Brett Bligh is a Lecturer in the Department for Educational Research. He conducts research into the connections between our material surroundings, the technologies that permeate them, and the ways we act, think and learn.

Much of his research concerns adult learners, and particularly the Higher Education sector. Recurring interests include how educational institutions design and evaluate their built environment estate to support opportunities for learning, how Universities attempt to expand and replicate their institutional forms in other countries (for example, by establishing international branch campuses), how Universities might change as a result of initiative 'from below' generating expansive learning, and how technological tools can support learners’ collaboration. More general interests include Activity Theory, the Change Laboratory methodology, and collaborative learning.

He is currently

• co-Director of the Centre for Technology Enhanced Learning,
• an active member of the Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation,
• Academic Director of the Doctoral Programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning, and
• a member of the Management Team of the Department for Educational Research.

In 2012 he co-authored Nesta's Decoding Learning report, and was previously a member of the EU's "STELLAR" Network of Excellence for Technology Enhanced Learning. In 2010, as part of the Visual Learning Lab, he was awarded a Lord Dearing Award for innovation in teaching and learning.

I am interested in research proposals that investigate the connections between our material surroundings, the technologies that permeate them, and the ways we act, think and learn. Such proposals might focus on technology and/or policy. Some indicative examples of suitable areas: participative design of learning spaces; pedagogically-informed institutional evaluation of campus infrastructure; investigations of how learners experience spaces; use of ubiquitous technologies (from mobile devices to wall-sized screens) to support large and small-group teaching and learning. I am also interested in Activity Theory, either to underpin the kinds of research already described, or as an area of inquiry in its own right. I am interested in projects that investigate aspects of the theory itself, or use the Change Laboratory methodology (or variants of it).

Current PhD students

• Creck Buyonge Mirito - Academics' and students' experiences of physical learning spaces in Kenyan higher education institutions
• Jerome Chan – A comparative study of blended learning practices in legal education in the UK and Malaysia
• Vlad Chiriac – Paramedic student perspectives regarding networked learning and physical spaces in medical education
• Augusto Fabella – Developing the skills of sessional instructors to incorporate technology into teaching: evaluating an institutional initiative in a South-East Asian university
• Ioana Hartescu – Exploring students' experience of project-based learning in an instructional design course
• Catherine Hasted – Relational working between doctoral students and non-academic professionals: a Change Laboratory research-intervention
• Irene Hayden – Evaluation of the design and use of applied visual interactive resources for building regulation subjects in higher education Built Environment programmes
• Mark Johnstone – Developing the new roles of instructional design professionals: a Change Laboratory in a developing country setting
• Michael Lower – Using Blackboard to create a community of inquiry on an undergraduate land law course
• Phil Moffitt – Transformative agency and boundary learning in military higher education
• Nickanor Owuor – The imperative of non-violent student activism: an activity theory perspective on the student movement in Kenya
• Elaine Pattison – An investigation of factors influencing the approaches to learning of trainee teachers
• Ravindra Prasad – Is mobile learning effective? Case studies in the corporate training environment
• John Scahill – Using the Change Laboratory to embed Education for Sustainable Development into higher education praxis
• Rob Shaw – The Change Laboratory as a tool for collaborative transformation of e-portfolio usage within an Adult Nursing programme
• Salman Usman – The convergence of learning and leisure spaces: How can learners effectively manage online learning?
• Julie Wallace – Networkable Me: A socio-material exploration of interactions in learning spaces in a higher education context
• Masuda Wardak – Understanding Mobile Assisted Language Learning practices: The integration of smartphone applications for vocabulary acquisition in L2 EFL settings
• Meg Westbury – More than faces and spaces: Academic librarians’ social media practices and the production of knowledge in the university

PhD students completed

• Tan Thinh Nguyen – A study of students' conceptions of networked learning in a developing country setting (December 2017 graduation)
• Hans Lambrecht – Tackling low learning outcomes in South Africa: The contribution from informal mobile learning (jointly supervised with Don Passey) (December 2015 graduation)

Current teaching

• Academic Director of the Doctoral Programme in E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (August 2017- )
• Module Convenor of ED.S823 Researching Technology Enhanced/Networked Learning, Teaching and Assessment in the Doctoral Programme E-Research and Technology Enhanced Learning (January 2014- )

Previous teaching

• Module Convenor of ED.S843 Researching Higher Education in the Doctoral Programme Higher Education: Research, Evaluation and Enhancement (September 2013-September 2017)
• Module Convenor of Module B: In-practice Learning and Development in the Doctoral Programme Educational Research: Higher Education (September 2013-September 2014)