Confucius Institute staff
Mark Schofield
Director of the Confucius Institute
Mark Schofield is Professor of Learning and Teaching at Edge Hill University and leads on strategy and policy development in teaching, learning and associated research. He has contributed to teaching and curriculum design in undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in Education, Health, and Teaching and Learning in Clinical Practice. He provides external consultancy in learning and teaching, nationally and internationally, increasingly on technology enhanced learning which has been a prime focus of the visiting professorships at Leeds Beckett University, University of Northampton, Hunan First Normal University and Chongqing Normal University (China).
He has a lead role in the University practice based research initiative for education and health professionals. In addition to his Dean’s role he is Academic Director of the SOLSTICE Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. He is a Fellow of the higher education academy and was Co-chair of the Staff and Educational Development Association Publications committee and a member of the Executive. He is Director of the Edge Hill University Centre for Learning and Teaching. He has been an active member of the national higher education Funding Council England/higher education a higher education academy/Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Joint e-learning Partnership Board and was critical friend to the national JISC Users and Innovations Programme. He has acted as an expert adviser to the HEA eLearning Observatory initiative, to government groups envisioning technological support for learning in the future, was a member of the HEA eLearning ‘Think Tank’ and sits on the editorial board of the Innovations in Education and Teaching International Journal.
His past work on research, curriculum design and eLearning has cemented firm international partnerships including the University of Johannesburg, the higher education Learning and Teaching Association South Africa, the United States Air Force Academy and the international DLAC (Distance Learning and Collaboration) group. He has been engaged as a Senior Fellow in Educational Development at the University of Windsor, Ontario and has recently been awarded a grant by the Hunan provincial government in China as an adviser on learning and teaching to Hunan First Normal University (Chairman Mao’s teacher training university) and others in the province,. In 2011 he was received the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship award from the higher education academy for excellence in teaching and development of colleagues at Edge Hill University, nationally and internationally
Pin Guan
Pin Guan, a professor from Chongqing Normal University (CNU), China, specialies in TCSOL and TESOL, second language acquisition, intercultural communication as well as higher education administration. He is a supervisor for the MTCSOL and MTESOL in CNU.
Professor Guan has 30 years of teaching and working experience in higher education institutions. He also provides external consultancy in internationalisation of higher education nationally and internationally. In addition, he also served as a visiting scholar at University of Alberta in Canada, University of New South Wales in Australia, Eastern Mennonite University in the U.S in the past decades.
Committed to teaching innovation and creation, he has specially made great contribution to the internationalisation of Chinese universities and colleges. Previously, he served as the Director of International Office at CNU for 15 years, initiating international collaboration and exchanges programs with counterparts in the world including the dual degree joint program of Bio Science between EHU and CNU, the Confucius Institute at EHU. In addition, Confucius Institutes aim to enhance people-to-people communication and cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world. The Confucius Institute at EHU is dedicated to this aim and tries to serve as gateway to China by providing services to local students, teachers and communities as well as supporting local business needs in terms of Chinese language teaching, cultural activities and seminars, etc.
Professor Guan hopes that the Confucius Institute at EHU can be a hub of learning Chinese language, Chinese culture, and China studies, thus promoting mutual understanding, communication and cooperation between China and the UK.