About me:

I am a Senior Lecturer in Education the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter and Programme Director of the MA Technology and Education Futures programme, where I lead the Digital Futures for Education and Technology, Learning and Pedagogy modules. I teach on various other modules on the MA Education programme and I teach educational research methods and methodologies on the MSc Educational Research. I supervise a number of PhD, MA and MSc students.

My research interests are always around the processes by which people engage in teaching and learning processes together, through collaboration and dialogue, both with and without technology. I have always had a strong interest in the role of technology for teaching and learning, recently in particular with regard to (Generative) AI.

I the past, I have done research on the role of Interactive Whiteboards for teaching and learning, the use of wikis in primary school science and on computer supported collaborative learning in primary education. I have also been involved in research on Dialogic Teaching in science classrooms and was involved in an ongoing research programme called 'Thinking Together', aimed at improving children's skills in communicating, learning and reasoning (with researchers in Cambridge and other universities). I co-led the pedagogic development and evaluation of a programme to teach data analytical and coding skills to humanities and social science students in a HEFCE funded programme called the Institute of Coding (IoC) and was involved (with Taro Fujita and other colleagues) in a project to test group thinking with iPads.

Recently, I co-led a university-wide project to understand the perceptions of university lecturers and students on the ways in which ChatGPT may change teaching, learning and assessment in Higher Education. I am also involved in a 2 year project to study the role of technology to support narrative writing in primary education (led by Clare Dowdall).

Interests:

• Collaborative processes around learning, thinking and creativity
• The role of language for teaching and learning
• The role of technology for teaching and learning processes
• Dialogic approaches to teaching and learning
• Speaking, listening and learning
• Technology and education futures
• Sociocultural theories of learning
• Teaching and learning in science education
• Methods for analysing dialogue and joint activity
• Classroom ethnographies

Qualifications:

MA Educational Studies (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

PhD Social Sciences (Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands)

Career:

University of Cambridge: Senior Research Associate

The Open University: Research Fellow

Radboud University Nijmegen: Research and Teaching Fellow