Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Interview This interview is the first installment in a Q&A series focused on education and politics. In November, Matt Evans (Northwest Arkansas Community College, Political Science Educator Co-editor) interviewed Will Creeley (the Legal Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression[1]) on the political struggle for First…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Ryan Gibb, Baker University Though the “meme”-ification of politics has its critics (Kulkarni 2017, Bulatovic 2019), memes can be useful tools. Similar to cartoons or comics, they illustrate concepts and generate conversation by both demanding that the author concentrate complicated thoughts into readily intelligible images with…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes James M. McQuiston, Southern Arkansas University Kahoot! is an instructional tool utilized regularly by instructors throughout the K-12 system in the United States to gamify their classes. Gamification is defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Groh, 2012). Quantitative analysis has indicated…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Niva Golan-Nadir, the University at Albany, State University of New York, and Reichman University During the teaching disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic, academicians became more familiar with online techniques, apps, and software for virtual teaching. Scholarly pedagogical engagements with the pandemic have pointed to several web-based…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Elizabeth Dorssom, Lincoln University of Missouri Encouraging class engagement among undergraduate students is one of the harder aspects of teaching. It became even more difficult after returning to in-person teaching after educating students virtually during the Covid-19 pandemic. Returning to in-person learning was a difficult transition…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Debra Leiter, University of Missouri-Kansas City Students in an environmental politics class often express frustration with the non-sustainable practices of others. Given that many of these students act with sustainability in mind–public transportation, reusable water bottles, etc.–their frustrations are grounded in their own experience. As political scientists, we…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes James Steur, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign In the first year of Trump’s Presidency, I started graduate school and worked as a teaching assistant for Introduction to American Politics. I was anxious about teaching in the classroom for the first time, and I was especially nervous…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Chaz Briscoe, Virginia Tech University, and Jasmine Noelle Yarish University of the District of Columbia When I set out to teach a course entitled “Political Participation” in Fall 2022, I wanted to center the question” “Why do people engage the political?” As a theorist, I designed…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Claire Timperley, Te Herenga Waka–Victoria, University of Wellington In 2014, Kevin Bruyneel outlined the ways in which political science as a discipline ignores and distorts Indigenous politics, and in 2016 Kennan Ferguson provocatively asked: “Why does Political Science hate American Indians?” In the intervening years, there…
Political Science Educator: volume 26, issue 2 Research Notes Igor Ahedo, University of the Basque Country, and Iraide Alvarez , University of the Basque Country Gender blindness pervades political science classrooms, especially with group work. We know this from our different positions—a faculty member with practical and extensive experience teaching, and a pre-doctoral researcher specializing…