Teaching

Geography is a situated subject – we live our lives in and through space and place – this makes the subject exciting, relevant. We can observe and engage with geographies at work all around us, everyday. It’s exciting to teach because you aren’t teaching something ‘out there’, something abstract. As you teach it, you live it. And your students live it with you.

Teaching is a passion and a core part of sharing geographical knowledge. I believe teaching should be engaging, relying not only on lectures, but film, image, seminar discussion, group projects and workshop sessions, to enable students to critically analyse the world we live in and to provide important skills for future employment.

I have a range of teaching experience from posts held in Sheffield, Aberystwyth and Liverpool. I have taught large group Research Skills lectures, alongside subject specific modules in Social and Cultural Geographies and Maritime Geographies.  This is in addition to group tutorial study skills sessions and dissertation supervision.

I am now involved in bespoke, practical teaching about Marine Governance as part of my role at the HIFMB.

I hold a Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy (HEA) having completed a course in Teaching to Inspire Learning at Royal Holloway, University of London (2011). For six years I was  Education Officer for the Social and Cultural Geography Research Group (SCGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) leading initiatives such as a mentoring scheme and launching the biennial Teaching Geography Research conference/workshop event, connecting-up contemporary debates in research practice with pedagogy. I have acted as External Examiner, reviewing other Geography programmes in the UK, including the BSc Geography programme at the University of Reading, and the MA Territory and Geopolitics degree at Kings College London.

Writing my textbook, Your Human Geography Dissertation: Designing, Doing, Delivering (Sage, 2017), was simply one of the most enjoyable projects I have worked on. It’s for my students – past and present.