Dr Clare Spencer

Professional biography

I joined the Open University in Wales as a tutor in the mid-1980s, shortly after completing my PhD on the poetry of John Clare at the University of Wales, Cardiff.  Since then, I’ve taught modules in a range of subjects with the OU, including European Studies and the MA in Education, as well as my current specialisms of English Literature and Creative Writing.  I also worked for periods during that time as a part-time lecturer at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, and the University of Wales Lampeter.

Teaching interests

During my time at Lampeter, I devised and delivered university-wide courses in Study Skills and English for Academic Purposes.  I have retained an interest in the teaching of academic literacy since then, which has acquired a new focus on students’ skills for learning in online environments.  I received an OU Teaching Award in 2008 for my work in introducing synchronous online tuition into a module that recruited a significant proportion of students from outside the UK. I obtained a postgraduate Diploma in Post-Compulsory Education from the OU in the 1990s, in which my final project focused on what was then the under-developed field of teaching Creative Writing.