Christopher Goldsmith

National Teaching Fellow 2012 Chris Goldsmith teaches and supervises across undergraduate and postgraduate Politics and International Relations programmes at DMU, delivering popular modules on the cold war, US interventions since Vietnam and international security. His interest in innovative teaching and learning was sparked by two years working as a Visiting Lecturer at Tyumen State University in Western Siberia where he was challenged to rethink his assumptions about student learning. He is passionate about creating immersive learning environments for students through the use of interactive materials, simulations, games and international collaborations. His EU-funded New Security in Europe project brought students from four European universities together to work in multi-national teams to produce original research papers on contemporary security issues. These were then presented at a public conference in Prague, revised and published in a book. Students not only enhanced traditional academic research and writing skills, but they also developed practical experience of intercultural collaborative working. "The projects he has been involved in have provided an incredible learning experience for the students." (Colleague, University of Leeds) As leader for the BA Politics and International Relations course Chris encourages his colleagues to reflect on and adapt their approach to teaching, learning and assessment. "Chris has been a tireless champion of getting colleagues to think about what it is to be a student." (Colleague, De Montfort University) This has led to innovations in assessment and feedback, research-informed teaching and student research. Students are encouraged to be knowledge producers rather than consumers. He has been a University Teacher Fellow since 2010, playing a leading role in the formation of a Special Interest Group on Internationalisation, which shares best practice across the University. He is also active in the PSA and BISA learning and teaching groups and has disseminated his work widely at conferences and in print.