Dr Rebecca Saunders, Assistant Professor and Lecturer at MIC Thurles School of Education (Post-Primary)
Dr Rebecca Saunders is an Assistant Professor and Lecturer at MIC Thurles School of Education (Post-Primary).
What did you study as an undergraduate and postgraduate?
I completed my undergraduate degree in English and Linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. My honours thesis focused on reclaiming the work of women writers' of the Romantic period into the canon. I went on to complete a Master of Arts in English Literary Theory. My thesis was a feminist critique of representations of women, work and class in mid-Victorian women’s magazines. My research involved long weeks in dimly lit, climate-controlled rooms at the British Library in London pouring over Victorian women’s magazines. I loved every minute.
After completing my master’s degree, I went travelling and landed in Perth, Western Australia, and I ended up settling there. I had been drawn to teaching for some time and I finally took the leap and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Tertiary, Adult and Secondary Education, specialising in Indigenous Education at Murdoch University, Australia.
I love learning and always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to complete a PhD. I knew it would be in Education, but I wasn’t sure in what area. I explored lots of things over several years, chatting to academics and colleagues and reading different bodies of literature. Eventually, I was lucky enough to work with an amazing Canadian professor whose work inspired me to enrol in my doctorate. I completed my PhD in Instructional Intelligence, teacher professional learning and emotions and systemic educational change at Murdoch University in 2016.
Tell us a bit about your research
My research work intersects a number of areas – teacher professional learning and emotions, systemic educational change and instructional leadership. My interest in this space stems from my time leading and managing national strategic change programmes in teaching, learning and assessment whilst working in the Department of Education and Training in Australia. I found planning the easy part but what I spent most of my time doing was supporting people through the messy and often chaotic human and emotional side of the change process.
I have worked closely with government departments, schools, universities and further education colleges in the area of change, and I’m interested in how organisations think and act (or most commonly don’t think and act) systemically and support their staff appropriately. We have a huge corpus of research on how to lead effective change and teacher professional learning and there are so many innovative strength-based models out there to draw from. The research tells us what, when, why and how to use them effectively, but sadly, as systems and institutions we tend to ignore all of it, but I’m interested in exploring what happens when we do work with this wisdom.
I’m currently working on four research projects in Ireland, one piloting whole school approaches to the use of reciprocal peer coaching, conferencing and classroom observations and feedback, another in its early stages is with the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), piloting their national UDL project across 44 schools. I’m also leading two national professional learning programmes - one for deputies and principals on instructional leadership and change, and the other long-term project I’m facilitating for ETBI is the Instructional Leadership Programme (ILP). I have a research agenda attached to each of these projects, with the aim of working with, learning from, and contributing to the research intelligence.
What do you enjoy most about undertaking your research projects?
People. My research is translational in the sense that it is grounded in practice and aims to bridge the gap between theory and the real lives and work of teachers and schools. I have always considered my research to be in the service of teachers and I like nothing better than being in schools, with teachers and leaders. I enjoy meeting and talking to people and listening to their experiences, views, perceptions and attitudes towards change, leadership and classrooms. I also enjoy the collaborative aspect of research, working in teams and learning from and challenging one another.
Do you have any advice for someone considering taking up a postgraduate programme by research?
Do what you love! Focus on what resonates with you. Postgraduate research is demanding emotionally (nobody ever tells you that bit) and mentally - it’s a steep learning curve. There will be ups and downs, so focusing on something you are passionate about helps motivate you – it pulls you through the tough times. Postgraduate research is an individual journey and a deeply personal one, it’s about ‘becoming’ a researcher. One thing my own supervisor shared with me very early on (and I now share with my students) is to think of it like an apprenticeship, it’s an iterative process. Your supervisor’s role is to model, scaffold and guide you into thinking and acting like a researcher. Nobody enters a postgraduate programme with all the necessary skills and knowledge – you learn these over time as you refine your craft and claim your identity as a researcher.
Undertaking a programme by research is like nothing you’ve ever done before. It’s often not until you have completed the process that you look back and realise what you learnt and how. It’s an experiential, immersive, all-consuming process – because of the nature of postgraduate work, you can’t simply just walk out of the classroom and think “well thank goodness that lesson is over” and put it behind you, you carry it everywhere (and I mean everywhere), for years at a time. Whilst it can be challenging, for me it’s one of the most rewarding, interesting and joyous things I’ve ever done.
What do you like about supervising students?
I currently supervise eight doctoral students, all exploring their own areas of passion and interest. I learn from their work vicariously; their work expands and supports my own growth and understanding.
Each individual has their own path, all my students are full-time professionals with busy lives, juggling families and multiple responsibilities. Adding a demanding postgrad course into the mix is hard going. I enjoy forming supportive, collaborative relationships with students and seeing them grow in confidence, self-efficacy and agency. Writing and publishing with students and seeing them present at conferences is incredibly rewarding. The educational theorist Thomas Carruthers said a good teacher is one who seeks to make themselves progressively unnecessary. For me, this epitomises how I view my role as a supervisor and gives me the greatest sense of professional and personal satisfaction.
