Dr Kenneth Lynch

National Teaching Fellow 2004 Institution at the time of Award: Kingston University Kenny Lynch is a Principal Lecturer in the Department of Natural & Social Sciences and Deputy Director of the Pedagogic Research & Scholarship Institute (PRSI), University of Gloucestershire. His approach to the student experience is to promote excitement for Geography through fieldwork experiences to Tunisia, Uganda and South Africa, including (such as) visits to the edge of the Sahara desert and to Nelson Mandela's prison on Robben Island. Kenny is widely published, and for 6 years was the editor of Geography, the principal journal of the Geographical Association. His belief in inter-disciplinarity is particularly evident through his role as second supervisor for a PhD by an architecture student on the use and design of public space in Alexandria. Kenny's NTFS award has been used to investigate the impact of mobile technologies on learning, for example applying these technologies to fieldwork and to the use of podcasting as part of the IMPALA project led by the University of Leicester. Dissemination has been through reviews, research reports, at conferences and he plans to write outputs for a number of journals including Planet. As part of his role in PRSI, Kenny has led workshops and day conferences on academic writing, writing retreats, and on undergraduate research, transformational learning and podcasting in HE. During his NTF project he also visited Stellenbosch University and Rhodes University, Grahamstown in South Africa; the University of Melbourne, Deakin University and the University of Technology Sydney in Australia; and Otago University in New Zealand. These visits have led to collaborative research and writing projects, appointment as external examiner and ongoing dialogue over research and educational development. Early in 2010 he will be visiting the University of Sierra Leone. Together with his NTF mentor group and mentor, Kenny has researched and presented three papers at conferences and published a book chapter. The group continues to meet long after the period of its NTF project and hopes to collaborate on a research project in the future. Kenny is coordinator for a new NTFS Project entitled Learner Empowerment through ActivePublic-Student Engagement (LEAPSE), also funded by the NCCCPE.