Learning and Teaching (LATISS)

This issue of Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Sciences features authors from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Argentina, Ecuador and Norway. They write about the creation of a transnational university alliance and its signature approach to education, the evolution of a faculty writing group, introducing students to computer modelling and simulation research methods, the value of reading ethnographies in preparation for fieldwork, teaching and learning criminological theory and organising paired discussions in class.

This article reports on the first results of the educational model piloted in EUTOPIA, a transnational university alliance established under the European University initiative. We discuss the theoretical underpinnings and core principles of our model which seeks to enable students, academics and societal partners to form Connected Learning Communities through enhancing existing learning activities and practices in teaching and learning. We elaborate on the value added of our model for developing a diverse portfolio of activities and a dynamic structure that has the potential to offer international learning opportunities to a large and diverse group of students, academic staff and societal partners. We close the article with recommendations for the results of European University Alliance pilots to reach their full innovation potential.

Peer response writing groups support faculty in their development as scholarly writers around the globe. Nevertheless, little is known about feedback provision inside these groups. This work analyses written and oral comments in a faculty writing group to determine how feedback progressed as meetings developed. Results indicate that participants shifted from mainly correcting or giving directions to eliciting clarification, confirmation or information. Similarly, orally retaken comments (oral comments that referred to previous written comments) changed from discussing linguistic accuracy issues to centring on the content and cohesion/coherence of the text, with most of the latter prompting exchanges among participants. With continued participation members moved from mainly offering corrections to establishing a dialogue with authors. In writing groups faculty safely engage in peer feedback practices that enrich texts and writers.

Research methods based on modelling and simulation (M&S) are gaining popularity among social scientists to study societal dynamics. Emphasising the importance of this research approach, the Department of Religion, Philosophy and History at the University of Agder initiated a methodology module to help students on the religious studies programme learn about M&S-based research methods. The methodology module entails seminars, tutoring, meet-the-expert sessions and writing a short essay about the opportunities, limitations and challenges of applying the research methods. This article discusses the impact of the meet-the-expert event, examining students’ interaction with the experts to understand how they utilised the opportunity to learn about the research methods from M&S-based professionals in their field.

As the popularity of ethnographic research methods grows across and beyond the social sciences, it is of paramount importance that practitioners reflect on how to best teach participant observation to increasingly diverse and interdisciplinary audiences. While available literature stresses the importance of learning-by-doing to develop students’ ethnographic sensibility, I argue that these techniques neglect the development of students’ ethnographic imagination, which is necessary to prepare first-time fieldworkers to face the unpredictability of research. To remedy this training shortcoming, I then propose that we turn to reading ethnographies in the classroom as a collective, critical and participative practice that can help students picture ‘what really happens’ during fieldwork, inspire their research design, and prepare them for the unpredictability of participant observation.

Theory is a core component in the teaching of many social sciences, including criminology-related programmes in higher education, but both students and lecturers can find it challenging. Given the growing popularity of criminology programmes, scholarship on the teaching and learning of criminological theory is increasingly important. This article uses a critical narrative literature review to explore extant empirically based scholarship on the teaching and learning of criminological theory. It examines the goals, methods, strengths and weaknesses of the pedadogical approaches suggested by this literature, making comparisons with the scholarship of teaching and learning theory in other social sciences. While lessons can be learned from related disciplines, there are numerous reasons why further empirical research is needed on a broader range of pedagogical approaches to criminological theory.

In recent years, ‘the field of higher education ha[s] become increasingly interested in assessing traditional instruction practices (e.g., lectures) and modifying them towards more student-centred and active instructional approaches’ (Kozanitis and Nenciovici 2023: 1377). Innovations in practice, such as talking pairs, are being embraced by instructors to advance their pedagogy and engage students more deeply in their learning. This report focuses its attention on the partners students talk to, the concern being that the quality of learning is affected if these are not changed regularly. To positively address this, a suite of creative strategies is helpfully ‘pooled together’ to help instructors get students into talking pairs, along with a recognition of associated practicalities. By mixing it up, instructors can effectively support the improved capabilities, attainment and learning of students in the university classroom.