Welcome to the Teaching & Learning Network! 

The Teaching and Learning Network (TLN) is a community of practice for academics and higher education teachers, where best practice can be recognised, scholarship and research disseminated, and university teaching supported. 

All Academic Members of the PSA are automatically members of the TLN.  

Building on over a decade of work as a PSA Specialist Group, the remit of the Network is:

• To enable all politics academics/HE teachers to share the good and innovative practices that they have developed, within a community of practice
• To support the production and dissemination of research and scholarship relating to the teaching and learning of politics
• To support the PSA in contributing to policy relating to HE matters, including the TEF
• To support early career academics in developing their practice as university teachers 
• To support the development of politics students as critical and independent learners, able to contribute to economic, social, and political wellbeing as active citizens.

 

TLN at PSA25!

This coming year the TLN Convenors are organising both roundtables and panels at PSA25. The roundtables will be on the following topics

1. The teaching on Quantitative methods in Politics and International Relations. This panel is being organised in conjunction with the new editorial team for Politics with the expectation that contributions can be published in the journal.

2. Pedagogical Research and its role in education-focused careers. This panel will focus on the role and importance of pedagogical research in our discipline and how pedagogical research fits into academic careers.

3. The difficulties of teaching contentious issues. This panel will focus on the challenges of teaching contentious issues and how to approach them in an inclusive and respectful way.

If you would like to participate in a roundtable, please get in touch with the TLN convenors via: psateach@psa.ac.uk)

 

Call for Journal Articles and Notes about Learning and Teaching in Politics & International Relations

The new editorial team of the PSA's Politics journal is seeking engaging, thought-provoking scholarship that addresses the evolving challenges in teaching political science and international relations. We invite submissions that contribute to both the theoretical and practical dimensions of political education, covering topics such as:

• Innovative teaching methods and impactful learning techniques
• Assessments of student growth and learning outcomes
• The role of emerging technologies in education
• Evaluations of educational resources and tools
• New approaches to political pedagogy

 

The journal encourages articles that provide actionable insights and best practices to enhance education in the field and support the development of both students and educators. Published articles will advance the professional expertise of educators, promoting well-informed, engaged learners in politics and international relations.

* Submission Guidelines:

• Full articles: Up to 10,000 words
• Learning and teaching notes: Up to 5,000 words
• All submissions are peer-reviewed with average turnaround time of 5 weeks. 

There is no deadline for submissions and we invite the interested authors to submit their work through the ScholarOne online manuscript submission portal at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/politics

 

TLN Mentoring Network

For those who are educational specialists and/or on education-focused contracts.

If you feel you have the skills and capacity to become a mentor, we kindly invite you to sign up by completing this short form stating your skills and experience.

Your details will be added to a database of those who are willing to mentor other teaching-focused, pedagogically-interested or educational leadership staff in Politics (broadly defined), and Mentors can remove themselves from the database at any time once they have reached their capacity.

This is an open database of academics across the UK to contribute towards, but only PSA members may request a copy.

PSA members can use the database to make a direct approach to potential mentors personally.

If you have any queries, please do get in touch with us via PSATeach@psa.ac.uk.

 

PSA Teaching and Learning Network Conference

 

We want to hear from you!

It would be great to get some feedback from members about what you would like the Network to focus on. We are open to all suggestions, whether that’s workshops, conferences and events we could run or be involved in, publication/article/blog ideas, professional development/training opportunities, or anything else under our wide remit. Get in touch via PSATeach@psa.ac.uk.

Blog writers wanted: do you have something to say about teaching and learning in politics and international studies? If so, why not write a blog for us. We are happy to publish content about best practice, scholarship, or your general thoughts about teaching and learning in the discipline. Contact us at PSATeach@psa.ac.uk with your idea.

Fancy running a webinar for us on teaching and learning in politics? You know what to do: contact us!

 

2023/24 Academic Prize Winners

Check out the winners of the Teaching Prizes here!

 

TLN Blog - PSA Academic Awards 2022/23 Prize Winner

A blog emphasising how great the teaching and scholarship community is within the PSA (and the discipline more widely) and the importance of cultivating this growing community. Read the whole blog here!

 

Teaching and Learning Network Blogs

Read the latest in our five-part blog series, being shared between the PSA Teaching and Learning stream and the Forum for Access and Continuing Education (FACE), in order to promote dialogue between the more academic-related pedagogy-focussed bodies and more practitioner-focussed organisations such as FAC.

 

TLN - 2021 PSA Award winner!

We were delighted to win the Special Recognition Award from the PSA for extraordinary contribution to the profession, awarded during the PSA Annual Conference. Thank you PSA!

 

PSA External Examiner Database

The PSA Teaching and Learning Network is coordinating an external examiners database, exclusively available as a benefit of PSA membership. If you are a PSA member and would like a copy of the database, please email membership@psa.ac.uk.

PSA members are encouraged to register their details in the database, and can do so by completing this short form. 

If you aren’t yet a member, do consider joining as you will be will be able to both request a copy of the database and access the wide range of other membership benefits. 

 

The International Political Education Database (IPED)

The International Political Education Database (IPED), curated by Network Co-Chair John Craig, is a historic bibliographic database of journal articles relating to teaching and learning in politics, international relations, public administration and related fields. It aims to raise the profile of existing publications to encourage further research and enhancements to student learning.

We believe that IPED is the world's most comprehensive bibliographic database of teaching and learning resources for politics. NOTE: last updated 2018.

 

Teaching Politics and IR Online: Key Issues, Skills and Pedagogy

The webinar series took place in the winter of 2020 and early spring of 2021. This webinar series focused on general teaching and learning issues, not just online learning!

The following webinars were held:

• 'Let's use technology meaningfully: Designing engaging online learning activities' by Alexandra Mihai (UCL)
• 'Teaching and Learning: the Student Perspective' led by Maxine David (Leiden University)
• 'External Examining in Politics: Rigour and Inclusion' led by Helen Williams (University of Nottingham)
• 'Active Learning' led by Cristina Leston Bandeira (University of Leeds)
• 'The Things we Gained During Lockdown. What we Won’t Miss and What we Should Incorporate Into our Teaching in the Longer Term' led by Victoria Honeyman (Leeds University).
   

You can find the recordings here: /resources/multimedia

 

View our webinars

As a special thanks to our PSA Members, we are offering you a certificate of participation if you have attended at least three of our teaching and learning webinars (from any series) to assist you in your professional development. If you would like to request this certificate, please contact joan.fisher@psa.ac.uk

You can view our webinars on the PSA's YouTube Channel including our most recent series:

• Humour in Politics by Alex Martin 
• From Classroom to Garden by Cathy Elliot 
• Teaching in Excel by Charlotte Brookfield 
• Teaching Statistics in SPSS by Helen WIlliams 
• Decolonising Political Theory by Manjeet Ramgotra & Simon Choat 
• Preparing Students for Non-Academic Careers by Rasmus Broms 

 

Previous events

You can find details of our events, and access links to resources here.