University of Brighton 2013 studentships closed for applications at 4pm on Thursday 11 April 2013
If you have submitted an application but do not hear from us within 3 weeks, regretfully you have not been successful with your application. The 2013 studentship have attracted an unprecedented number of quality applications and competition is understandably strong. The University of Brighton will offer research studentships in 2014 and will again welcome applications.
Interviews for shortlisted candidates will take place between 7 and 17 May 2013. All those invited to interview will be informed of the outcome by 12 June 2013
If you have a question regarding your application please contact our Doctoral College on +44 01273 642915 or doctoralcollegedean@brighton.ac.uk
Pedagogy for Connected Learning: Sustaining the Quality of Young People’s Learning Experiences and Aspirations in a Digital Age
- Based in the Faculty of Education and Sport
- Supervisors: Professor Avril Loveless, Dr Keith Turvey
Application deadline is 4pm, 11th April 2013
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The research questions that underpin this doctoral studentship focus on pedagogy, partnerships, theoretical frameworks, and innovative methodologies. The project will make contributions to knowledge and impacts for change in three areas: pedagogy for connected learning; participation in realising young people’s aspirations; and sustainable research partnerships between Higher Education and schools.
The project will investigate the following questions:
• What are the characteristics of pedagogy with digital tools that sustain changes in practice, and impact on the quality of students’ learning experiences, aspirations and achievements?
• How might educators in universities and schools work in a research partnership to design learning environments which incorporate digital tools to support connected learning which affords academic achievement, life opportunity or community engagement?
• How might theories of pedagogy inform international trajectories of change in teacher education and professional development?
• What innovations in methodology contribute to understanding challenges to change in pedagogy and learning environments?
Pedagogy with digital tools has been observed and described over four decades yet transformations in practices in schools have not materialised as promised. The characteristics of pedagogy and contexts that support sustained impact on the quality of students’ learning experiences, aspirations and achievements are still not clearly understood, yet as Laurillard asserts, ‘digital technologies not only enable a change to treating teaching as a design science, they also require it’. There is significant international research interest in developing models of personalised and connected learning in the lives of children and young people using digital tools in experiences which are socially connected, interest-driven, and oriented towards educational opportunity. The links between students’ aspirations and achievements is complex in that many young people have high aspirations yet are not always supported appropriately by collaborations between parents and teachers to achieve them. The doctoral study will therefore focus on pedagogy with digital tools that reflects changes in teaching practices and adult participation to support students’ learning experiences, aspirations and achievements.
The local context of this project is the ongoing research activity in the School of Education and some of its local partner schools in 2012-15. The Mobile Technologies Project focuses on the use of personal and mobile digital devices by teachers and researchers, the latter operating as catalysts for pedagogical change, professional development and research practices. The doctoral studentship will therefore undertake fieldwork with lecturers, teachers, students and pupils in formal and informal learning environments, and explore models of sustainable research partnerships within a changing landscape of teacher education and professional development in universities and schools.
The supervisors’ research expertise will support the project directly, offering conceptual depth, contextual scope and pedagogical reach and drawing on sociocultural approaches to digital tools, context, agency and improvisation. A model of ‘narrative ecology’ for pedagogy, drawing on cultural, historical and ecological approaches can also inform the theoretical framework of the project. The international context for theories of teacher knowledge and pedagogy is currently dynamic, with significant research and practice being developed in Australia, USA, Scandinavia and Asia-Pacific regions, which contrasts with current policy trajectories in the UK. The doctoral studentship will therefore also make a contribution to knowledge in international networks and policy development.
The Education Research Centre in the University of Brighton has excellent and world-leading methodological expertise in narrative approaches and participatory research methods. The doctoral studentship will therefore focus predominantly on interpretive methodologies, employing mixed methods appropriately. The team is also mindful of the opportunities and challenges in using digital methods in capturing and analysing data, in addition to focusing on the pedagogical use of digital tools. The successful candidate will, accordingly, need to draw upon experience in using mixed methods in qualitative methodology in the context of pedagogy and digital tools, and be open to developing expertise in narrative and participatory innovations.
