Penny is a DPhil student whose research interests centre on classroom talk and international collaborations between secondary English classrooms.
Penny completed Oxford’s MSc in Learning and Teaching with distinction in 2019, focusing on methods for mitigating the impact of mind-wandering and misunderstanding as a means of enhancing student engagement in small-group and whole-class debates of interpretations of literature. She has since won SHINE research funding to explore the impact of her methodology on students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Her DPhil continues her interest in student discussions of literature, exploring the impact on identity of online discussions between English classrooms in different countries.
Penny began her career as a secondary English Language Arts and journalism teacher in the USA but has taught secondary English predominantly in the UK in a career spanning 25 years. She has overseen development of the global dimension and international collaboration at her current school for 14 years.
Supervisors
Victoria Elliott and Steven Puttick
