Professor Carolin Kreber

Honorary Professor

Background

I received my combined BA/BEd (specialising in History and English) from the Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg, Germany in 1990, my master’s degree in Adult Education and Curriculum Theory from Brock University in Southern Ontario in 1993 and a doctorate (PhD) in Higher Education from the Department of Theory and Policy Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto (OISE/UT), Canada, in 1997. The same year I accepted my first tenure-track academic appointment in Adult and Higher Education at the University of Alberta (Department of Educational Policy Studies), in Edmonton,  Canada, where I obtained tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001.

Prior to my appointment with the University of Alberta, and while pursuing doctoral studies at OISE/UT, I was a lecturer at Brock University teaching courses in adult education and research methodology. I have been Professor at the University of Edinburgh since January 2005. From 2005-2010 I directed the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, located in the former Department of Higher and Community Education. Since 2012 I am the Director of the Higher Education Research Group (HERG).  My academic interests focus on adult and higher education, perspectives on professionalism and professional practices, and, increasingly, the application of social philosophy to education.

Postgraduate teaching

  • Perspectives on professionalism and professional practices (EdD)
  • Developing my approach to teaching (Pg CAP)
  • Working with postgraduate students (Pg CAP)

Areas of interest for supervision

I am happy to supervise postgraduate students in the following areas:

  • Teaching, learning and development in adult and higher education
  • Curriculum challenges and reform
  • Internationalisation and higher education
  • The goals and purposes of higher education
  • Professional learning, knowing and ethics

Current PhD students supervised

  • Charles Silvane- A moral philosophical perspective on citizenship education
  • Michelle Waldron- Transformative Learning: The Young Offenders Perception of Prisoner Education
  • Laura Mitchell

Research summary

  • Higher Education and Society
  • Ethics and ethical development in higher education
  • Critical reflection, transformative learning and human development
  • Perspectives on 'authenticity' (and its relevance in the context of teaching, learning, academic practice and professionalism)
  • Teaching and learning in higher education
  • Professional learning, professional practice and 'professionalism'

Project activity

  • Preparing civic-minded professionals (present book project)
  • Authenticity in and through teaching: The transformative potential of the scholarship of teaching (completed book project)
  • Conceptions of doctoral supervision across disciplines and jurisdictions (in progress)
  • International academic staff members' experiences of adjusting to working and living in Scotland (in progress, see ‘Being an international academic: A phenomenological study of academic migrants adjusting to working and living in Scotland’, Kreber & Hounsell, 2014 )

View all 74 publications on Research Explorer