Elizabeth Plummer

Biography

Liz has lectured at Newman University since February 2008. Following the completion of her BEd Hons degree in Physical Education, from Bedford College of Physical Education Liz returned to her home town of Birmingham to teach P.E. During this time Liz taught across a range of key stages and was responsible for the development of a variety of activities. From this Liz became a school sports co-ordinator working across a partnership of two secondary schools. Her journey then took her to be the course leader for the PGCE PE teaching route at Newman University.

Liz’s research interests stem from her work developed in South Africa and working with non-specialist P.E. teachers. Working alongside teachers from Township schools in the Western Cape, Liz developed a series of workshops to encourage the delivery of P.E. in challenging situations. The ‘Each one teach one’ programme was a result of this. For 4 years Liz was a visiting lecturer at the University of Cape Town, delivering workshops on an annual basis. In 2008 Liz was successful in obtaining a £64000 bid from the British Council on a joint venture with the University of Stellenbosch. The project ‘Sport Counts’ looked to develop maths literacy through sport and PE and was run between the two institutions with the sharing of good practice across the two universities and the implementation of the project into local schools. Liz also developed a series of modules within a girls leadership programme run by the University of Stellenbosch and worked alongside the Universities hockey teams on team building activities.

Liz then developed a ‘Create to innovate project ‘where she looked at emphasising that lessons could be built by developing simple ideas and ‘opening up the box’ of teaching. The ideas here were delivered in workshops in The Western Cape, The Gambia, the University of Zaragossa, and at the University of Malta.

This interest in creating a more effective and engaging learning environment has led Liz to study further and she is currently shaping her research on encouraging trainee teachers to be more creative. Her motto is how can we produce teachers with the 3 E’s “Engaging, Enthusing and Effective (and of course Interesting).”