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Staff Profile

Professor Caroline Walker-Gleaves

Professor of Education

  • Telephone: 0191 2086553
  • Address: Room 1.39
    King George VI Building
    Newcastle University
    Queen Victoria Road
    Newcastle Upon Tyne
    NE17RU
Background

EXPERTISE

Higher Education Philosophy and Practice; Pedagogic Theory; Teachers' Beliefs and Values; SEND and the Experiences of Children who are Looked After and Care-Experienced; Music Pedagogy and Music Education and Curriculum Development.

BIOGRAPHY

I am a Professor of Education at Newcastle University, and I am a teacher and educator working at the intersections of pedagogic theory and practice, particularly concerning teachers and their values and beliefs, SEND and Inclusion studies and also, studies of Music Curriculum and Music Teachers' practices. An important strand of my work is research at the interface of professional and public concerns relating to the experiences of vulnerable individuals and students in difficulty, especially children who have been in public care. As such, my work has informed developments in local and regional schools concerning pupils' and students' educational progress and to teacher practices. I am a former secondary school Physics teacher, and I have worked at Sunderland, Durham, and Newcastle Universities. I am the author of several books, including Invisible Threads of Pedagogic Care: A Study of Caring Academics and their Work (Verlag, 2011), Looking After Literacy: Practical Approaches for Improving Primary Children's Language Development (Sage, 2017), and Is Caring Pedagogy really so Progressive? Exploring the Conceptual and Practical Impediments to Operationalizing Care in Higher Education (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).

While at Newcastle University, I served as Head of the School of Education, Communication & Language Sciences between 2016-2019, as well as sitting on the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and I am currently the Director of Research Ethics within the School. I have won numerous awards for teaching and pedagogic scholarship, and I am the recipient of a UK National Teaching Fellowship, The US Association of Colleges International Award for Innovative Excellence in Learning and Teaching, Durham University Vice Chancellor's Awards for Outstanding Teaching, and Outstanding Doctoral Supervision. I also have many nominations for Outstanding Teaching Across the Faculty and Doctoral Supervisor of the Year at Newcastle University. I am committed to both scholarship and teaching, however, and my research has appeared in the most prestigious journals in the field, including Teaching and Teacher Education, Computers and Education, Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, Studies in Higher Education, Teacher Development, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, and Educational Studies. My research and writing about Caring Pedagogy in Higher Education has received international attention and I was named one of the most outstanding UK Educators of the decade by the Higher Education Academy, my work being featured in the publication Ten Years of the National Teaching Fellowships: Four Stories of Outstanding Teachers in Higher Education (HEA, 2011). As a result of this work, I have been in demand as a higher education pedagogic consultant for institutions worldwide, including The University of Hong Kong, The University of Education, Winneba, Ghana, and The University of South Florida, USA. In addition to these disciplines, I have also taught music in schools, and I have been a musical director for many shows, including performances of Sweet Charity and Little Shop of Horrors. I am currently in a harmonics choir as well as being half of a guitar-vocals duo, in addition, to being a songwriter. I am a qualified music teacher (piano and theory) and I'm currently a Vocal Music student at Berklee College of Music (Boston, US).

I greatly enjoy teaching and supervising postgraduates and my doctoral students have garnered significant praise and been recognized nationally and internationally for the quality of their research: in 2018, Amer Ashahre was a runner-up for the British Educational Research Association Best-Paper Award in Educational Technology; in 2019, Homoud Al-Anazi was awarded the Best Conference Paper Prize at the Ireland International Education Conference, and Rebecca Nicholson was a runner up in the Newcastle University Social Sciences Doctoral Impact Awards and the winner in the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Thesis Awards. In 2021, Shatha Almalky (ex-doctoral student) and I won the Best Paper Award in the Teacher Education Division of the International Conference in Educational Development Studies.

I am willing to supervise doctoral studies in the areas of expertise listed above and would welcome approaches to discuss possible projects.

HONOURS & AWARDS

  • University Chair in Education, 2016 -
  • Newcastle University Research Supervisor of the Year Award Runner Up, 2024
  • Newcastle University Undergraduate Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2024
  • Newcastle University Research Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2023
  • Newcastle University Undergraduate Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2023
  • Newcastle University Research Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2022
  • Newcastle University Undergraduate Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2022
  • Newcastle University Outstanding Contribution to Feedback & Progression Award, Runner Up, 2021
  • Newcastle University Outstanding Contribution to Teaching, and Student Support Nominee, 2021
  • Newcastle University Research Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2021
  • Newcastle University Student Special Choice Award Nominee, 2020
  • Newcastle University Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2020
  • Newcastle University Outstanding Teaching Across the Faculty Award Nominee, 2019
  • Newcastle University Supervisor of the Year Award Nominee, 2018 & 2019
  • Durham University Vice Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Doctoral Supervision, 2014
  • Durham University Vice Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2013
  • Durham University Social Sciences Faculty Scholar Award for Research Impact, 2012
  • Ernest L. Boyer International Award for Outstanding Pedagogic Scholarship Runner-Up, 2005
  • US Association of Colleges International Award for Innovative Excellence in Learning & Teaching, 2005
  • UK Women's Engineering Society Role Model Award for STEM Excellence in Education, 2003
  • UK National Teaching Fellowship Award of the Higher Education Academy, 2001
  • Association for Science Education Outstanding Teacher Award, 1989

