Founding Director of the Centre for Teacher and Early Years Education
Our purpose is to bring together academics, teacher educators and practitioners from the IOE and across China, in order to generate effective and sustainable change in Chinese early years practice.
Find out more about the Centre and our activities here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/centre-teacher-and-early-years-education
Former Co-Chair of International Geographical Union – Commission for Geography Education
Former Chair of GEReCo
Access the Geography Education Research Collective (GEReCo) at http://gereco.org/
Find out more about the Centre and our activities here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/centre-teacher-and-early-years-education
Former Co-Chair of International Geographical Union – Commission for Geography Education
Former Chair of GEReCo
Access the Geography Education Research Collective (GEReCo) at http://gereco.org/
Professional Activities - Consultancy
Recent Consultancy activities include:
Strengthening Pre-Service Teacher Education in Myanmar (January 2018 to June 2018 – value $200 USD)
UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in Myanmar, 2018
Internal review of Education Faculty and teacher education provision, Kingston University, 2018
Scaling up ITE Provision, Queen Rania Teacher Academy, Jordan, 2018
Global Teacher Passport Concept Note, Varkey Foundation, 2017
Developing Online learning programmes, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Centre of Excellence, Kazakhstan, 2016
Strengthening Pre-Service Teacher Education in Myanmar (January 2018 to June 2018 – value $200 USD)
UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in Myanmar, 2018
Internal review of Education Faculty and teacher education provision, Kingston University, 2018
Scaling up ITE Provision, Queen Rania Teacher Academy, Jordan, 2018
Global Teacher Passport Concept Note, Varkey Foundation, 2017
Developing Online learning programmes, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, Centre of Excellence, Kazakhstan, 2016
Professional Activities - Research
Current Research Project:
Understanding Quality at Scale in Initial Teacher Education
UNESCO report that 68.8 million teachers will be needed to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4 by 2030 and highlight the serious lack of quality teacher training to meet this need. High quality teachers have a significant effect on student achievement (Rand 2012). But much research on teacher education tends to be based on individual programmes, and can be inward-looking, and parochial (see Menter, 2017). Additionally, new and alternative providers (styled on new Graduate Schools of Education unaffiliated to universities) are changing the landscape of teacher education provision, as they draw on unverified accounts of good practice in the field. The overarching aim of the project is to generate an empirically derived, internationally informed account of teacher education quality at scale, employing the key research question ‘What are the features of high-quality, large-scale initial teacher education provision?’. The research is designed to determine the pertinent discourses around quality in each case, as well as the difference between “universal” understandings of quality in teacher education at scale, and those which are localised.
The research proposes an international comparison of the practice of four large scale ITE providers: Queensland University of Technology in Australia; OISE, University of Toronto, in Canada; University of Auckland, New Zealand, and Mary Lou Fulton teachers College, ASU, Arizona USA. Each provider has been chosen as a (relatively) large teacher education provider in their jurisdiction (in terms of teachers graduated and in comparison to other local providers) and as part of an institution renowned for its quality (according to local or international league tables). The analysis will seek to determine the pertinent discourses around quality in each case, as well as the difference between “universal” understandings of quality in teacher education at scale, and those which are localised.
