Tim Herrick BA, PCHE, MA, MEd, PhD

Teaching

I support adults taking early steps back into formal learning. This means I teach a variety of study skills courses, for part-time and full-time undergraduate students; work on the Foundation Programme and the Masters in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education; and run one-off support sessions for mature students across the University. I also work with PhD students, who are working on topics such as the socialising function of schools, and the development of models of reflexive learning. I am currently a Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement for the Faculty of Social Sciences, which gives me insight into practices of learning and teaching across a diverse set of departments.

In the past, I have been a Fellow of CILASS, the Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in Arts and Social Sciences; and in 2009, I won a Rising Star Senate Award for excellence in teaching and learning, the third Senate Award for the department in three years. This has all fed into a range of special institutional projects, the most significant of which is The Academic Skills Hub (TASH) project, a signposting study skills resource for all students at all levels. It’s open to the world and can be found here:

http://tash.group.shef.ac.uk/

The underlying ethos of my teaching is enabling access to higher education for all who have the potential to benefit, with a particular interest in adults, but also in a wide range of non-traditional students.

Research interests

I am interested in the emotional aspects of learning and teaching, and have completed a Masters dissertation on this subject. I am also interested in the history of radical pedagogies, especially the crop of ideas from the late 1960s and early 1970s about bringing an end to compulsory schooling. Finally, I have a particular engagement with the ideas and practices of Paulo Freire, and a commitment to broader-based notions of education for democracy.

Key publications

COX, A., HERRICK, T., and KEATING, P. (2012) Accommodations: staff identity and university space. Teaching in Higher Education, iFirst article, published online 13-3-12.

The philosophical affiliations of Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida (2010), VDM Verlag Dr. Müller: Saarbrücken

Book review of Teaching in lifelong learning: A guide to theory and practice, edd. James Avis, Roy Fisher, and Ron Thompson, Journal of Education for Teaching May 2010

"Why we need Freire now", Post-16 Educator, November-December 2009

"Phenomenologies of Language: Bakhtin and Merleau-Ponty", published in Portuguese translation in Carlos Alberto Faraco, Cristovao Tezza, and Gilberto de Castro (eds.) (2006), Vinte ensaios sobre Mikhail Bakhtin, Editora Vozes: Petropolis

"`A book which is no longer discussed today´: Tran Duc Thao, Jacques Derrida, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty", Journal of the History of Ideas, January 2005

Research students

Jaset Campbell is analysing active learning in theological education in the Caribbean

Debbie Indar is a student based in the Caribbean, looking at the development of critical thinking amongst adult students and tutors in vocational education.

Ian Kehoe is working on the organisational processes of secondary schools, and developing a critical approach to schools as social organisations.

Lori Stewart is an EdD student based in Canada, working on the development of a model of reflective teaching and learning within a context of theological education.