Category Archives: Creative Education

The global challenge: developing sustainability skills in King’s summer programming

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Hannah Bond is Associate Director – Learning and Teaching for Summer Programmes at King’s College London. 

Education plays a key role in the fight against climate change and education institutions must prepare learners of all ages to with the ‘knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to address the interconnected global challenges we are facing’ (UNESCO, 2021). One of the ways universities and schools can equip young people with the skills and knowledge they will need, is through developing sustainability skills – the ‘knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes needed to live in, develop and support a sustainable and resource-efficient society’ (UNIDO, 2021).

Sustainability skills are relevant to all disciplines and levels, summer schools included. In July 2021, King’s Pre-University Summer School launched the inaugural Global Challenge to help prepare our students to address complex challenges and empower them to make informed decisions to positively impact society and the planet. Modelled on a hackathon – an event in which a large number of people meet to engage in a specific topic or challenge – the Global Challenge is an intensive problem-based group project that students complete alongside their subject studies.

Students are the future changer makers; they are integral to forging a more progressive world and advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Therefore, it is the role of the education sector to properly equip students with this sustainability knowledge, skills, confidence and to understand complex issues so they can play a transformational role in helping to build a sustainable and inclusive future we can be proud of – and understand the cross-collaboration which is needed to get there. 

King’s Sustainability Officer Alexandra Hepple, who contributed her expertise to the project 

We recognise that summer schools offer students a transformative, intensive learning experience where they can learn alongside other young people from a wide range of geographical, cultural and academic backgrounds, and we recognise that such diversity can drive new approaches and creative problem solving. A key requirement of the project is that students address a global problem in a collaborative, thoughtful way, working with teammates from a wide variety of disciplines and backgrounds.   

Beyond developing skills directly related to sustainability, the Global Challenge aims to develop students’ creative problem solving and academic skills as preparation for university and beyond, with an emphasis on critical thinking, communication skills and teamwork. It also builds students’ understanding of sustainability, at a global level as well as in relation to their own lives and communities, and their exposure to varying perspectives/experiences 

In its first year, the Global Challenge project was adapted for online delivery due to the pandemic. Students learned about the factors contributing to food insecurity around the world, working together to identify solutions and communicate these to different audiences. 

“We discussed source reliability when sharing our findings. We also conducted research on the topic of the UN SDGs and how certain SDGs had links to our topic and we discussed ways we could incorporate them into our final activity.

We were able to all make very well structured arguments that were backed up by evidence and research. This skill is not only crucial to our future when in university but also to our current lives in high school.”

Lucas

For King’s Summer Programmes, Hannah Bond delivered a well-received presentation on ‘Hacking’ the Sustainable Development Goals: Facilitating global problem solving in short term programming at the 2021 EAIE Conference 2021, sharing the fresh work being done at King’s with the wider international education community. As our summer schools return to on-campus teaching in 2022, the prospect of running the Global Challenge in person is an exciting one.

Summertime for new thinking

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Dr Sarah Williamson is Executive Director of King’s Summer Programmes.

Sarah Williamson

What a time we have all experienced in the past 18 months. The extent to which Covid-19 has changed our personal and professional lives is nothing short of a revelation.

Daily activities, including a wider range of jobs that anyone would have initially thought possible, have all been taking place online. We have gone from being rooted in our homes via national lockdowns to leaping into new ways of living via our electronic devices. Now, as we begin our second year of online summer teaching we are taking a moment to reflect on how far the world has come despite being forced to stand still geographically.

When Covid-19 began to affect our lives, we decided very early on that we would not let it curtail our summer learning programmes and summoned up all our ideas and energy to launch the King’s Summer Online programmes. The Summer team worked tirelessly to find the best ways to connect with you all via virtual means last year and this year they have taken those good beginnings and enhanced each aspect further. Digital inequalities have become a pronounced strand to our often uneven world and here at King’s Summer it has become an important consideration for our thinking and research plans. But as our lives have progressed, we have all experienced first hand some of the incredible value and ability that moving in an online education sphere enables and it is now clear that our future educational experiences will be all the better for seizing the opportunity to make use of the best of e-learning alongside the best of face-to-face learning. Why choose, when we can work a bit harder and have the best of both worlds?

