at the conference.
I recently had the privilege of presenting a paper from my PhD research at the joint SIG 4 & 11 conference themed Innovation and Reflection in Teacher Education and Higher Education at the University of Helsinki in Finland. What made this experience truly meaningful was that it marked a personal milestone: my first international conference ever! As anyone might imagine, it was both one of the most exciting and nerve-wracking experiences I have ever had.
After a 25-hour journey (perhaps longer) from Melbourne and being squeezed into the last presentation timeslot (luckily on the very first day), I presented my recently published scoping review on teacher feedback literacy (TFL) as an emerging field, which is a collaborative project with my PhD supervisors Professor David Boud, Professor Phillip Dawson, and Associate Professor Yang Lan (Joy). My presentation centred on how TFL is conceptualized, assessed and developed in practice, based on a synthesis of 42 studies. The brief message I strove to convey was that TFL has evolved from individualistic understandings to more situated/contextualized ones, and that despite the pressing need for measurement approaches for scalability in TFL research, it is also crucial to adopt a system-level capability approach when interpreting findings.
Turkan presents at EARLI SIG4&11
During my presentation, what particularly helped was having Professor Margaret Bearman and Dr Juuso Niemienen from the CRADLE team in the audience, cheering me on and nodding along as I delivered my speech! Aside from this team spirit, I was also pleased to see a crowded audience of engaged and insightful attendees. It was also very reassuring to see the value of our research reflected in people taking notes, asking great questions, and scanning the QR code to access the paper at the end of the presentation.
On another note, it is also worth mentioning that no matter how much you engage in conversations about attending conferences and gaining insights beforehand, I believe experiencing the atmosphere yourself is the most convincing way to get a real feel for it.
As a first-time experience, presenting on an already published paper rather than work-in-progress enabled me to feel a bit more comfortable and confident.
Apart from my own presentation, the joint conference provided an excellent avenue for getting acquainted with many scholars and listening to diverse perspectives from both higher education and teacher education research. I was pleasantly surprised by how friendly and welcoming everyone was. Definitely worth the jet lag! Over the three-day event, a few ideas and observations stood out:
The keynote speaker Professor Sanna Järvelä reflected on how learners face challenges in self-regulating and managing their learning in an AI-driven world and emphasised the risk of an “illusion of learning” without regulation. She introduced Hybrid Intelligence as a human-AI collaboration approach that enhances and complements, rather than replaces, learners’ and teachers’ abilities.
The keynote speaker on the second day, Professor Robert Kordts, introduced “exnovation” as a necessary sibling to innovation, pointing to the need to phase out harmful practices that no longer work in education. He presented this as a “process” and provided some examples of topics and practices for exnovation in education, and “feedback sandwich” was on that list!
During JURE keynote presentations, Dr Kristiina Räihä showcased the promise of “psychological flexibility”, which is not a fixed trait, in promoting university students’ study ability, by also emphasizing that study engagement isn’t necessarily the same thing as well-being. Meanwhile, Dr Emma Kurenlahti delivered a thought-provoking speech on how understandings of evil are currently constructed in educational communities.
Across symposia and teacher education presentations, the common research threads I observed included self-efficacy, teaching self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the examination of teacher profiles. One discussant pointed out the need for shared/dialogic regulation rather than student vs teacher regulation, which resonated well with my research on the reciprocity between student and teacher feedback literacy.
It was also a very proud and worthwhile experience to listen to Professor Margaret Bearman and Dr Juuso Niemienen, both of whom attracted a large audience and stimulated thought-provoking conversations, such as “is it time to move beyond grades?”
Beyond the intellectual climate, dancing on the dance floor with all those researchers on the second day of the conference was totally worth the entire experience! In addition, we, as a group of three, went on small side quests to explore Helsinki. It was my first time visiting the city, and we were actually very fortunate to have Dr Juuso Niemienen (who hails from Finland!) amongst us helping us get a real feel for Helsinki. Our conversations ranged widely, from practising words in different languages to discussions about “what’s next” in my career, and many more.
I will remember peaceful Helsinki for its “white nights”, delicious cinnamon buns, reindeer, and salmon soup, as well as saunas! Oh, but beware: the giant seagulls are waiting out there to snatch your food, and they are far more fearless than the ones in Melbourne and Istanbul…
About Turkan Istencioğlu
Turkan is interested in feedback literacy, and her research explores the enactment of teacher feedback literacy in higher education. She has recently gained her Master of Science in Curriculum and Instruction, and she has an education background with seven years of experience in teaching English as a foreign language to young and adult learners at various education levels.
Turkan’s Publications
Teacher feedback as an emerging field: a scoping review
Do well-regarded university teachers exhibit feedback literacy? Examining the validity of a competency framework
How do teachers design and do feedback? Development and validation of the teacher feedback literacy scale
Teacher feedback literacy in higher education: navigating enablers and constraints
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