Survey is now open, please follow the link below. https://unihub.mdx.ac.uk/student-life/your-voice/student-feedback/postgraduate-research-experience-survey
Don’t forget as an incentive, for every survey that is completed Middlesex University will be donating £5 to your choice of one of three MDXSU sponsored charities so that you can make a real difference to some amazing causes.
The Musiceum report – written by Professor Jayne Osgood and Dr Alex Elwick from CERS, alongside Professor Pam Burnard (Cambridge University), Dr. Laura Huhtinen-Hildén (Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences, Finland) and Dr. Jessica Pitt (Roehampton University) – has today been published and is available to download here:
The report looks at museums as spaces for early childhood music-making and was funded by the Research Committee, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education.
Dr Emma Kell EdD, who studied for and obtained her Doctorate of Education at Middlesex University, has published a book entitled ‘How to Survive in Teaching’ by Bloomsbury Education.
Launched at Duke’s Aldridge Academy on 11th January the book examines honestly the challenges facing the profession and identifies practical and positive approaches to move beyond the ‘teacher crisis’.
Emma has written a blog post on having her work published: Serendipity, audacity… and bloody hard work. Becoming a published writer.
The book can be ordered from Amazon.
CERS professor, Jayne Osgood, has acted as a consultant on the new BBC documentary ‘No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?’ – which will be broadcast on 16th August in the UK.
More information about this 2-part documentary, which details an experiment to see whether a Year 3 class can think differently about gender, can be found on the BBC website, and the programme will be available to watch via this link.
A special edition of the journal ‘Contemporary Issues in Early’ has been published this month, guest edited by CERS academics Jayne Osgood, Victoria de Rijke and Mona Sakr.
The special edition responds to an urgent need to engage with the darker sides of play at a time when digital environments are opening up play experiences and territories that feel unfamiliar, and potentially even menacing, to adults.
More information and the edition can be found on the journal’s website.
Erasmus Teaching Visit at the University of Palermo (23 May 2017 – 28 May 2017):
My visit provided me with the opportunity to teach in the Faculty of Architecture, which has an international reputation and is highly regarded for their inter-disciplinary teaching programme. I met colleagues who have been very supportive and interested in my teaching and research, I had the chance to attend their seminars, be involved in their teaching and teach students from different courses in a seminar, entitled ‘Sinfonia funebre di una città, la Palermo dello Zio di Brooklyn. Per una lettura ecocritica del cinema di Ciprì e Maresco’
The seminar was highly appreciated by students and colleagues and involved a contribution by the film director I discussed in my seminar, who sent a 30-minute video where he replied to questions put forward by the students in advance. The seminar encompassed perspectives ranging from ecocriticism to social and urban studies and translation studies. One part focused on how the use of audio-visual translation, specifically the subtitling of films from Sicilian dialect into Italian, had been used in films set in Palermo, discussing their relevance in the understanding of cultural identity.
The latest edition of ‘Teaching Citizenship’ has been published. This is edited by Lee Jerome and Gavin Baldwin, at Middlesex University, and is the only journal for citizenship teachers in England.
The summer 2017 edition is on the theme of ‘The rise of the far right, Brexit and fundamental British values’. Details of the journal are available here: https://www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk/journals
On Saturday 18th March Middlesex University hosted a conversation on pedagogy in Higher Education, led by Professor Paul Gibbs.
Following a search of the Middlesex University repository for those academics who have published on pedagogical issues (over 60) we have now collated a list on the CERS website. Based on the evidence of excellence in pedagogical practice and at fairly short notice the academics below agreed to come together to participant in pedagogical conversations to share and improve practice on Saturday 18th March.
Talking about what they have achieved and are striving to achieve was inspirational. So much so that we want to invite more colleagues to join us for pedagogical conversation, we will host notification of future meetings and outcomes on this site, but in the meantime please contact Paul Gibbs if this is of interest.
Victoria de Rijke (Director of CERS) recently attended ‘The Child and the Book‘ conference in Valencia, Spain, to give a presentation on the radical use of collage in Anti-War Children¹s Picturebooks (such as Umberto Eco’s ‘The Bomb and the General’, Barroux¹s ‘The Red Piano’ and Davide Cali & Serge Bloch¹s ‘The Enemy’).
The University is approaching Sage to publish the conference papers.
Researchers from Middlesex University and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) have won a six month research project to explore the British Council’s internal and external implementation of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
The international study will enable the British Council to develop thought-provoking and functional learning aids such as story-telling, and exemplars for managing difficult scenarios, which could be made available to both internal and external audiences. The initial funding exceeds £40,000
The team will visit British Council staff in Jordan, Egypt Saudi Arabia, Ghana and Kenya, as well as UK staff who are working to promote workplace diversity, both internally and externally. Through an ethnographic and narrative approach they will capture British Council staff’s lived experiences of and responses to EDI-related challenges, which they have encountered in their contexts; and provide an analysis of the state of current EDI policy and agendas in these selected countries of the Middle East and Africa.
The expertise of the research team in the field of equality, diversity and inclusion and in appropriate methodologies was recognised by the British Council when awarding the project.
Professor Paul Gibbs, Director of Education Research, is heading up the research team and will be responsible for project managing the multi-dimensional research, leading on the survey aspects of the project and the final report; Associate Professor Kate Maguire, Head of Research Degrees at the Institute for Work Based Learning with expertise in anthropology, will be leading on the field work. The team is supported by Professor Alison Scott-Baumann, from SOAS, and Dr Alex Elwick of the Education Department
“This research project should lead to close co-operation with the British Council in EDI areas and confirm the importance of this aspect of the University’s strategy in this area and its recognition outside the University. As a university, we are positioning ourselves as leaders of EDI research, which we are very proud of. This exciting research study will provide the University with a sound international perspective on an issue we are addressing at a local level.” Paul Gibbs and Kate Maguire
The British Council is seeking to enhance its internal and external approach to equality, diversity and inclusion through an innovative approach to capture and disseminate good practice in EDI policy and implementation across the world. The British Council’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy is at the heart of its cultural relations work, both in the UK and across its 100 plus offices worldwide.