QUALIFICATIONS

  • B.Sc Applied Physics
  • P.G.C.E Physical Sciences (Secondary)
  • P.G.Dip Education Management
  • MA in Political Science & International Relations
  • ARCM (Pianoforte)
  • MA in Music
  • PhD in Education (thesis subject Higher Education Pedagogical Praxis and Philosophy)
  • B.Mus (Instrumental Studies), Berklee College of Music
Research

EXPERTISE

Higher Education Philosophy and Practice; Pedagogic Theory; Teachers' Beliefs and Values; SEND and the experiences of Children who are Looked After and Care-Experienced; Music Pedagogy and Music Education and Curriculum Development.

My research ranges from narrative accounts of teachers’ beliefs and practices, through how teachers’ individual interpretations of affect and emotion lead to inclusive practices within classroom and school settings, to how both musical pedagogical design and curricula act as a conduit through which teachers’ and learners’ pedagogic aims are shaped and filtered.  I am especially interested in relationships, the intersectionality of difference, diversity and emotion in pedagogic relational terms, and the ways in which principles that stand behind frameworks of competent and excellent teacher behaviours play out in practice.

I offer doctoral supervision in the areas outlined above and would encourage prospective applicants to email me with a view to discussing possible research projects.

INDICATORS OF ESTEEM

  • Reviewer for Higher Education Academy Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence, 2015 -
  • Reviewer for Higher Education Academy Individual Award National Teaching Fellowships, 2014 -
  • Education Subject Judge on International Undergraduate Awards Panel, 2014 -
  • Visiting Associate Professor at Hong Kong University under the Distinguished Faculty Knowledge Exchange Programme, 2012-2013
  • Reviewer for the journals: Computers & Education, British Educational Research Journal, British Medical Journal Open, Teaching & Teacher Education
  • Reviewer for pedagogic research grant applications for National ESRC for Canada, 2005 -
  • Member of the Editorial Board of the journals: Higher Education Research; Educational Research Applications; Praxis; and Sustainability: Teacher Development.

CURRENT RESEARCH

I am currently researching in three areas:

  • Models of pedagogic caring within compulsory and higher education and co-relation of pedagogic relational practices with academic outcomes;
  • Practices of music teachers within schools, especially in relation to curriculum design, the cultural impact of music in schools, and the design of classrooms for musicality and musical performance;
  • Educational progress and achievement of adopted children and the construction of teachers' beliefs about, and aspirations for, adopted children, as well as an exploration of home-school relations of schools and adoptive parents.
Teaching


My teaching and student supervision range from narrative accounts of teachers’ beliefs and practices, through how teachers’ interpretations of affect and emotion lead to inclusive practices within classroom and school settings, to how both musical curricula design and development, act as a conduit through which teachers’ and learners’ pedagogic aims are shaped and filtered. I am especially interested in relationships, the intersectionality of difference, diversity, and emotion in pedagogic relational terms, and how principles that stand behind frameworks of competent and excellent teacher behaviours play out in practice. I teach the following programmes:

  • BA Education Studies, where I am Module Leader for the Level 3 Module: Responding to Special Educational Needs. I also teach on the Level 2 Module Social Constructions of Childhood and the Level 3 Module Social Justice. In addition, I supervise Final Year BA Honours Dissertations in the specialisms of Special Education, Inclusion and Inclusive Education, Stigma and Labelling, Equality & Equity in Education, and the educational experiences of Looked After and Adopted Children.
  • MA Education, where I supervise Dissertation students in three particular areas: Teacher Development and Beliefs; SEND in the context of Teachers' Practices and Professional Knowledge; Studies of Music within Teachers' Expertise, and Personal music autobiographies.
  • EdD and International PhD Programmes, where I teach guest classes on qualitative research design, phenomenology, narrative and autobiographical research, and interpretive hermeneutic design and analysis.
  • I specialise in doctoral-level supervision, and over the last decade, have supervised over 20 students to completion from a range of doctoral programmes, including PhD, EdD, International PhD (iPhD), and Doctor of Professional Studies in Pedagogic Practice (DPS).
Publications