Dr Kristina Stutchbury

Professional biography

Dr Kris Stutchbury is a Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education in the Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies, and Academic Director for the multi award-winning Teacher Education in sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) programme – the largest established teacher education network in Africa.

Dr Stutchbury joined The Open University as a part-time tutor in 2005, before becoming Subject Leader for Science full-time on the Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) in 2009, rising to Director of the programme in 2012. In July 2015, Dr Stutchbury was appointed Academic Director of TESSA, combining 20 years of classroom teaching experience with her active interest in international development and supporting learning at scale. This role is combined with leading the ‘learning and teaching’ pathway on the The Open University’s applied Masters in Education (MEd) and continued research interests in ethics, teacher education and approaches to educational change.

Between 2010 – 2013, Dr Stutchbury co-ordinated the co-design and production of 15 TESSA Secondary Science materials in collaboration with 5 African partner institutions, modelled on the TESSA Primary materials to support teacher educators and pre-service teachers in lower secondary schools. This project activity was generously funded by The Waterloo Foundation.

Utilising TESSA experience, Dr Stutchbury was appointed Science and School Leadership Lead for the university’s £10m TESS-India programme (2014 – 2016), co-authoring and facilitating the TESS-India Enhancing Teacher Education through Open Educational Resources MOOC, which has been completed by more than 40,000 teachers educators and school leaders across India over three presentations (in English and Hindi).

In March 2016, TESSA successfully secured further grant funding under Dr Stutchbury’s leadership from the Allen and Nesta Ferguson Foundation, supporting the network of TESSA Ambassadors across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Leveraging the TESSA network, The Open University’s International Development Office has empowered local champions in delivering 13 projects supporting technology-enhanced professional development, to address local educational challenges.

Dr Stutchbury has played a key role as Academic Director of TESSA in the continued success of the university’s international activity, representing TESSA at the Distance Education and Teachers Training in Africa (DETA) annual conference, the African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) General Assembly, and the Pan-Commonwealth Forum for Open Learning. Recent collaborations involve working with the Commonwealth of Learning and the Kenyan Institute of Special Education to build capacity and enhance inclusive educational practice by teachers in Kenya, and leading the Zambian Education School-based Training (ZEST) programme in collaboration with World Vision, funded by the Scottish Government (2017 -2024). ZEST  worked with the Ministry of General Education to strengthen the current system for school-based continuing professional development through a focus on practical teaching skills. This work led to the award of a research grant from the International Development and Research Centre (IDRC) to further investigate school-based professioanl developmnet in Zambia. This project is one of 12 global projects as part of the Empowering teachers Initiatiative (ETI).  

Dr Stutchbury was awarded her Doctorate of Education from The Open University in 2019. Her principal research investigation studied a group of teacher educators in an East African university to understand how they see their role in the education system, how they carry it out and how they negotiate the tensions between the view of teaching and learning set out in policy aspirations, the TESSA materials, and the reality in schools.

Projects

TESSA – Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (2015 - present)

Academic Director and leader of the TESSA network. Working to support teacher educators across sub-Saharan Africa in implementing new school curricula. Lead author and educator on the successful TESSA MOOC ‘Making Teacher Education relevant for 21^st Century Africa’. Co-ordinator of TESSA Secondary Science and TESSA: Teaching Early Reading. In 2018 the TESSA MOOC was Awarded the PIEoneer 'Digital Innovation of the Year' Award in recognition of the work done in providing opportuities for people who had never previosuly studied online. 

ZEST – Zambian Education School-based training (2017 - 2024)

Working with MOGE and WV Zambia to strengthen the existing system for school-based CPD, through the provision of training resources and TESSA OER.

OpenSTEM Africa (OSA) (2023)

Working in Ghana to bring the Open University’s open science lab to secondary schools in Ghana, enabling students to benefit from learning practical science. CPD lead – developing a CPD programme which will accompany a number of Science Apps to support teachers in developing their pedagogy and improve student outcomes. Dr Stutchbury co-developed resources for teachers and middle leaders.

TESS-India (2012 - 2014)

A multi-million pound DFID project, which produced and implemented high-quality OER across 7 Indian states, to support Government policy aspirations. Science and school leadership lead, and co-author of the successful MOOC ‘Enhancing teacher education through OER’

Empowering Teachers Initiative (2023 - present)

Kris is the PI on one of ten projects that form the knowledge generation part of the ETI: 'Acheiving equity, efficiency and quality in teacher professional development@scale in Zambia'. Working with World Vision Zambia and the Ministry of Education we are researching the impact of the Community Schools upgrade programme on schools and the ways in which schools navigate a complex system in which they are expected to enage with multiple NGO initiatives alongside the mandatory Government Schools Programme for Inservice Training (SPRINT) system.  

Research interests

Research Ethics

Assessment

Implementing educational change in low and middle-income countries

Teacher professional development at scale

TESSA Secondary Science  a research and development project funded by the Waterloo Foundation

Completed an EdD with The Open University. I investigated a group of teacher educators in an East African university in order to understand how they see their role, how they carry it out and how they negotiate the tensions between the view of teaching and learning set out in policy aspirations and the TESSA materials, and the reality in schools. I am the Principle Investigator on an extension of ZEST in which we are investigating school-based continuing professional development: how it is experienced by teachers; effective models of school leadership; and innovative technological solutions to provide educational materaials in low-resource environments. 

Teaching interests

Science Education

Chemistry

Generic Educational issues

Teacher Education and learner-centred teaching

Impact and engagement

TESSA and TESS-India are making a significant impact in supporting teachers and teacher educators in Africa and India in developing more participatory approaches to learning and teaching. The research and scholarship that I am undertaking for my EdD are informing my work on TESSA and TESS-India. 

The ZEST project has been awarded a Research Impact Grant and we are working with partner schools in Zambia in order to better understand how School-based Professional Development is enacted and experienced. We will be looking at the impact on teacher agency; the models of school leadership that support SBPD; and the affordances of technology in the process. 

External collaborations

In my research that is part of the TESSA programme and ETI, I am collaborating with University and NGO colleagues in Africa. 

International links

TESSA and TESS-India are International projects. I work closely with colleagues from India and a range of African countries.