Building bridges for teachers as researchers

There has been little exploration of how Research Leads build bridges and manage networks to encourage teachers to be researchers. As a middle leader on a teaching timetable, in this article, I focus on some of the current issues and dilemmas I have personally faced when trying to thrive in this role. I address these issues and draw on my own experience as evidence to support possible solutions in being a middle leader. Some of the challenges faced in this role are encouraging teachers to become researchers, motivating teachers to engage in research, making research relatable to teachers and using reflective practice to develop researching practitioners. Further to this, I explore how using a bottom-up strategy can work with senior leaders through to classroom teachers; even though this can be a difficult process, this strategy is constantly evolving with the aim to create a research-informed community. In all, this article takes a personal perspective and reflects personal experiences in being a Research Lead and a teacher-researcher. It aims to provide some strategies in managing the challenges of being a middle leader, not in the traditional sense but as a networker, community builder and teacher-researcher.

Designing for Immediacy and Culture

Immediacy represents the psychological distance experienced by individuals who are remotely located. Interaction between students, instructors, and content are tied to increased immediacy. Verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors underpin immediacy and creating a sense of community among online course participants. Culture is a critical component that determines how students communicate verbally and nonverbally. Recognizing student differences and similarities can be a powerful community builder. Designing online courses that promote cultural openness and understanding is an essential piece of the learning landscape. Rather than viewing culture as something to avoid, culture should be viewed as an immediacy, community, and learning enabler.

Preachers, Patriots and Islamists

Rediscovered by Islamic converts in the late 1960s and post-war migrants in Liverpool in the 1970s after he had been largely forgotten, British Muslim interest in Abdullah Quilliam has grown significantly, especially in the last decade. Although not without his contemporary critics, there is a strong hagiographic tendency that puts Quilliam forward as a founder figure in British Islam. Contemporary appropriations of Quilliam center on questions of British Muslim belonging, which is drawn out in debates on racism and effective preaching (da‘wa), and about Islam, politics and patriotism. This chapter argues that, within his overarching role as progenitor, Quilliam’s reimagined afterlives as patriot or rebel, reformer or traditionalist, or community builder or preacher, reveal tensions and developments among British Muslims today.

Memorial Tribute for Jane Marcus

This is a memorial essay to Jane Marcus. Her profound impact on Woolf studies, feminism, and literary studies and her influence as mentor and community builder creates a tremendous legacy.

Tribute to Jane Marcus

This is a memorial essay to Jane Marcus. Her profound impact on Woolf studies, feminism, and literary studies and her influence as mentor and community builder creates a tremendous legacy.

To Jane, Thank you. With Love,

This is a memorial essay to Jane Marcus. Her profound impact on Woolf studies, feminism, and literary studies and her influence as mentor and community builder creates a tremendous legacy.