Kate Highfield
Position
Associate Professor and Academic Lead - Early Childhood Education
Contact details
E: kate.highfield@canberra.edu.au
T: +61 2 62015892
L: Building 6, Room C86
Click to view Kate Highfield's Research profile
Biography
Associate Professor Kate Highfield is an educator and researcher – exploring young children’s engagement with technology, play and learning. Kate is the academic lead for Early Childhood Education at the University of Canberra, prior to this she held roles at a number of universities and Early Childhood Australia.
Kate is particularly interested in how healthy technology use can enhance learning. Kate’s PhD examined affordances of robotics in learning and metacognition, with more recent work examining technology and media use. Kate has explored research and evaluations in many forms and is currently exploring children’s media; AI in teacher’s lives; child-led and play-based pedagogies; finding the T in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and reminding us of the A in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).
Kate also works to bridge the gap between research and practice through effective research translation. Some examples of her research translation can be found on The Conversation, in the media or via news and radio work.
Research Interests
- Early Childhood Education
- STEAM in Early Childhood
- Children’s media
- Effective technology use
- AI in the work of teachers and educators
- Digital Documentation
- Play and Technology
- Robotics
Recent Publications
To access Kate’s research see Google Scholar or ORCHID