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Dr Sarah Davies
Profile summary
- Central Academic Staff
- Senior Lecturer
- Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
- School of Environment, Earth & Ecosystem Sciences
- sarah.davies@open.ac.uk
Professional biography
I am a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Sciences in the School of Environment, Earth and Ecosystem Sciences (EEES) and have been with the Open University since 2006. My teaching area is Environmental Science, particularly soils, plants and ecosystems.
My research interests centre on technology enhanced learning in the earth and environmental sciences, with particular reference to fieldwork learning.
I am involved in developing science education research as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Lead for EEES and through eSTEeM. I also have a role in sharing good practice in technology enhanced learning through co-running the OU's eLearning Community.
I am currently working on the Education and Engagement workstream of AstrobiologyOU
Research interests
My research interests are in science education, particularly technology enhanced learning in the earth and environmental sciences, fieldwork learning and inclusion. I have been involved in the Enabling Remote Activity project (http://projects.kmi.open.ac.uk/era/) which won an OU teaching award and a Handheld Learning Award. I have also worked on the Out There In Here project (Social inclusion through synchronous distributed team collaboration) and the fieldwork strand of the OU’s Open STEM Laboratory project.
A further strand of my research focuses on networked resources for STEM learning, particularly on new blends of physical and digital resources in the ‘Hybrid/Digital/Material/Networked learning project.
Teaching interests
My teaching is in Environmental Science; especially plants, soils and ecosystems. I have been involved in a number of module teams at the Open University: Environmental Science (S216), Environmental Science in the Field (SXR216), Ecosystems (S396), Practical Science (S288), Practical Environmental Science (SXE288), Science Project Course: Environmental Science Practical Project (SXE390). I have also taught Environmental Management and Environmental Law at Masters Level at De Montfort University.
Research Activity
Research groups
| Name | Type | Parent Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR) | Centre | Faculty of Science |
Externally funded projects
Social inclusion through synchronous distributed team collaboration. (H-09-023-AA)
| Role | Start date | End date | Funding source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Co-investigator | 01/Mar/2010 | 31/Dec/2011 | EPSRC EPSRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council |
Mobile technologies bring the digital and the physical worlds together by providing just-in-time/contextual information related to what people are observing, visiting or walking past. However, people with mobility disabilities or socio-economic limitations are often prevented from experiencing these new forms of user experience. We are proposing an alternative approach through developing hybrid ‘social inclusion’ solutions that aim to support collaboration between teams moving around ‘in the field’ and those ‘in the home’. This proposal will develop new ways of connecting existing mobile and shared table-top technologies to support synchronous distributed team collaboration that enables innovative forms of vicarious experiences. An educational prototype system for investigating aspects of the environment will be built to demonstrate and evaluate the effectiveness of the approach for supporting distributed team collaboration. With this project we seek to build systems with middlewear that will link information resource systems and co-located table-top collaboration applications at the home-base with and mobile data collection and communication devices. This will require seamless translation of mobile data collection (i.e. audio, video, geological readings) into table-top displays e.g. mash-ups between geological readings in the wild linked to mappings on table-tops. Partner companies will support the development of viable propositions. The software company, specialising in mobile learning applications, OOKL, will support the synchronous collaboration between mobile and home-based applications. SMART, who specialise in tabletop solutions for educational applications, are in the business of developing ‘ecology of technologies’ through the seamless interaction between devices and displays i.e middleware for table-tops. | |||
Publications
Journal articles
Stokes, Alison; Collins, Trevor; Maskall, John; Lea, John; Lunt, Paul and Davies, Sarah-Jane
Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 36(2) (pp. 197-222)
Book chapters
Collins, Trevor; Davies, Sarah and Gaved, Mark
In: Kennepohl, Dietmar ed. Teaching Science Online: Practical Guidance for Effective Instruction and Lab Work (pp. 183-195)
ISBN : 978-1620361887 | Publisher : Stylus Publishing | Published : Sterling, VA, USA
Conference items
Davies, Sarah-Jane; Thomas, Elaine and Walker, Steve
In : EDEN 2015 Annual Conference Expanding Learning Scenarios: Opening Out the Educational Landscape (9-12 Jun 2015, Barcelona, Spain) (pp. 91-99)
3D virtual geology field trips: opportunities and limitations (2014-06-11)
Minocha, Shailey; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Richardson, Brian and Argles, Thomas
In : Computers and Learning Research Group Annual Conference 2014 (10-11 Jun 2014, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, UK)
Examining hybrid digital/material resources in networked learning: a critical realist approach (2014-04)
Walker, Steve and Davies, Sarah-Jane
In : Ninth International Conference on Networked Learning 2014 (7-9 Apr 2014, Edinburgh, UK) (pp. 315-322)
3D virtual geology field trips: opportunities and limitations (2013-04-17)
Argles, Tom; Richardson, Brian; Davies, Sarah; Minocha, Shailey and Braithwaite, Nick
In : HEA STEM: Annual Learning and Teaching Conference 2013: Where practice and pedagogy meet (17-18 Apr 2013, Birmingham)
Enabling live dialogic and collaborative learning between field and indoor contexts (2011-07-04)
Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne; Rogers, Yvonne and Davies, Sarah-Jane
In : The 25th BCS Conference on Human Computer Interaction (04-08 Jul 2011, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK) (pp. 88-98)
Live linking of fieldwork to the laboratory increases students inquiry based reflections (2011-07-04)
Adams, Anne; Coughlan, Tim; Rogers, Yvonne; Collins, Trevor; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Blake, Canan and Lea, John
In : CSCL 2011: International Conference on Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (04-08 Jul 2011, Hong Kong)
Designing interconnected distributed resources for collaborative inquiry based science education (2011-06-13)
Adams, Anne; Coughlan, Tim; Lea, John; Rogers, Yvonne; Davies, Sarah-Jane and Collins, Trevor
In : ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (13-17 Jun 2011, Ottawa)
Working with ‘mission control’ in scientific fieldwork: supporting interactions between in situ and distanced collaborators (2011-03-19)
Coughlan, Tim; Adams, Anne; Collins, Trevor; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Lea, John and Rogers, Yvonne
In : The 2011 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (19-23 Mar 2011, Hangzhou, China)
Enabling remote activity: using mobile technology for remote participation in geoscience fieldwork (2010)
Davies, Sarah-Jane; Collins, Trevor; Gaved, Mark; Bartlett, Jessica; Valentine, Chris and McCann, Lewis
In : Proc. European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2010 (EGU 2010) (02-07 May 2010, Vienna, Austria)
Out there and in here: design for blended scientific inquiry learning (2010)
Adams, Anne; Davies, Sarah; Collins, Trevor and Rogers, Yvonne
In : 17th Association for Learning Technology Conference ALT-C 2010 - (07-09 Sep 2010, Nottingham, UK)
ERA: On-the-fly networking for collaborative geology fieldwork (2008)
Gaved, Mark; Collins, Trevor; Bartlett, Jessica; Davies, Sarah-Jane; Valentine, Chris; McCann, Lewis and Wright, Michelle
In : mLearn 2008 'The bridge from text to context' (8-10 Oct 2008, Wolverhampton, UK)
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