Professor Mark Benjamin Peace BA, Msc, PGCE, PhD, FRSA
Professor of Innovation in Education
Associate Director (Innovation and Initiatives) in the Centre for Learning Enhancement and Educational Development
My profile
Biography
I have been with Manchester Met since 2008, following a career teaching in schools. My academic discipline is Education.
At Manchester Met, my primary responsibility is to provide strategic academic leadership for our education initiatives and to cultivate an environment that fosters educational innovation. This involves collaborating with educators across our Faculties and Professional Services to develop and promote effective ideas, while also ensuring that we capture their impact and build momentum around them.
My role involves working closely with the PVC (Education), executive group around Education, and Senior Leadership Team of LEED on a daily basis. I also take devolved responsibility for policy development and representation, such as serving as the institutional author for our Teaching Excellence Framework return.
Interests and expertise
As a practice-oriented academic in the Education, Pedagogy, and Citizenship field, my focus is on empowering students and positioning them as active participants in the learning process. I work to disrupt the traditional view of students as passive consumers by building their agency and encouraging them to be producers of knowledge.
I have explored the impact of the dominant knowledge-centric higher education model and advocated for more emergent, experience-driven, and co-constructed approaches. My work values diverse experiences and talents, recognizing that success can be achieved through multiple pathways.
Overall, my approach has enhanced student experience and satisfaction, nurtured a sense of belonging and community, and improved outcomes in terms of student continuation and progression. These efforts have helped to narrow achievement gaps across different student demographics.
Impact
Through my work on Man Met Rise, I have engaged over 27,000 students over three years in experiential and skills-based learning - with particular reach to BAME, commuting, first-generation and disabled students. It has delivered evident impacts on career readiness, student experience and belonging and achievement. These benefits have been pronounced in narrowing gaps in outcomes for minoritised students. For instance, good honours have improved for Rise-engaged students from Asian (+11ppt) and Black (+34ppt) backgrounds.
My work has generated internal and external recognition and has influenced sector thinking, for example:
- Best-Practice Case Study in the Student Futures Commission Report (2021), to which I contributed as one of four expert witnesses in the theme of student success.
- Guardian Award for Course Design, Retention and Student Outcomes (2020) for Third Term (rebranded as Rise); an innovative credit-baring co-curricular programme.
- Guardian Award for Teaching Excellence (2019) for Oubliette, a project facilitating interdisciplinary student collaborations to deliver an ‘escape room’ installation to respond to maths anxiety, engaging 5,000 young people over a four-week run.
Teaching
Through a twenty-year career, I have built an academic record focused on excellence in the delivery and leadership of teaching and learning. I have forged specific expertise in active and practice-driven approaches, co-construction with students and external partners, and the facilitation of interdisciplinary and experiential learning.
Examples of my work include;
- Man Met Rise, our institutional co-curricular programme underpinned by a progressive regulatory commitment to enabling our student to earn additional classificatory credit for experiential and skills-based learning.
Research outputs
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Internet publications
Peace, M. (2023) How a Music Festival Helped Me to Rethink How We Support Graduate Outcomes. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-music-festival-helped-me-rethink-we-support-graduate-mark-peace/.
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Theses and dissertations
Graham, S. (2020) Staff perceptions of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) in a post-92 institution.
Lean, J.J. (2019) Total play! exploring participation and play in higher education.
Career history
2019 - 2021
Institutional Leadership for Innovation
In my most recent career I have contributed strategic leadership to the delivery of innovation in teaching, learning and the student experience at an institutional level
2015-2019
Faculty and Departmental Leadership
Faculty Head of Education (2017 - 2019)
Principal Lecturer (2015 - 2017)
2008-2015
Programme Leadership and Lecturing
2002-2008
Sixth Form Teaching and Management
1997 - 2013
Education and Doctoral Study