Of course we all wish that we could come together in this great city of London – the original think space! – and share its dynamism and beauty in real life, but we are certain that though our connection this year may be digital, there is nothing virtual about the very real experience you will have with King’s this summer. And as soon as we all can, we want to welcome you in person to campus. #summerisreallife #summeristheonlyseason

The way we learn on summer schools

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Thais Russomano, MD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre of Human & Applied Physiological Sciences, part of the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine’s School of Basic & Medical Biosciences.
Thais teaches summer school students about body systems and how humans adapt when exposed to hostile environments.

 

If asked at the age of 16 what I wanted to be when I ‘grew up’, the answer university professor would never have crossed my mind. I knew what I wanted to be, it was simple – for as long as I could remember I dreamt of becoming an astronaut. This would be a difficult career path for anyone to follow, however, coming from a country (Brazil) that didn’t at that time even have a Space Agency made the task as difficult as climbing Mount Everest blindfolded! I wish at that stage of my life I’d had the opportunity to experience a course like the King’s Summer programme.

Exposure to material taught by an international professor in a ‘university-type’ form would certainly have given my confidence a boost and allayed many of the doubts I had about studying abroad and at a higher level. Nonetheless, I planned my journey, completing medicine in Brazil, then facing my fears and going oversees for a 2-year MSc in Aerospace Medicine in the US, and a PhD in Space Physiology at King’s College London, before working at the German Space Agency (DLR).

My academic career began at a university in Brazil, where I established the Microgravity Centre, a pioneering Space Life Sciences Research Centre, but my links with King’s always remained strong, and I eventually became the Deputy Course Director/Senior Lecturer of the Space Physiology & Health MSc course. Another constant in my life was dedicating spare time to teaching school-aged students about the life and works of astronauts during space missions.

Therefore, when asked to participate in teaching for the King’s College Summer Programmes, I was delighted to accept, as, from my own student experience, I knew the benefit this kind of interaction brings – I see it as a two-way win-win situation for both students and professors, both of whom encounter different learning styles and gain from an exchange of cultural values, which broadens perspectives and adds to personal and professional growth.

The design of the Summer Courses fosters this interaction of tutors/students and provides an enriching learning environment. Students gain a great insight into what life would be like studying at university level, and possibly experiencing for the first time a British way of delivering knowledge. This opportunity also gives a special experience to us as professors, entering a highly multicultural environment, bringing with it challenges as to how best to engage these young minds, but at the same time making the teaching-learning process more stimulating and special.

Given the short length of the courses, they can be no more than simply ‘taster’ experiences for both sides, however, the enthusiasm and curiosity of the students is evident from their willingness to participate in activities, and from their questions, which become more probing and frequent as the week progresses and confidence grows. And it is exactly this growth in confidence, this exposure to professors of a different culture, and this opportunity to mix with a different way of doings things that is the most invaluable lesson of the week for students, opening their eyes to potential new horizons.

Likewise, teaching pre-university students, and especially those from a culture for whom English is not their native-tongue, provides lecturers with a reminder that sometimes we must adapt our skills to better communicate the content of our classes, making the language we use more accessible, building on logical reasoning and employing good analogies that help in the understanding of more complex ideas. I am reminded that these skills are important within our practice at King’s, which is by its very nature, a very international university, with more than 40% of its student population drawn from 160 countries.

For me, the experience of teaching young students on King’s Summer Programmes is gratifying and enriching; something new to add to my lifelong learning portfolio. For the students, I hope they find their pre-university programmes inspiring and motivational experiences, bolstering their self-belief and turning the first page of their academic journey.

Addressing the Signs of the Times

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Dr Huw Dylan is a Senior Lecturer in Intelligence Studies and International Security in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Dr Dylan is also a Visiting Research Professor at the Norwegian Defence Intelligence School, Oslo.

