Dr Karen Hosack Janes

DPhil, PGCE

Senior Lecturer in Education

School of Education, Humanities and Languages

Karen Hosack Janes

Role

Karen is a Senior Lecturer in Education. She specialises in pedagogies that nurture creative development. She leads the Art and Design specialism on the undergraduate and postgraduate Initial Teacher Education and Training (ITET) programmes. She also leads the Creative and Therapeutic Approaches module on the Early Childhood and Education Studies undergraduate degree, as well supervising EdD students.

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. There, among other special projects, she led the Take One Picture scheme, from which in 2003 she developed a placement programme for primary teacher trainees. This was Government-funded as part of the National/Regional Museums Education Partnership and involved five universities and their regional museums (including Oxford Brookes University and the Ashmolean Museum). The current Cultural Placements on the ITET programme at Oxford Brookes University have evolved from this initiative into being an important integrated element of the BA (Hons) Primary Teacher Education course. For more information see https://sites.google.com/brookes.ac.uk/soehlculturalplacements/home.

Teaching and supervision

Modules taught

PTE5004, PTE5005, PTE6002, PTE6011, PGCE6051, EDST5018
Courses taught: Primary Teacher Education BA(Hons), Primary Teacher Education PGCE, Early Childhood and Education Studies BA(Hons)
 
Whilst Head of Schools at the National Gallery, London, Karen led the Take One Picture scheme, from which in 2003 she developed a placement programme for primary teacher trainees. This was Government-funded as part of the National/Regional Museums Education Partnership and involved five universities and their regional museums (including Oxford Brookes University and the Ashmolean Museum). The current Cultural Placements on the ITET programme at Oxford Brookes University have evolved from this initiative into being an important integrated element of the BA (Hons) Primary Teacher Education course, as demonstrated through this website. https://sites.google.com/brookes.ac.uk/soehlculturalplacements/home

 

Supervision


Doctor of Education supervision

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. Karen is currently undertaking a research project into reflective and reflexive practice linked to local primary schools taking part in art days at the university led by first year trainee teachers. This is supported by the charity Cotswold Arts Through Schools (https://www.cotswoldsartsthroughschools.com/).

Research impact

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).


 

Groups

Publications

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Professional information

Memberships of professional bodies

Professional Associate NSEAD

Consultancy

Karen is the Education and Art Consultant for the charity Art In Schools (https://www.artinschools.org.uk/about)

Further details

Areas of expertise

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