Dr Martin Compton

Dr. Martin Compton is the College Lead for Programme, Module and Assessment Design working out of King's Academy which he joined from UCL in June 2023. He has been an educator for over 30 years, working in schools, colleges, universities in the UK and overseas. Much of his early career teaching was focussed on equity-centred, widening participation projects where 'open college' qualifications offered alternative paths to university for adults failed by the conventional UK education system. His doctoral research focussed on unorthodox approaches to lecturer observation and he has long been an advocate for focussing on the developmental potential of feedback by de-centring grades. He co-founded an informal cross-institutional 'Freedom to Learn' group which centres compassionate approaches to pedagogy and his ethos in terms of faculty development is about fostering open and dialogic learning environments.

As an experienced online educator, he found himself especially busy in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, and much of his ongoing work focuses on digital pedagogy and realising the potential of teaching in and across different modalities. At King's he leads on curriculum and assessment design which means that much of his time currently is looking at ways in which the opportunities and threats of generative AI (as well as broader technological changes) will necessitate changes to pedagogy, assessment and feedback practices across higher education. He is a Senior Certified member of the Association for Learning Technology and a Principal Fellow of the HEA.