 

One of the most exciting things about the King’s Undergraduate Summer School is the variety of approaches to teaching and learning that students will experience. This reflects both the scope of subjects on offer, but also the energy tutors put into creating engaging learning environments. This entry, building upon our colleague Dr Diana Bozhilova’s blog post on teaching international relations in this series, offers a brief introduction to our approach to teaching Politics and the Media.

For those of us interested in politics and international relations it seems that not a day goes by without some controversy or other concerning what is the truth of a particular situation making the headlines in the press. From the competing narratives offered to the electorate in the BREXIT referendum, to the myriad debates concerning President Trump and words and deeds, to the running series of debates between Russia and the West over a number of issues, including the shooting down of MH17 to Russian involvement in east Ukraine, matters of strategic communication, allegations of propaganda, and charges of ‘fake news’ have come to dominate several areas of our political discourse. This course aims to place many of these issues in a deeper historical context, and to consider carefully how information and messages have been utilised by political power throughout history to further their goals.

Our teaching is based on our experience in the Department of War Studies. This department encourages an interdisciplinary and creative approach to studying conflict and war and all associated phenomena. We aim to combine teaching of core concepts and ideas, such as exploring the main theorists or thinkers of propaganda and strategic communications, in tandem with the conflicts or issues that they sought to influence at the time. And then to examine how these ideas resonate today in our contemporary debates. So, we will begin with the ideas of Gustav le Bon, and propaganda in the age of the Two World Wars, before moving on to the Cold War and the post 9/11 world. Students will engage deal with theory and practice, setting the scene for many of the issues we the class will consider during the latter part of the course.

The learning outcomes for this short course on Politics and the Media are centred upon the development of an understanding of key subject matter and fostering critical thinking. The class will consider the core components of propaganda and strategic communication narratives in various case studies. Many of these case studies involve campaigns that aimed to convert or entrench the political stance or the voting intentions of a large body of people, and have become contentious. Analysing the construction, delivery, and impact of these various campaigns will leave students equipped to more effectively engage with such campaigns in future, in particular with regard analysing and challenging the competing claims of ‘truth’. A key component of developing these critical skills will be an active consideration of the modern information environment and information technology, and how they both facilitate the propagation and the challenge of key messages.

Teaching International Relations for dynamic audiences

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Dr Diana Bozhilova, Teaching Fellow Summer Programmes, brings her lively discussions on the theory and practice of International Relations to our London programmes through her annual contribution to the King’s Summer School Programmes. 

 

Political events “crowd” our lives with increasing dynamism. This leads to greater interest in the study of International Relations (IR) as a means to explaining ethical questions, consequentialist and deontological reasoning. As a result, normative IR is still very relevant but how do we teach it within short courses for highly mobile and technologically astute young audiences for whom time is of the essence?

Core concepts

My experience of teaching IR has been one of focusing on core concepts and methods. Short courses allow for selecting “relevant” blocks on which to scope attention in order to critically appraise a particularly impactful development in international relations. Take Brexit, Russia or China for example – separately, they challenge aspects of the liberal international order established during the “American” century and contribute to the sense that something rather big is afoot. For normative IR, this means a conceptual and methodological shift being under way.

Roadmaps

The learning outcomes for short courses in IR centre on developing critical thinking and analytical capacities that enable students to transform information flows into knowledge. I would never forget how on one of my travels to India and whilst occupied with thoughts about the impact of technology on the study of IR, a friend from Mumbai remarked: “Google cannot help find your slippers in the temple.” Technology is an information enabler but normative IR provides roadmaps that transform data flows into meaningful building blocks.

Application

Games and simulations increasingly infiltrate IR pedagogy. On the one hand, those opposed to such dynamic teaching models emphasise their inevitably reductionist approach to understanding normative IR through diminution of variables, thus confining discussions to basics at the expense of the vastness of paradigms and approaches that exist in the discipline. On the other hand, their great utility lies in adapting static theories to dynamic teaching models. This has a particular advantage for international audiences who would like to see how theories apply within different geographic and institutional settings. Simulations can involve structural constructs from diplomacy and negotiations, economic development and governance reforms, management of warfare and environmental crises. They are well suited to short courses, dedicated sessions, and blended learning models.