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Dr Charles Anderson

Deputy Head of Institute for Education, Community & Society (ECS) / Senior Lecturer

Education, Community and Society (ECS)

Email: c.d.b.anderson@ed.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6656

Location:

Paterson's Land

Background

After my undergraduate studies I worked as a teacher in an assessment centre and also taught in a primary school before joining the University of Edinburgh as first an educational researcher and then a member of the lecturing staff. My teaching responsibilities include: first year lecturing and tutoring, teaching research methods at Masters and doctoral level, and acting as the academic co-ordinator of the EdD, our professional doctorate programme.

My research interests centre on higher education with particular interests in discourse, learning and teaching history and the evaluation of HE innovations/initiatives. Recent publications include writings on the disciplinary dimensions of HE learning and teaching, undergraduate history learning and teaching and Masters level study and supervision. Most of my research is framed within a socio-cultural perspective on learning and teaching and a focus that characterises much of it is a concern with texts and discourse.

Qualifications:

MA Hons (Modern History, University of St Andrews)
PGCE (Goldsmith's College, University of London)
MEd (Educational Psychology, University of Edinburgh)
PhD (University of Edinburgh)

Principal interests

Learning and teaching in higher education, with particular current foci in:

learning and teaching in undergraduate history
Masters level supervision
the evaluation of HE innovations/initiatives
the disciplinary dimensions of undergraduate teaching and learning
talk and discourse in educational settings

Research Supervision:

I am keen to supervise research under the headings listed above and currently supervise eight doctoral students, who are pursuing a range of topics. I would be particularly interested to hear from individuals interested in studying the learning and teaching of history.

Research supervision

Projects supervised by Dr Charles Anderson

Current and recent research

Research work in the last decade has included involvement in a large scale investigation of undergraduate teaching, learning and assessment in history; the investigation of Masters level dissertation writing, most recently in association with the SPLINT CETL based at the University of Leicester; large-scale and smaller summative and formative evaluations of innovation in HE, including a recent quite-large scale evaluation of a major ICT initiative.

Currently I am working with a colleague Dr Pauline Sangster, on a study concerning the initial professional development of teachers that involves the investigation of the relatively unexplored topic of the sessions in which academic tutors and students discuss and reflect on episodes of teaching. I am about to embark on a project investigating how undergraduate history students understand and represent in their own written work the nature of historical change and continuities and the way that they position themselves in time in relation to the historical periods that they study. In another area of work, my colleague Dr Velda McCune of the University of Glasgow, and I are exploring a number of the conceptual issues which arise when one applies the notion of 'communities of practice' to higher education.

Publications

Publications list for Dr Charles Anderson

This article was published on May 30, 2013