Innovative teaching on European (foreign) affairs

Abstract

This special section seeks to extent our knowledge on teaching innovative methods in European Union (EU) Foreign Affairs in time of challenges, politicisation, and digitalisation. It shares the experience of established and early career colleagues on how they designed, implemented, and applied specific innovations in their teaching. The section focuses on these experiences and aims to provide guidance on how specific ideas were put into practice in a hand-on and reflective manner. It seeks to tip into what works and why and how we as educators deal with challenges. Contributions engage with teaching EU foreign policy via Problem-based learning (Tonra 2020), research-led teaching by linking policy briefs and employability (Lightfoot 2020), responsive teaching in times of radical change (O'Mahony 2020), and synchronous teaching among 13 universities (Plank and Niemann 2020). They offer insights into increasing the ownership of students, raise awareness of their subjectivity, stimulate critical thinking, or enhance student's media skills as well as to foster their employability. All contributions showcase the added value of the applied innovations, but also discuss obstacles that need to be considered in the conceptualisation and implementation of the proposed active approaches.