Is teaching systemically frail in universities and if so what can we do about it?

This article explores the idea of ‘pedagogic frailty’ in relation to teaching systems in higher education. Using a model developed by Kinchin (2015) it explores four interconnected concepts: regulative discourse around teaching; pedagogy and discipline connections; research and teaching links; and locus of control of teaching. The concepts are looked at in terms of how and why they might contribute to pedagogic frailty and alternatively how they could contribute to creating a pedagogic system that is not frail. The article suggests that currently teaching systems are frail in relation to preparing students and staff for the future and that more effective pedagogy could be developed by changes in the structure and content of each of the four dimensions,Final Published versio

Self-study: a developing research approach for professional learning

In this article the authors consider the ‘self-study’ research approach that has been used particularly in teacher education contexts in North America and Australia. They explore the concept of self-study and its use as a research approach for practitioners. They identify its limited, but growing use in Europe and focus on developments in the field of teacher education at the University of Hertfordshire, UK

We need to talk about teaching

This paper explores the current context of university teaching in relation to socio-cultural influences. It considers the influences of perfomativity and the impact of a range of initiatives designed to improve learning and teaching in higher education. It identifies a range of issues with the way teaching is perceived and managed and the negative effect this is having on the professional learning of academic staff and opportunities for developing creative approaches to teaching in the disciplines. Leadership of teaching is identified as a significant area for growth in disciplines and the important role of academic staff in disrupting the current narrative is emphasised.Final Published versio

Knowing differently, being differently : creating new opportunities for inclusion by using narrative approaches to challenge perspectives on special educational needs

This thesis is the story of one teacher's practice in the field of special educational needs. It examines the purpose and themes of her published work. The purpose of this writing has been to challenge perspectives of children, and of learning and teaching, in the context of inclusion. This has been undertaken by exploring hidden aspects of teacher-learner relationships, developed and demonstrated in classroom interaction. These include attitudes and assumptions that may limit learning, and involve the themes of identity, agency and voice. Research, writing and teaching has been used to challenge perspectives of teachers, and teacher educators, in relation to what we know about learners with special educational needs and how we come to know about them. It argues for an ontological focus in relation to understanding the learner and an epistemology based on imagination and empathy. The contribution to knowledge claimed in this thesis involves the development of a pedagogical approach that enables teachers to identify and challenge underlying assumptions in the field of special educational needs. The process has the potential to empower teachers to change their perspectives and to act in relation to these new understandings in inclusive classrooms

Changing practice in Malaysian primary schools: learning from student teachers’ reports of using action, reflection and modelling (ARM)

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Education for Teaching on 15 March 2018, available online at doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2018.1433468. Under embargo until 1 August 2019.Curricular and pedagogical reforms are complex inter-linked processes such that curricular reform can only be enacted through teachers teaching differently. This article reports the perspective of emergent Malaysian primary teachers who were expected to implement a Government reform that promoted active learning. The 120 student teachers were members of a single cohort completing a new B.Ed. degree programme in Primary Mathematics designed by teacher educators from Malaysia and the UK. They were taught to use a tripartite pedagogical framework involving action or active learning, supported in practice through reflection and modelling. Drawing on findings from surveys carried out with the student teachers at the end of their first and final placements this article examines evidence for the premise that the student teachers were teaching differently; illustrates how they reported using active learning strategies; and identifies factors that enabled and constrained pedagogic change in the primary classroom. The students’ accounts of using action, reflection and modelling are critiqued in order to learn about changing learning and teaching practice and to contribute to understanding teacher education and early teacher development. The students’ reports suggest diversity of understanding that emphasises the need to challenge assumptions when working internationally and within national and local cultures.Peer reviewe

Staff-student Partnership in Practice in Higher Education : The Impact on Learning and Teaching

© 2012 The Authors. Published with open access by Elsevier Ltd.This staff-student collaborative project involved six small project teams each composed of staff and undergraduate students studying within the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Each project team engaged in a mini-project designed to research an aspect of learning and teaching to develop learning and teaching and to enhance students’ employability skills. The ‘student researchers’ from the small project teams were also members of a larger coaching group that met with the project lead and other experienced colleagues and undertook joint enquiry. Students used reflective logs as one means of recording data on their developing employability skills and their learning from the project. Evaluation activities included documentation of all coaching group workshops and collecting quantitative and qualitative data for each learning and teaching research project. The usefulness of this data was evaluated by staff members in relation to its impact on their module planning. The main implication of this approach is that staff-student partnership in learning and teaching has a significant impact on learning and teaching development and enhancement, learning to learn, raising the profile of research into learning and teaching, and employability skills and attributes. The student researchers came to a much deeper understanding of learning and teaching, and became much more aware of their responsibility for their own learning and committed to enhancing the learning of others. Members of staff noted that working with students had been ‘extremely inspirational’- seeing students work with other students and what they could achieve that could not be achieved by members of staff

Self-Study Research in Europe

Final Published versio

Core story creation: analysing narratives to construct stories for learning

Background: Educational research uses narrative enquiry to gain and interpret people’s experiences. Narrative analysis is used to organise and make sense of acquired narrative. ‘Core story creation’ is a way of managing raw data obtained from narrative interviews to construct stories for learning. Aim: To explain how core story creation can be used to construct stories from raw narratives obtained by interviewing parents about their neonatal experiences and then use these stories to educate learners. Discussion: Core story creation involves reconfiguration of raw narratives. Reconfiguration includes listening to and rereading transcribed narratives, identifying elements of ‘emplotment’ and reordering these to form a constructed story. Thematic analysis is then performed on the story to draw out learning themes informed by the participants. Conclusion: Core story creation using emplotment is a strategy of narrative reconfiguration that produces stories which can be used to develop resources relating to person-centred education about the patient experience. Implications for practice: Stories constructed from raw narratives in the context of constructivism can provide a medium or an ‘end product’ for use in learning resource development. This can then contribute to educating students or health professionals about patients’ experiences

Staff–student collaboration: student learning from working together to enhance educational practice in higher education

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Teaching in Higher Education on 2 April 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2015.1136279.The association of research and teaching, and the roles and responsibilities of students and academic staff and the nature of their interrelationship are important issues in higher education. This article presents six undergraduate student researchers’ reports of their learning from collaborating with academic staff to design, undertake and evaluate enquiries into aspects of learning and teaching at a UK University. The students’ reflections suggest that they identified learning in relation to employability skills and graduate attributes and more importantly in relation to their perceptions of themselves as learners and their role in their own learning and that of others. This article draws attention to the potential of staff–student collaborative, collective settings for developing pedagogic practice and the opportunities they can provide for individual student’s learning on their journey through higher education.Peer reviewe