Advancing Psychology Education: Insights and Innovations from the 2025 BPS DART-P Annual Conference, By Juliet Holdstock & Isabella Vainieri
On 23rd and 24th June 2025, Royal Holloway, University of London, hosted the annual conference of the British Psychological Society Division of Academics, Researchers and Teachers in Psychology (DART-P), with members of Teaching in Higher Education: Supporting and Inspiring Students (THESIS), a pedagogic research group in the Psychology Department at Royal Holloway, contributing to the …
An early-career academic’s experience of the Higher Education Teaching Development Conference, By Dr Aysha Bellamy
The Higher Education Teaching Development (HETD) Conference hosted at Royal Holloway University of London on 4th June 2024 was a national conference where a range of academics with teaching responsibilities were able to share their insights around advancing inclusive teaching and learning practices in higher education. This conference was developed by an organisational committee from …
The Benefits of Helping to Organise Departmental Events, By Dr Adnan Levent & Dr Beatrice Hayes
Throughout the academic year, the Psychology Department hosts a variety of events organised by dedicated staff and volunteer students, such as “Wellbeing Day” in Term 1 (for more detail, see the event webpage here) and “To Academia and Beyond” in Term 2 (see the event webpage here). These events not only benefit the attendees but …
THESIS 2024 Higher Education Teaching Development Conference: A summary of the day, By Aysha Bellamy
On June 4th 2024, Royal Holloway hosted its first national Higher Education Teaching Development (HETD) Conference. This initiative was spearheaded by THESIS, a pedagogic research group based in the Psychology department of Royal Holloway, University of London with extensive experience and expertise in Higher Education pedagogy. After some success organising internal events (see here for …
Reflections on Podcasting and Pedagogic Scholarship as Early Career Academic, by Dr Natasha Baxter and Dr Sahana Shankar
Pedagogic scholarship focuses on disseminating pedagogic knowledge and practise and can be done via various means. For those of us on teaching focused career pathways pedagogic scholarship is one of the few requirements for promotions and career progression. As early career academics we wanted to engage with our scholarship in an innovating way, and in …
Opportunities during my Higher Education journey, by Dr Sahana Shankar
In 2015, I entered University believing the next 3 years of my undergraduate degree would be spent only studying and getting a degree. As the first person to go to university in my family, I did not realise how many opportunities I could take advantage of during this time that could both help my career …
Subtitles: on or off?
It’s clear that under 30 year olds use subtitles habitually when watching TV and movies, both for content in unknown languages, like Squid Games, but increasingly for content in their own languages (Young, 2021). It’s a subject that everyone has ideas about – why people like using them, parents complaining that their children only …
Youth Cannabis Use: Not so harmless, by Dr Adnan Levent
Cannabis (marijuana) is the most commonly used addictive substance after alcohol and tobacco, in particular among youths. Many countries have already decriminalized its medical and recreational use in recent years. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard statements like “If it’s legal, it is okay to use” and “If it’s medicine, …