Research and Development
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Digest Club
Digest Club seminars are free to participants and aim to provide up-to-date research and keynote speakers to challenge thinking and promote peer-to-peer dialogue.
Previous Digest Club seminars:
Summer Term 2022
'Education Visions' - Emily Shuckburgh
Digest Club on 13 June 2022 featured a presentation by Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero and Professor of Environmental Data Science at the University of Cambridge.
Talk summary: Over the coming decades, global society will face increasing challenges arising from the threats such as social inequality, climate change and environmental degradation, as well as a wide range of societal trends. This talk will discuss how a new vision for education could be centred on equipping young people with the skills to navigate and lead positive change through the rest of this century and beyond. The purpose is to inspire new possibilities in classroom practice – curriculum development, resources and pedagogies by providing new insights into the complex global problems.
Click here to watch a recording of the presentation.
Spring Term 2022
'From STEM to STEAM: Why Sciences and Arts Creativities Matter in Reconfiguring STEAM for Future-Making Education' - Pamela Burnard
Digest Club on 28 February 2022 featured a presentation by Pamela Burnard, Professor of Arts, Creativities and Educations at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
Click here to view the slide presentation.
Further reading:
STEAM GARDENS - Chapter 9 from 'Sculpting New Creativities'
Transdisciplinarity: letting arts and science teach together (Burnard et al, 2021) - shorter article
STEAM education: a question of time
"A quick question, but not a quick answer. First: why do you teach what you teach? Which is the equivalent of why to you teach science to pupils and why should they learn science. Scientific literacy is often reduced to content and passing exams - Biesta’s first purpose - qualification. But science is also a way to become socialised in the world and to learn about oneself, one’s own ways of making sense of a complex reality in ongoing transformation (Biesta third purpose: subjectification). Science is a subject that promotes inquiry. There is no time to teach the curriculum in a linear fashion; but there is scope to initiate students to carry out their own inquiries; to promote learning from their personal experiences as opposed to learn something that is pre-ordained but also piecemeal and disconnected from pupils’ own life. STEAM is not about teaching additional content; it is about creating the conditions for fuelling children’s own inquiries, moving from one subject to another, the role of the teacher is not to pass on the content but to create the conditions for that content to become activated in the pupils ‘minds as part of a practical inquiry."
Professor Pamela Burnard
Autumn Term 2021
'Dyslexia, Rhythm, Language and the Developing Brain' - Usha Goswami
Digest Club on 11 October 2021 featured a presentation by Usha Goswami, Professor of Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge and founding Director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education.
Click here to view the seminar slide presentation.
For further information about the Centre for Neuroscience in Education, click here.
Autumn Term 2020
'Powerful Curriculum' - Mark Enser
Digest Club on 5 October 2020 featured a presentation by Mark Enser on 'Powerful Curriculum'. Mark Enser is Head of Geography and Research Lead at Heathfield Community College and is a regular TES columnist and author.
Click here to watch a recording of the presentation.
Summer Term 2020
'Leadership - Leaders are learners too' - Stephen Munday & Sam Twiselton
Digest Club on 2 June 2020 featured a presentation by the President and Vice President of the Chartered College of Teaching, Stephen Munday and Sam Twiselton, on 'Leadership: leaders are learners too, especially in very challenging circumstances'.
Click here to watch a recording of the presentation.
Further reading: following this seminar, one of the delegates shared this article by David Bakhurst from Vol 54 No 2 edition of The Philosophy of Education Society journal.