The Newsletter of Homerton College, Cambridge & The Homerton Roll

esearch in education
Research vignettes from some Homerton
Fellows within the Faculty of Education
Within the University, the Faculty of
Education conducts world class research
and provides an outstanding research
environment for staff and students. In
Homerton, the research tradition was
consolidated in the early 90s, in the early
years of Kate Pretty’s principalship, when
Professors Jean Rudduck and John Gray
were appointed to develop a coherent
research strategy. The tradition they
established, of practice-based research
which informs policy, teaching and
learning, is alive and well in the Faculty of
Education today.
Ros McLellan is involved
in a number of research
projects relating to her core
research interests in the
areas of student motivation
and creativity in schools. She is particularly
excited to have been commissioned
recently by Creativity, Culture and Education,
the charitable organisation behind the
government-funded Creative Partnerships
Programme, to look at the impact of Creative
Partnership work on student wellbeing, as
this brings together her different interests.
This project, which she is conducting with
her colleague in the Faculty, Professor
Maurice Galton, is underway and the final
report is due in December 2011.
The first phase of their research involves a
survey of 40 schools (half of whom have
been involved in Creative Partnerships
and including an equal number of primary
and secondary schools), to assess student
motivation and wellbeing and determine
the types of involvements these schools
have had in Creative Partnerships and other
creative initiatives. The second phase will
comprise extended visits to a small number
of these schools to find out more about the
work they do through observing creative
initiatives and talking to the students,
staff and the creative agents involved.
Through this we hope to build a better
understanding of how creative initiatives,
including Creative Partnerships, might
influence student wellbeing.
In the last UK government’s
Chief Inspector’s report
where subjects are
mentioned in detail, it was
noted that art and design
ranks as the best taught National Curriculum
subject overall in secondary schools.
Richard Hickman’s research has examined
the notion that successful teachers of art
and design have much to offer outside their
discipline in terms of pedagogy, focusing
on what factors, specifically in teachers’
lives, might contribute to effective teaching
across the curriculum. He has been looking
at the life-stories of ten artist/teachers,
using several qualitative research methods
– self-portraiture, autoethnography and
autobiography. The questions that underpin
his current research are: How do individual
life experiences inform art teachers’ teaching?
How in turn might others benefit from their
pedagogical practices? Richard has recently
completed a book based on this work which
advances the notion of ‘practical sagacity’ –
that wise teachers create congenial learning
environments through facilitating practical
engagement with materials, and this leads
to meaningful learning.
As part of Elaine Wilson’s
core work at the Faculty
of Education she been
researching the process
of becoming a teacher
and has analysed the changes that new
graduates and career changers go through
as they change identity and become
science teachers. The work is supported
by generous funding from the Gatsby
Charitable Foundation, which has been
used in two ways. Elaine writes: “We have
established a support network of novices
which extends beyond Initial Teacher
Education, particularly into the high risk
early years of teaching, and have then set up
a research programme focusing on better
understanding the process of becoming a
teacher with a view to reducing drop out
rates during ITE and helping new science
teachers to remain in post.” Together
with three research associates, Elaine
has published work relating to teachers’
emotions, self efficacy, self determination
and the support networks novices form.
The on-going research has extended to
include perfectionism in new teachers and
the role of strong faith in helping novices
to be resilient. The most recent research has
compared the experiences of novices on
the Faculty-based programmes with similar
novices in Canada, Hong Kong and Thailand.
David Whitley is intrigued
by a local study of poetry
teaching, funded by the
British Academy. David
writes that “poetry has an
odd status within our culture and education
system generally now – perhaps the most
prestigious of the older literary forms, it
is also the form that is least read by most
adults and many teachers lack confidence
working with it. Schools’ practices have
also changed quite a bit over the past
thirty years or so (pupils used to have
to memorise lots of verse, for instance)
while many universities, responding to the
challenges of theories such as feminism
and postcolonialism, have become more
attentive to the themes and ideologies, than
to the art, of poetry. The project I’m involved
in is distinctive, in that it covers poetry
teaching from primary school through to
university, asking questions such as: What
is the relationship between creative writing
and analysis in poetry teaching, and does
creative writing have to be relegated to a
minimalist role after primary school? Does
poetry require a different kind of attention
from the reader, and might this special
attention have a particular value in a fastmoving,
global, digital age? Does poetry
work best when we take it into ourselves in
the deepest recesses of our verbal memory?
Is it most vital when spoken or sung? The
results of early interviews with teachers at all
levels have been fascinating and I hope to
publish reflections on these later in the year.”
Mike Younger
Head of Faculty of Education
8
Homertonian
Please refer to the Research pages on the Homerton College website for further information.