My pedagogic research is centred on the application of student led enquiry to innovation in research, enterprise or employability. Creating that learning environment through good teaching tools, particularly developing digital teaching tools both online and face to face, has been the centre of my pedagogy. This has required a rethinking of the fundamental relationships in teaching and learning towards a co-creative model based on collaborative knowledge production and coaching. I have applied this successfully into art, design, performance, architecture and business school programmes.
The work undertaken here has been presented at a wide range of conferences and symposia both in the UK and Internationally. On the back of this work, I have served as international peer reviewer for the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (2015) and have peer reviewed for international journals in the field of creative education.
In 2019, I was invited to speak at a keynote panel for the International Conference on Applied, Education, Technology and Innovation by the Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong, alongside Senior Leaders from IBM, South China Morning Post and MTR, on the subject of Creative Skillsets and Mindsets in the context of Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0
The following is a list of specific projects connected to my own pedagogic research:
Critical Practices (2009 – 2013) was a cross-programme curriculum strand at NTU that refocused the traditional contextual studies / dissertation approach towards an authentic/artistic research model, applying a design thinking approach to curriculum design with the student as co-creator. One key focus of this area is in the use of visualisation, digital and online tools and frameworks to progressively present, critique and iterate the structure of thinking from student curiosity through to a clear research methodology. This curriculum was co-created with students who presented their research alongside my pedagogic research at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research, and co-presented a workshop at the ELIA Teachers Academy in Porto. This was also a case study for the National Teaching Fellowship (Healey and Childs), research on Capstone Projects.
Scaffolding Innovation (2011 – 2012) was funded by a Higher Education Academy Teaching Development Grant and centred on developing the critical practices approach to undergraduate research into understanding student innovation as arising from a scaffolded approach of iteration and scaling of research and enterprise challenge through collaborative knowledge production predominantly through partnerships with external agencies principally in the education, development and voluntary sector.
Multimodal Dialogic Assessment in Art and Design (2012 – 2013) was also funded by a Higher Education Academy Teaching Development Grant and focused on approaches to feedback in Art & Design through a digital toolkit for ongoing dialogic feedback blending tutor, self and peer assessment, which recorded and structured tutorials and crits into structured written feedback through digital automation focusing staff and student time away from marking and towards teaching engagement with students.
Creative Masters in Residence (2013 – 2016) was funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund as a component of a £3m bid, to situate a MA student in residence within the context of the Attenborough Nature Reserve in Nottingham for 2 years. As well as creating a carefully aligned mutual value for student, University, partner (Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust) and funder, this was a case study for a model of education where the student is framed as a situated expert whose creative development arises from the interactions which arise from the network in which they and their situation (industry / community etc.) are placed.
Erewash Mysteries (2015 - 2016)was an environmental consultation which was won through a competitive tender for funding from Natural England. The proposal for an Arts led public engagement proiect, utilising a social design approach to interpret use and value in the Erewash Valley. The project employed a small team of student artists under my direction to develop a set of critical tools including a phone based locative game, participatory art installation and workshops constructing narrative maps of the knowledge attitudes and practices towards the environment of a post industrial valley. The project resulted in a report and design guide to inform the future development process.
Schema (2016 – 2020) is an approach to teaching the integration of theory and practice predominantly within the MArch (RIBA Part 2) curriculum at the University of Lincoln and the MA programmes at Derby. This centres on an approach to digital visualisation of knowledge at the centre of a critical dialogue which enables complex research to be articulated. This dialogue crosses the studio practice and the critical theory curriculum, and results in experimental narrative texts which synthesise complex theoretical and live research. This was presented to the Experiential Design conference at Florida State University and as a workshop to the University of Florida writing programme in January 2020.
Uncertainville / Uncertain Art School (2022) - is a speculative design based developmental approach to Institutional Pedagogic Design which draws on the civic history of the British Art School in the Victorian and Postwar period. It begins with visualising a future fictional City out of the precedents of the real, and then engaging as fictional planners considering the relationship of curricula to the emergent identities of future (and by extension current) students, industries, environments, cultures and economies. It was delivered at the ELIA Academy in February 2022, and I am in discussion with other institutions internationally about further iterations as part of their institutional learning and teaching development.
