The main focus of Joy’s research and professional work is educational practice.  She is interested in how taking a research approach to practice can lead professional development.  As part of this focus she is currently exploring how members of academic staff and students in HE can work together to take an enquiry approach to the development of educational practice.  Over the past four years she has worked with colleagues and students in different disciplines on enquiry projects into aspects of learning and teaching.  The aim is to create, use and evaluate different research approaches all based on principles under-pinning the concept of partnership.  The principles that the team uses are those of shared responsibility and co-agency and we have explored different ways that these principles can be realised in practice and the strengths and limitations of the processes we have used.  We are clear that our student-staff partnership approach is a concept not a procedure and we are working to support colleagues to identify the best approach for individual educational contexts.

Joy’s background is in teacher education and in the education of deaf children and young people, and her publications include work in these areas, for example papers on professional development for teacher educators and other professionals.  In her role as Professor of Educational Practice she is working with colleagues to strengthen the relationship between practice and research.

Joy is a supervisor for candidates on the Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) programme, which is designed for graduates who are interested in learning and development in work contexts 

(https://www.herts.ac.uk/courses/doctorate-in-education).

Joy's teaching specialisms include:

• quatlitative research in education
• arts-informed approaches to research
• pedagogy
• language and deafness