Meet The Module Leader

Karen is a Senior Lecturer in Education. She specialises in pedagogies that nurture creative development. At Oxford Brookes University 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. 

Over a thirty year career she has taught in schools, in museums and galleries, and at university-level. As an education consultant she works with teachers internationally on creative curriculum design and advises on cultural initiatives (including Art UK and currently Art in Schools). She is a Professional Associate of the National Society for Education in Art and Design. 

Her publications include Nurturing Creativity in the Classroom: An exploration of consensus across theory and practice (Critical Publishing) and Using the Visual Arts for Cross-curricular Teaching and Learning: Imaginative ideas for the primary school (Routledge). She is the author of number of books on art, including the What is Art? series (Raintree) and the How Artists See series (Heinemann Library). She co-authored Great Paintings (DK).

Her doctoral study, focusing on the nature of teaching and learning when paintings are used as a central stimulus (exploring the National Gallery's Take One Picture project) and is available on the Oxford University Research Archive. A peer-reviewed article based on this research, titled Objects of Curiosity: How old master paintings have been used in the primary classroom to provide pupils with cognitive challenge and creative agency, is available in the journal Thinking Skills and Creativity (Hosack Janes, K. (2021), Vol 41. DOI 10.1016/j.tsc.2021.100861).

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 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.