Dr Martin Compton
Head Of The Centre For Excellence In Learning And Teaching
Head
Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
Martin is the Head of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) and Associate Professor (Academic Practice, Inclusion and Innovation).
Qualifications
- Doctor of Education (UCL)
- MA in Education (Leeds Beckett)
- PGCert in Online Education (Hull)
- PGCE (Greenwich)
- BA (Hons) (Greenwich)
Areas Of Interest
- Compassionate and equity-centred pedagogy
- Digital education
- AI in education
- Assessment and feedback
- Curriculum and learning design
- Peer review of teaching
- Students as partners
OVERVIEW
In line with the core roles of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) Martin focuses on equity-centred and inclusive educational practice.
His work includes:
- innovative approaches to teaching, assessment, and feedback
- critical engagement with artificial intelligence (AI) and other disruptive technologies
- developmental peer review of teaching practice
Martin brings over 30 years of experience in teaching and educational leadership across secondary, further, and higher education in the UK and internationally. In higher education, his work shifted from the humanities to teacher education. He has led a range of Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) programmes, as well as higher education lecturer development courses and modules.
In academic development roles at the University of Greenwich, University College London (UCL), and King’s College London, Martin’s work has focused on: digital innovation and AI curriculum development, new course design assessment and feedback professional learning for university teachers. He was the lead educator on the free online course AI in Education, which has attracted over 16,000 participants to date.
RESEARCH
Martin’s doctoral research examined unorthodox approaches to lecturer observation. He remains a strong advocate for peer review of teaching that is:
- developmental rather than evaluative
- dialogic rather than performative
- mutual rather than hierarchical
He also promotes a ‘Freedom to Learn’ approach to pedagogy. This is reflected in a recent special issue of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, which he co-edited.
MOST RECENT RESEARCH
Current ongoing research in collaboration with colleagues at King's College London focuses on research, study and writing workflows with AI of neurodivergent students. Recent publications include:
- Compton, M. (2025). What a Compassionate Approach to Transforming Practice Taught Me About Driving Institutional Change. In A. Syska, C. Buckley, G. Sedghi and N. Grayson (Eds.) Transformative Practice in Higher Education: Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning
- Compton, M., & Lindner, R. (2025). Liberating learning in the empathetic university. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35).
- Bentley, C., Aicardi, C., Poveda, S C., Magela Cunha, L., Kohan, M. D., Glover, R., Rigley, E., Walker, S., Compton, M. & Acar, O. A. A Framework for Responsible AI Education: A Working Paper (August 17, 2023). SSRN.
- Payne, A. L., Compton, M,. & Kennedy, S. (2023). ‘Supporting and humanising behavioural change without the behaviourism: nudges and digital footprints.’Human Data Interaction, Disadvantage and Skills in the Community: Enabling Cross-Sector Environments For Postdigital Inclusion.
- Compton, M., Standen, A. & Watson, B. (2023). Realising the affordances of hybrid and online teaching for inclusive and sustainable education. JLDHE (26)
- Compton, M. (Jan 2023). Who's afraid of ChatGPT ? Teachers Going Gradeless.
- Compton, M. & Alsford, A. (2022) Prestige, power, practice, and professional development: exploring transnational teachers’ experiences of a UK-based lecturer development course, International Journal for Academic Development, DOI: 1080/1360144X.2022.2119240
- Compton, M. and Gilmour, A. (2022). Walking the tightrope: enabling mindset and practice transformation at scale through compassionate academic development
EXTERNAL ROLES
- External Examiner for Edinburgh Napier EnRoute Scheme
Publications
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Full publications list
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