Marilyn Leask is Professor of Education at De Montfort University having previously been Professor of Educational Knowledge Management at the University of Bedfordshire and a Professor at Brunel University. She is a trustee of the Education Futures Collaboration Charity and the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway Trust. Leask specialises in the knowledge required for teaching, knowledge management in education and in building the evidence and knowledge base for teacher education. Classroom practice has developed from her research on digital technologies and teacher knowledge and how digital technologies can be harnessed to support lifelong learning for teachers. Leask co-chairs the Mapping Educational Specialist knowHow Knowledge mobilization and Translational research initiative in education. She is a specialist in: teacher education whole system change, improvement and development across large systems particularly through online networking and knowledge sharing She is also an elected board member of the UK peak organisations the Council of Subject Associations and the British Educational Research Association and was elected by peers to the peak organisation the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers and the panel assessing UK university educational research in 2008. This follows a career as a teacher, researcher, academic and government policy officer, author and series editor of the main textbooks used for secondary teacher training in the UK.
Professional background
As a government employee and Head of Effective Practices and Research Dissemination section in the UK agency responsible for teacher training she was engaged in a major government funded knowledge management initiative for the education sector, focused on harnessing the opportunities of digital technologies to provide access to the latest research-informed knowledge so as to improve teacher knowledge and learner outcomes by providing just in time access to collective knowledge about best practices. She initiated the Teacher Training Resource Bank holding research-informed resources on many thousands of topics relevant to the training of teachers. She then went to the Improvement and Development Agency for local government to develop and launch with Steve Dale, Michael Norton and Dimple Rathod online communities of practice for local government. This has become the Knowledge Hub for the public sector.
Books
CAPEL, S., LEASK, M. and TURNER, T. Learning to Teach in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge.
YOUNIE, S., LEASK, M. and BURDEN, K. Teaching and Learning with ICT in the Primary School. Abingdon: Routledge.
LEASK, M. and PACHLER, N.. Teaching and Learning with ICT in the Secondary School. Abingdon: Routledge.
CAPEL, S., LEASK, M. and TURNER, T. Reading for Learning to Teach in the Secondary School. London: Routledge.
YOUNIE, S., CAPEL, S. and LEASK M Supporting Teaching and Learning in the Secondary School: a companion for higher level teaching assistants’. London. Routledge.
CAPEL, S., LEASK, M. and TURNER, T.. Starting to Teach in the Secondary School. London: Routledge.
LEASK, M. Issues in Teaching with ICT. London: Routledge.
LEASK, M. with DAWES, L. and LITCHFIELD, B. Keybytes for Teachers Evesham: Summerfield Publishing.
LEASK, M. and MEADOWS, J.. Learning to Teach with ICT in the Primary School. London: Routledge.
