Dr Jonathan Parker

National Teaching Fellow 2009 Jonathan Parker is Senior Lecturer in Politics at Keele. He was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Oxford University. He has taught at Keele since 1996, where he has supported and helped renew the university's tradition for broad based, interdisciplinary undergraduate education. Jonathan specialises in teaching introductory subjects and research methods to students in modules on American politics, mass media, public policy, and student volunteering. He teaches on the principle that all students should develop and practice research skills and has developed a range of lessons that get students doing research such as content analysis of the mass media and comparing education policies across countries. He received the Keele University Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching in 2005. Jonathan has also been prominent in academic leadership at Keele. He co-authored Keele's new learning and teaching strategy and assessment strategy. He also co-designed a new degree structure for the university which will begin in September, 2009. The new curriculum allows students to pursue interdisciplinary work through all three years of their undergraduate degree and requires all students to complete a substantial research project in their final year. Jonathan has pursued his interest in curriculum design and research methods beyond Keele. He is active in C-SAP, the politics subject centre of the Higher Education Academy, where he participates in the politics reference group and specialist groups on both e-learning and assessment. He is currently leading a project on the shape of the politics curriculum and its approach to assessment for C-SAP and the Political Studies Association. He also led an ESRC study on international benchmarking of social science research methods in undergraduate degrees. This work highlights the importance of integrating methods training with actually doing research at undergraduate level rather than concentrating upon isolated theoretical training in any particular method. He has published articles and presented workshops in the U.K. and internationally on the design and teaching of research methods in undergraduate degrees.