ESRC Seminar Series 2009
Developing a 'how things work' research agenda in education
Education practitioners, researchers, and sociocultural theorists are invited to join in a series of discussions which focus on ways that theory can inform our understanding of teaching and learning practices within various contexts. Seminar topics will aim to be cross-cutting in order to engage educators and education researchers from a wide range of subject areas and levels of education.
We aim to better understand how learning is shaped by pedagogical practices by exploring educational systems within different learning environments (sites of learning, institutions, and the policy context) from three theoretical perspectives:
- Communities of Practice
- Activity theory
- Discourse studies
The series considers of each of the three theoretical approaches in terms of their applicability to theorising practice. Our aims are therefore twofold: to better understand theoretical perspectives as they may be relevant for questions about practice in education and to better understand practice questions which may be addressed from various theoretical perspectives.
The ESRC Seminar Series will begin with a 2-day event on 3 and 4 February 2009 in Manchester. Subsequent sessions follow as full-day seminars on 3 March, 28 April, 14 May and 22 September (TBC). More details are provided in the participant registration form. Running parallel to these events will be a collaborative online (user-friendly) 'wiki' which we will use to develop subsequent seminars and document our learning and professional development.
Please login to the following wiki for more details and to participate in this project:
http://tewpl.manchester.ac.uk/esrc/
NB: We have reached maximum capacity for the first seminars in Manchester (3 and 4 February). Registration for that session has closed.