Teaching - What to expect

Teaching and Learning at Kent may be quite different from the experiences our British students have had at school, and from the education that our international students receive at their home institutions. As is the case across Higher Education in the UK, the emphasis in Politics and International Relations at Kent is on inquiry-based learning. This involves encouraging students in their intellectual curiosity, and helping them to develop critical thinking and advanced analytical skills. Compared with teaching at their home institutions, many international students will find that class sizes are small and that there is a lot more scope for participation in discussion-based and workshop-style learning. Typically, teaching in Politics and International Relations at Kent involves some lecturing and a lot of seminar-based learning.  In seminars, students will be able to discuss subjects at length with their peers and with academic staff, based on their reading of a wide variety of academic texts related to their subjects, including seminal works in the field. Students have plenty of contact with staff, both in class and through their regular office hours where students can drop in and discuss academic matters. Students can also benefit from free study skills support, free advice on writing, and free English language teaching.