Dr Janet Dutton has extensive experience in leadership and teaching roles in initial teacher education, as a leader of teacher professional development, and as Head Teacher in government and independent schools.

She has worked developing assessment and curriculum at national and state level organisations and was the Chief Examiner, English for the NSW Higher School Certificate, 2011-2016.

Janet has been awarded over $1.5 million in grants for research and education.

She is Co-Chief Investigator and MQ Lead on the Australian Research Council (ARC) grant 'Shifting the Culture of Out-of-field Professional Education for Teachers' (DP240101175).

Since 2021, Janet has led the 'Mid-Career Transition to Teaching' project (MQ School of Education and NSW Department of Education) developing an executive mentoring focused work integrated learning program for STEM career changers entering the Master of Teaching degree. The project has been awarded the 2023 Faculty of Arts Educational Leadership prize and the 2024 Vice-Chancellor's Educational Leadership Prize.

Areas of speciality include:

• Secondary English curriculum and HSC English
• Creative literacy pedagogy
• Teacher motivation and retention
• Out of field teaching (OOFT)
• Teacher identity, voice and reflective practice

Janet’s teaching and research promotes the ways creative pedagogy can enrich student learning and current projects include:

• Investigating English teacher motivation, job satisfaction and resilience
• The impact of high stakes testing on English teacher practice
• The use of identity texts for enhancing literacy and engagement in students from EAL/D and low SES backgrounds
• Out of field teaching (OOFT)
• Developing strategies to enhance pre-service teacher reflexive practice.

Research supervision

HDR students with interests in one of the research projects/topics below are invited to inquire about supervision:

• teaching subject English in secondary schools 
• the experiences of mid-career changers transitioning to teaching or
• teacher education students' experiences of paid work in schools prior to graduation.

Janet has strong connections with schools where she delivers professional learning, sustains long term relationships, works with teachers to implement practitioner inquiry projects, and delivers keynote presentations to schools and professional organisations. Many of the projects are in low SES, EAL/D settings working to foster high quality, creative pedagogy.