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Dr Karen Hosack Janes

PGCE

Senior Lecturer in Education

School of Education, Humanities and Languages

Karen Hosack Janes
Role
Research
Professional information
Further details

Role

Dr Karen Hosack Janes teaches on the BA(Hons) and PGCE Primary Education and School Direct Teacher Training courses at Oxford Brookes. She specialises in pedagogies that nurture creative development. Her lastest book (2022) Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom: An exploration of consensus across theory and practice proposes three 'conditions for nurturing creativity'.

 

Karen trained as an Art and Design teacher, becoming Head of Department in a secondary school in Hampshire. She went on to lead the schools programme at the National Gallery, London. Whilst at the National Gallery she set up a cultural placement programme for Initial Teacher Education students from five universities, including many students from Oxford Brookes.

Research

Karen works directly with teachers and teacher training students to explore ways of teaching for creativity, both in the classroom and in settings other than schools, for example in cultural venues. 

A peer-reviewed paper based on her doctoral study at the University of Oxford was published in the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity Vol. 41 (2021) titled Objects of Curiosity: How Old Master paintings have been used in the primary classroom to provide pupils with cognitive challenge and creative agency. It focuses on exploring why and how five primary schools operationalised a project using a painting as a central stimulus for cross-curricular teaching and learning and uses Dewey's (1938) experiential continuum framework as an analytical lens. The whole study is available to view on the Oxford University Research Archive (https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:967de150-d0d2-4093-8563-ea0c734142e9).

Research group membership

Karen co-curates the Oxford Brookes University website Creativity in Education: Encouraging pupils' curiosity, which showcases work produced by teacher training students and celebrates the university's long-standing cultural venue partnerships. 

Further information on research

Karen has written two books for teachers - 'Using the Visual Arts for Cross-Curricular Teaching and Learning: Imaginative ideas for the classroom' (Routledge) and 'Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom: An exploration of consensus across theory and practice (Critical Publishing). She is co-author of 'Great Paintings' published by DK, and has written two series of art books for children - 'How Artists See...' (Heinemann Library), and 'What is Art?' (Raintree).

Groups

Professional information

Memberships of professional bodies

  • STEAM research group
  • Learning and Engagement Steering Panel for the charity Art UK
  • NSEAD Professional Associate.

Consultancy

Karen is an Associate Consultant for Chris Quigley Education Ltd.

Further details

Areas of expertise

  • Creative pedagogies
  • Cultural Captial
  • Learning beyond the classroom
  • Art and Design teaching and learning