Associate ProfessorJane Abbiss

A central question that animates my research is: What supports quality teaching? I have applied this question to curriculum-based teaching and learning in schools, teacher preparation, my own teaching within initial teacher education, and more broadly to teaching in the academy. 

My research coalesces around the practice of teaching and lived experiences of teachers and learners. I have published in relation to curriculum issues and developments and how teachers navigate curriculum changes, teacher development and teacher preparation programmes and systems, practice-focused research in initial teacher education, pre-service teacher identity development as culturally responsive and sustaining teachers and as critically engaged educational professionals, twenty-first century education and development of critical information literacy and digital citizenship, social sciences education, and gender relations and ICT in schooling contexts. 

A major research project I was involved in as a co-investigator was the Teaching and Research Learning Initiative (TLRI) research project titled "Shifting the conceptualisation of knowledge and learning in the integration of the new New Zealand Curriculum in initial and continuing teacher education." My current research projects relate to understanding curriculm developments and teachers' voices in relation to curriculum changes, practice-oriented assessment in teacher education, and exploration of the complexity of teaching.

I began my career as a secondary school teacher, before moving into teacher education and academia. This grounding as a teaching professional means that I value relationships with teachers and their roles as curriculum leaders and developers.