PhD Students
The Visual Learning Lab has funded MA students on the Educational Research Methods programme, and has helped two of these students secure PhD funding - Andy Coverdale and Claire Mann. They also co-fund and co-supervise Natasa Lackovic in partnership with the Learning Sciences Research Institute. Andy and Claire are also part of the student intern team this year. Read more about all three of them below.
Andy worked as a shipyard fitter before returning to education as a mature student. After graduating in Technical Illustration at Blackpool and the Fylde College, he gained experience in commercial illustration, graphic design and 3d modelling. He undertook an MA in Interactive Art and Design at University College Falmouth, focusing on education.
Andy was subsequently employed at the Interactive Art and Design Research Cluster to research e-learning technology and trends within Art and Design. He was also involved in a college-wide Learning and Teaching research project running a series of prototype workshops for student digital portfolios.
Andy is interested in student-centred and collaborative approaches to visual learning, and the potential applications of visual mapping and emerging social computing in Higher Education.
Natasa is interested in learning through the use of visuals as mediative learning tools (still or moving images) in combination with students’ personal inquiry approach.
In her research images would act as narrative support based on teacher-chosen word cues and would represent the concepts needed to be learnt. She would like to investigate students' reaction to, creation and interpretation of the mentioned image-base learning platform.
She views learning as a process of human transformation which requires active engagement and deep, motivating and meaningful interaction with and reflection on the studied concepts.
She hopes that her research would provide findings on whether, why and how the mentioned ‘image tool’ within learning and teaching enhances the depth and/or productivity of learning experience according to students and teachers’ feedback.
Claire became interested in visual technologies and the issues of teaching IT to teachers and joined Bilborough College as Staff IT Trainer with a dual role of supporting teachers to develop their IT skills and assisting the college with their model of change management taking the college forward to an e-learning environment. Claire worked as a Research Assistant on the University of Nottingham V-Resort project developing video resources to be used in Higher Education.
Claire is interested in all areas of implementing change in teaching using IT with visual technologies. This includes using technology generally and more specifically the potential in teaching to use laptops, the internet, IWBs, video resources, RLOs and mobile learning opportunities. Following her sponsored year with the VLL, Claire has been successful in gaining a PhD studentship which will be dual supervised by the VLL and the new Vet School. This research is looking at the student experience of new visual learning technologies offered by the Vet School.