Learners and Learning

Our hub focuses on learners and learning in schools, informal settings and local communities, and the learning of and for educators.  The high rate of learning poverty is just one indicator of the wide learning gaps that prevent education from providing the opportunity it should for all children and young people. As such, we focus on research into teaching, learning support, school improvement, educational leadership and the political economy of education systems.

We explore questions including:

• What is effective in enabling more children to start and progress through primary and secondary education?
• What is working well in alternative learning?
• What motivates those who are teaching to increase their skills?
• What are the roles of parents and the community in supporting successful learning for children and young people?
• How can assessment strategies be conceptualised to reflect learners’ lives?
• How can gender-pedagogy be reflected through learning resources and in what ways does this impact on girls’ learning experiences?
• In what ways does storytelling methodology support girls’ authentic voice?

Our research provides a forum for sharing ideas and developing understandings so that we can all learn from each other and gain insights that will benefit all learners, educators and their communities. 

Publications

Out-of-school girls’ lives in Zimbabwe: what can we learn from a storytelling research approach? (2021)
Buckler, Alison; Chamberlain, Liz; Mkwananzi, Faith; Chigodora, Obert and Dean, Caroline
Cambridge Journal of Education ((Early access))

Rapid Research Response: collective sensemaking around experiences and challenges of harnessing education research opportunities during a global pandemic (2021)
Ebubedike, Margaret and Chamberlain, Liz
Research Conversations, Open University Education Blog

A positive outcome in the time of covid-19 through the use of Whatsapp in Zimbabwe (2021) 
Woodward, C., Harrison, S. & Tope. C.

UKFIET.

What Prevents Teacher Educators from Accessing Professional Development OER? Storytelling and Professional Identity in Ugandan Teacher Colleges (2021)
Buckler, Alison; Stutchbury, Kris; Kasule, George; Cullen, Jane and Kaije, Doris
Journal of Learning for Development, 8, Article 1(1) (pp. 10-26)

ICT-based teaching and learning in Ghana: OpenSTEM Africa

Addae-Kyeremeh, Eric; Cullen, Jane; Mallet, Joshua and Owusu-Agyemfra, Augustus . In: UKFIET Conference Building Back Better in Education and Training?, 13/09/2021-16/09/2021, Online

Teacher educators and OER in East Africa: Interrogating pedagogic change (2017-10-26)
Wolfenden, Freda; Auckloo, Pritee; Buckler, Alison and Cullen, Jane
In: Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl and Arinto, Patricia B. eds. Adoption and impact of OER in the Global South (pp. 251-286)
ISBN : 978-1-55250-599-1 | Publisher : ROER4D | Published : Cape Town, South Africa

‘I really appreciate you saying that’: the challenges of developing a partnership. Cullen, Jane and Chitsulo, Joyce (2013).  In: UKFIET International Conference on Education and Development – Education & Development Post 2015: Reflecting, Reviewing, Re-visioning, 10-12 Sep 2013, Oxford, UK