Senior Lecturer in Learning Enhancement and Academic Development
Dr Sarah Parkes is a Senior Lecturer in Learning Enhancement and Academic Development in the LEAD centre.
- Overview
- Research Interests
- Research Publications
- Teaching & Learning
Sarah brings over 20 years of higher education experience in learning and teaching. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), a 2019 Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) winner, and a 2020 National Teaching Fellow (NTF). She is also a Birmingham Newman University Distinguished Teaching Fellow and has received multiple Students’ Union Excellence Awards for her work in partnership with students. In addition, Sarah has twice been a finalist in the Times Higher Education Awards for outstanding student support.
She currently serves as an External Examiner for the University of Liverpool’s online postgraduate academic practice programmes and for the University of Greater Manchester’s CPD route to Fellowship. Sarah is an Advance HE Trusted NTF reviewer and a regular invited speaker for the Aurora leadership development programme for women in higher education
Affiliations (including memberships) to other organisations:
- Member of Society for Research into Higher Education
- CATE/ANTF Networks, European First Year Experience Network and Foundation Year Network.
Through a new materialist and critical pedagogical lens, Sarah’s research explores how transdisciplinary and intra‑active processes shape learner identity, collaborative practices, and pedagogies of belonging and mattering that support student progression and success. Her work examines how humans, materials, environments, and technologies co‑constitute learning, and how these relational dynamics influence students’ experiences, agency, and academic journeys.
Sarah is particularly interested in diffractive analysis as a research methodology, using it to illuminate how knowledge-making practices, power relations, and learning encounters intersect. Her 2023 doctoral thesis demonstrates how diffractive approaches can generate richer, more ethically attuned insights into educational practice and the conditions that enable inclusive, transformative learning.
Active Research Interests:
- New Materialisms
- Social Justice and Equity in HE
- Student Partnership and Co-creation
- Critical Pedagogy
- Academic Identities
- Widening Access and Participation
- Belonging and Mattering
- Post-Qualitative Inquiry
- Compassionate Pedagogies
Research Methods:
- Diffractive Analysis
- Post-qualitive
- Posthumanism
- Appreciative Inquiry
- Creative
- Participatory Methods
Sarah's teaching practice is shaped by a commitment to social justice and equity, which she enacts through inclusive curriculum design, dialogic approaches, and activities that value students’ identities and experiences. Drawing on critical pedagogy, she encourages learners to engage critically with disciplinary knowledge and power dynamics.
She integrates the Flipped Classroom and technology‑enhanced learning to create active, flexible, and accessible learning spaces. Her interest in learner journeys informs her use of personalised feedback and reflective tasks. She adopts students-as-partners approaches to co‑create aspects of learning, teaching and assessment. Central to her practice is fostering belonging and mattering through community-building, collaborative learning, and practices that support students’ confidence and participation.
Sarah currently teaches on the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice and accredited CPD route, ASPIRE.
