Bob Moon (scholar)

Bob Moon CBE FAcSS (born 1945) is Emeritus Professor of Education at The Open University (UK). The main focus of his career has been the research, design and development of new models of teacher education in the United Kingdom and more widely. In 2009, he was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.[1] In 2018, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in The Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his work on education in developing countries.[2]

Biography

Moon was born in Marlborough, Wiltshire, in 1945. He studied to be a teacher at St Paul’s College, Cheltenham, and gained postgraduate qualifications at the Institute of Education, London University; the University of Warwick; and the University of Sussex (where he completed his doctorate).[3][4] He began his career as a secondary teacher at Tulse Hill Comprehensive School in the Inner London Education Authority, and was later Headteacher of two large urban secondary schools, Bridgewater Hall School, Stantonbury Campus, Milton Keynes, and The Peers School, Oxford.[5][6] In 1988, he was appointed Professor of Education at The Open University with a responsibility for developing national and international programmes in teaching and teacher education.

Research and development in national and international teacher education

Moon has led the development of a range of projects directed at new approaches to teacher education with, particular respect to expanding access to teaching by the use of newly emerging digital technologies.[7][8]

These included the Open University’s UK-wide Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), which ran from 1992 to 2018 and was designed to provide a school based, technology supported, route into teaching for mature entrants, particularly those with mathematics and science qualifications.[9][10] The programme was awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher Education in 1997 in recognition of the innovative approach used, particularly the strong emphasis on information technologies and partnership between university and schools.[11]

In 2005, Moon designed and led the team that established the Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Programme. The programme was developed in multi-lingual formats (Arabic, English, French and Kiswahili) and operates across ten countries. TESSA was also awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Award for Higher Education, in 2009, with special mention given to the web-based resources, adapted to local needs, that were being used by over 200,000 teachers.[11] In 2011, the TESSA programme also received the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) Award.[12] The TESSA experience led to the publication of a number of analyses that looked in detail at the challenge of providing school systems in developing countries with well-qualified teachers.[13][14]

Between 2010 and 2015, Moon was the lead advisor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) teacher improvement programme aimed at teachers working in refugee camps spread across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, The West Bank and Gaza. The programme was taken by all teachers in the UNRWA schools and led to the adoption of a new model of teacher development within the Agency.[15]

Between 2005 and 2020, Moon advised a number of countries and international agencies on educational reform, with specific reference to teachers and teacher education. He has used this experience in further developing an analysis of the ways in which teacher education can be reformed and improved in both developed and developing countries.[16][17] In 2015, he was appointed Education Specialist on the UK Department for International Development’s Science Advisory Group (SAG); he held this position until 2020.[18]

Further contributions to curriculum studies and school improvement

Bob Moon was a founding member, in 1976, of the Association for the Study of the Curriculum, later the Curriculum Foundation. He was a Council member for over thirty years and led on the merger of the Association into the British Education Research Association (BERA) in 2012.

In 1990, he set up and became Chair of the Editorial Board of a new publication, The Curriculum Journal. He was co-editor from 2002 to 2012.

Also in 1990, Moon was also appointed an Associate Commissioner to The National Commission on Education, established by The British Association for the Advancement of Science and funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The Commission reported in 1993.[19]

In 2003, the Department of Education (UK) appointed Bob Moon as an Advisor to the London Challenge. This programme, led by Sir Tim Brighouse, set out to improve significantly the quality of learning across all London secondary schools. An evaluation study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that ‘during the period of the London Challenge school improvement in London saw a dramatic improvement and local authorities went from the worst performing to the best performing nationally.’[20] Moon and Brighouse subsequently collaborated, in 2013, to propose a National Teaching Institute for Teacher Professional Development. In 2020, they set out the case for a national Open School, modelled on the Open University, but serving the school sector.[21]

References
  1. "Fellows |". www.acss.org.uk. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  2. "The Gazette". The Gazette (official public record). Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  3. Moon, Bob (1986). The 'New Maths' Curriculum Controversy: An International Story. London: Falmer Press. ISBN 1850001227.
  4. Moon, Bob (1990). "Patterns of Control: School Reform in Western Europe'". British Journal of Sociology. 41: 423–444. doi:10.2307/590966. JSTOR 590966.
  5. Moon, Bob (1976). Stantonbury Campus: A Case Study. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
  6. Moon, Bob (1983). Comprehensive Schools: Challenge and Change. London: NFER-Nelson.
  7. Moon, Bob (1997). "Open learning and new technologies in teacher education: new paradigms for development". European Journal of Teacher Education. 20: 7–32. doi:10.1080/0261976970200102.
  8. Moon, Bob (1997). "L'Exploitation du potentiel de la formation ouverte et des technologies interactives dans la formation des enseignants" (PDF). Recherche et Formation. 26: 79–97. doi:10.3406/refor.1997.1451.
  9. Moon, Bob (1992). "A new routeway into teaching: the Open University and school partnership". Education Review. 6: 28–31.
  10. Moon, Bob (1994). "La formación pedagógica en la Open University de Gran Bretána: innovacion y expansiá en los anós 90". Revista de Educación a Distancia. 10: 77–86.
  11. "Queens Anniversary Prize Winners Archive". Queens Anniversary Prize Archive. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  12. "2011 WISE Awards". WISE Awards, Qatar Foundation. 3 December 2011. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  13. Moon, Bob (2008). "The role of new communication technologies and distance education in responding to the global crisis in teacher supply and training: an analysis of the research and development experience". Educação & Sociedade. 29: 791–814. doi:10.1590/S0101-73302008000300008.
  14. Moon, Bob (2013). Teacher Education and the Challenge of Development: A global analysis. London: Routledge.
  15. Pontefract, Caroline; Moon, Bob (2016). "Teacher education reform and the Palestinian refugee community". In McLaughlin, Colleen (ed.). Making a Difference: Turning Teacher Learning Inside Out. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  16. Moon, Bob (2016). Do Universities Have a Role in the Education and Training of Teachers? An International analysis of policy and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  17. Villet, Charmaine; Moon, Bob (2017). Digital Learning: Reforming Teacher Education to Promote Access, Equity and Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa. Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning.
  18. "Global education pioneer Professor Bob Moon awarded CBE". Open University News. 9 June 2018. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
  19. National Commission on Education (1993). Learning to Succeed; A Radical Look at Education Today and a Strategy for the Future. London: Heinemann.
  20. Kidson, Marc; Norris, Emma (2015). Implementing the London Challenge. Institute for Government. p. 2.
  21. Brighouse, Tim (12 May 2020). "Like the Open University we now need an open school for the whole country". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 June 2020.
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