Dr Michael Bird
Head of Initial Teacher Education
I am a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chester, and Head of the Initial Teacher Education Department. My involvement in education over nearly 30 years so far has included working in primary and secondary schools in the UK and overseas in Germany and Japan in a variety of roles – and for most of these years as a History teacher.
My passion for history teaching and interest in how pupils can access meaningful historical knowledge led me to pursue research at Masters and Doctoral level and enabled me to move into Higher Education 8 years ago. I continue to work in schools and with other practitioners in useful collaborations, curriculum development projects and research and several of these have won funding from the AHRC and the National Lottery. I am a regular contributor to local and national educational conferences and journals, and recently co-founded a live learning conference for teachers at https://teacherlearning.org
I am a great believer in teachers’ becoming authorities in their own practice and a strong advocate for new and innovative models of teacher learning and development to that end. It is only through the power that knowledge confers that the health of the profession can be enhanced and maintained.
I am interested in pursuing research relating to History Education; teacher learning and development and the cognitive anthropology of schooling. I have published several journal articles and blog posts relating to how teachers learn, the analysis of dialogic interactions with children and to promoting local history in partnership schools.
Bird, M. (2022). Dialogue, Engagement and Generative Interaction in the Classroom. Teaching History(186), 52-59.
Bird, M., & Ingledew, D. (2021). Everybody's Talking? Unpacking, sharing and developing the use of dialogue in History learning and teaching. Historical Association Conference. Historical Association.
Bird, M. (2021). Material culture, historical objects and new dimensions to learning Chester's Medieval past. Research and Knowledge Exchange Festival. Chester: University of Chester.
Bird, M., Wilson, K., Egan-Simon, D., Jackson, A., & Kirkup, R. (2020). Touching, Feeling, Smelling, and Sensing History through Objects: New opportunities from the 'material turn'. Teaching History(181), 40-48.
Bird, M., & Wilson, T. (2019). 1069 And All That: the dialogic dimensions of knowing and understanding the Norman legacy in Chester. Teaching History(175), 40-50.
Bird, M., & McDonald, N. (2018). Exploring the negotiation between the imposed and the emergent in pupils' experience of learning history. British Education Research Association Conference. Newcastle Upon Tyne: BERA.
Bird, M., & Jones, M. (2017). Looking through the Keyhole at Birkenhead from 1900 to 1950: Negotiating meanings and bacon bones. Teaching History(169), 20-27.
Bird, M., & Tones, S. (2016). How do School Direct Trainees Learn How to Teach. British Education Research Association Annual Conference. Leeds Metropolitan University: BERA.
Bird, M. (2016). Revelling in History Amidst Forebodings for the Future: Chester in the Belle Epoque. Creative Education Conference. University of Chester: RECAP; Curious Minds.
Bird, M. (2015). 1069 And All That: The Legacy of the Normans in Chester and the Tacit Dimensions of Knowing. Valuing Cultural Education Conference. University of Chester: RECAP; Curious Minds.
- BA (Hons)
- PGCE with QTS
- MA (Education)
- EdD
- FHEA