Dr Eder Coelho Paula is a Research and Teaching Associate in the Department of Education at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS), where he contributes to the Secondary Teacher Education Programme (STEP). He has more than 20 years of experience in teaching and teacher education across primary, secondary and higher education in Brazil and Scotland.
His work focuses on teacher education, pedagogy, curriculum design, and preparing reflective practitioners for diverse global contexts. A central strand of his practice is training and mentoring student teachers preparing to teach in UK primary and secondary schools. He works with them through university-based workshops and school placements on pedagogy, curriculum planning, assessment and reflective practice.
Before joining the IIS, Dr Paula taught on the PGDE Primary programme at the University of Edinburgh. There he led workshops on pedagogy, curriculum design and inclusive practice, and supervised school placements and postgraduate dissertations. He has also taught qualitative and quantitative research methods at postgraduate level, and worked as a research assistant on a digital ethnography project on social media discourse (2022–2023).
In Brazil, he founded and coordinated a citywide STEAM and digital citizenship programme for Alvorada City Council (2008–2013) and trained in-service teachers in digital educational technology. In Edinburgh, he mentored primary and secondary students and served on the board of Prewired SCIO, a charity providing free STEAM and digital literacy education.
His practice draws on Freirean critical pedagogy and constructivist approaches, with a commitment to equity, inclusion and learner-centred education. He holds Full Registration in Secondary Education (History) with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and is working towards Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Education
PhD in Education, University of Edinburgh (2019)
Master’s in History of Iberian American Societies, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) (2007)
BA in History, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) (2003)
