At the University of Staffordshire, my primary role is Programme Manager and Teaching Excellence Fellow for the Step Up to Higher Education University Foundation Certificate course of study. As an educator, I am passionate about the transformative role education plays in positively developing people to both succeed and flourish within their academic, professional and personal contexts. Through the role as Course Leader, my area of expertise is to work positively with a range of harder-to-reach and principally, adult learners via the delivery of an emancipatory curriculum. This is coupled with devising appropriate and tailored learning interventions which position and provide an academic study-readiness to help learners to be successful when transitioning both into, and through their higher education experience.
Through my work, my personal, educational ethos and pedagogic approach is underpinned in more humanist approaches to learning, teaching and psychology, enabling students I work with to develop sound levels of confidence and self-efficacy in their own abilities, both in an academic but importantly, in a personal sense. My research interests and philosophical steer aim to take a holistic view of students, which helps to realise discernible positive expansions of personal growth, in turn helping mitigate the range of psychological barriers that can be felt when engaging with education. I am highly enthused at both facilitating and enabling learners to tap into their potential and find this area of work particularly rewarding.
I am also passionate about driving positive social change and the role the University plays in enabling widening participation and access. I actively research and advocate on this agenda nationally.
Academic qualifications
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- Teaching Excellence Fellowship
- MA Public Policy, University of Manchester
- LLB Law, Staffordshire University
- EdD Doctorate in Education (ongoing): “Humanistic education: a method of practice to address dispositional barriers to learning while prompting positive psychological change in adult learners within Higher Education”.
Expertise
Outreach focused and led teaching and learning. Developing educational partnerships with external stakeholders to deliver applicable learning programmes of study. Collaborative sector policy research projects with national think-tanks.
Research interests
My professional research interests span from educational theory to its implementation. Educational psychology with a focus upon humanistic literature provides a significant steer in paving the approach I take to my practice and work. My Ed.D. doctoral research aligns to this philosophy, through the investigation surrounding the effects poor prior experiencing of learning, but particularly, the impact lived-experiences of trauma can have on the student journey and experience. This investigates the differing approaches to counselling and mentoring which can allow individuals make significant in-roads not only in their educational pursuits, but the growth which can be achieved personally. I am a firm believer in the value in adopting a pedagogy that is compassionate in its overall ethos; witnessing first-hand how care within education can provide a transformative platform for change and human growth.
Grants
UK Government: Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Community Renewal Fund, January 2022 (10 months) - £24,000.
Teaching
Reflective practice, emotional intelligence, ethics and values, critical evaluation, research methods, study skills and good academic practice. I also lead and manage academic provision and two modules of study within the School of Digital, Technology, Business and Innovation.
Publications
Features and contributions to Policy Reports and White Papers
Awards
- National Levelling Up Award – Presented by the Rt. Hon Justine Greening MP – Former Secretary of State for Education and Founder of Fit for Purpose, March 2021.