Senior Lecturer in Learning Enhancement and Academic Development
Learning Enhancement and Academic Development (LEAD) Centre
Dr Helen Donaghue joined QMU in May 2022 as a Senior Lecturer in the LEAD centre.
- Overview
- Research Interests
- Research Publications
- Teaching and Learning
Dr Helen Donaghue is the programme leader for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP), supports the QMU CPD/experiential route to fellowship, and delivers CPD workshops for QMU and collaborative partner staff. She also leads the emerging strand of pedagogic research in LEAD.
Originally an EAP (English for Academic Purposes) teacher, Helen’s research is situated at the intersection of language and learning.
Helen has made a sustained and significant contribution internationally to teacher education and institutional interaction research. She has published widely on post observation feedback discourse in HE settings, and the development of teacher and researcher identities during situated, work-based talk. Her recent published work includes Analysing Discourses in Teacher Observation Feedback Conferences, a monograph in the Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics series written with Professor Fiona Copland.
Currently research projects include discourse analysis of feedback on online teaching, helping subject specialists build commitment and capacity to develop their students’ academic and professional literacies, and corpus analysis of how academic writing features in assessment criteria across the disciplines of the university.
Helen has been teaching and mentoring HE lecturers for over 25 years in the UK and abroad. She has taught students and teachers from all over the world, at different levels (foundation year, undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students, new and experienced HE lecturers and language teachers), in different disciplines, and in different modes (on campus, blended, online).
Taking an innovative, person-centred, approach to learning, she is committed to building a diverse, inclusive and international HE community and helping, inspiring and supporting colleagues and students to flourish. She has a keen interest in the development of academic and professional literacies, dialogic pedagogy, technology enhanced learning, and learning communities.