Dr Francis Gilbert

Staff details

Dr Francis Gilbert

Position

Senior Lecturer in Education, Head of MA in Creative Writing and Education, Academic Co-Director of the Connected Curriculum & Interim Head of Department.

Department

Educational Studies

Email

f.gilbert (@gold.ac.uk)

Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups

Francis researches creativity in its many guises, often focusing upon imaginative teaching and creative writing.

Dr Francis Gilbert is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational Studies. Both his teaching and research focus upon developing new and exciting ways of teaching in a range of contexts, in formal and informal settings, and to different age groups. He specialises in the teaching of creative writing.

Academic qualifications

  • Bachelor of Arts (BA) English Literature (Sussex University) 1989
  • Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in English and Drama (Cambridge University) 1991
  • Masters (MA) in Creative Writing (University of East Anglia) 1992
  • Diploma in Journalism (London College of Printing) 1998
  • Post-graduate Certificate in Teaching for Higher Education (PG Cert) (Goldsmiths College) 2012
  • PhD in Creative Writing and Education (Goldsmiths College) 2015
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Goldsmiths College) 2018

Teaching and supervision

Francis Gilbert is Head of the MA Creative Writing and Education, Head of MA Programmes in Education, and Academic Co-Director of the Connected Curriculum. He supervises PhD students in the department of Educational Studies.

On the MA Creative Writing and Education, he tutors on:
Teaching and Research, the Publishing Industry and the Dissertation modules

On the Connected Curriculum, he lectures on:
Everything is Text, Researching our Lives and World, and the Goldsmiths Project modules.

Research interests

Innovative pedagogies

In his role as teacher-educator, Francis has published widely (12 books, 4 edited books, 38 articles, 4 book chapters) on developing ways to educate teachers and pupils in new collaborative pedagogies which embrace both in-person and online learning. His research is original in the ways it shows how online pedagogies can foster co-operative learning between students, using strategies like Reciprocal Teaching and Communities of Practice Theory.

He has also researched the teaching of literature and collaborative learning strategies in secondary schools (2017-2022, Goldsmiths strategic fund, £5K): this has involved working with a number of organisations such as the National Maritime Museum.

He has researched creative learning in primary schools. Working with the i2Media team and PunchDrunk Enrichment (Hamlyn Foundation £37K), he co-supervised research into finding ways of effectively evaluating and assessing the impact of the creative learning that PunchDrunk nurture in their partnership schools.

His research now is moving into examining imaginative and effective pedagogies in Higher Education, looking at how ‘block’ or ‘common’ curricula – known as the Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths -- can be productively implemented and run. The research methodology combines creative research (asking participants to write poems/stories etc about their experiences), qualitative and quantitative methods.

New creative research methodologies

In his role as a researcher into creative writing, he has pioneered new ways of thinking about creative writing research methodologies, publishing the first articles to systematically breakdown how and why creative writing can be researched. He has explored this from a number of different angles, illustrating how tried and tested research methodologies like Action Research and autoethnography can be used by creative writers to research their own practice and other people’s.

Grants and awards

2024: British Academy SHAPE funding
The British Academy SHAPE funding provided grants to run the Parklife Project

2020: Goldsmiths Strategic Fund
The Goldsmiths' Strategic Fund provided the initial funding for the Parklife Project

Publications and research outputs

Book

Edited Book

Edited Journal

Book Section

Article

Conference or Workshop Item

Audio

Film/Video

Project

Report

Thesis

Professional projects

Francis has organised a number of conferences at Goldsmiths, including ones on Reading for Pleasure and Teaching Creative Writing. He has run a project with the Widening Participation Team which encourages young people in local schools, hospitals and charities to write creatively, leading to their work being published in an anthology at the end of the academic year (2016-2023). He has also worked with the Horniman Museum, Lewisham’s School Climate Network and Goldsmiths’ Widening Participation team to run careers’ days for school children to help them learn about ‘green careers’ (2024).

Research projects

2022-2024: New forms of ecological research
Francis’s work on the Parklife project (externally funded by British Academy SHAPE, 20K, and Goldsmiths Strategic Fund 5K) which he set up in 2022, has generated funding and much interest.

Media engagements

2024: Why do children misbehave in school?
An appearance on Vanessa Feltz's Talk TV programme

2024: Why are children excluded from school?
An appearance on Vanessa Feltz's Talk TV programme

Conferences and talks

2024: The Creative Writing Retreat: Making Learning more Creative
A 'retreat' run by MA students on the MA Creative Writing and Education

2023: Freeing Creative Voice
A conference run by the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning