ASPIRE SoTL Circle
The ASPIRE SoTL Circle is a frequent, online, social event where members get to get together and discuss a piece of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning literature, whether it be a new release or a well-established "key text" from the field.
The Circles are chaired by members of ASPIRE - if you would like to chair a session, please register your interest.
The next ASPIRE SoTL Circle:
4th February 2025 2-3pm, Zoom
At our third ASPIRE SoTL Circle, we will be reading and discussing Aaron Stoller's 'A case for critical interdisciplinarity: Interdisciplinarity as democratic education' published in Issues in Interdisciplinary Studies. The piece makes some bold claims about how an interdisciplinary education is a key way to achieve democratic aims found in many HE pedagogies.
This ASPIRE SoTL Circle will be chaired by Jillian Terry (LSE). If you would like to chair a future SoTL Circle, please register your interest here.
Former SoTL Cicles:
At our second ASPIRE SoTL Circle, we read and discussed Siobhan O'Neill's 'Decolonising politics curricula: Exploring the experiences and views of racially minoritised students', published in Politics. Siobhan's article is a great read and makes an important critique of UK-based political curricula - the article's greatness has been recognised with Siobhan receiving the the Jacqui Briggs Prize for the best teaching and learning article published in Politics in the last year. Therefore, it was a real pleasure to get the chance to discuss this piece!This ASPIRE SoTL Circle will was chaired by Madeleine Le Bourdon.
You can read the write-up of this SoTL Circle on the Active Learning in Political Science blog.
At our inaugural ASPIRE SoTL Circle will be discussing Andrew L. Oros's (2007) 'Let's Debate: Active Learning Encourages Student Participation and Critical Thinking', published in Journal of Political Science Education.
This piece has been selected as, with over 35,000 views and (according to Google Scholar) 288 citations, this is one of the most viewed and cited pieces of Politics SoTL there is out there. This really could be described as a threshold piece in the SoTL for Politics and International Relations.
You can read the write-up of this SoTL Circle on the Active Learning in Political Science blog.