Dr. Brittany Perry, Instructional Associate Professor, Texas A&M University at College Station bnperry@tamu.edu & Professional Website Although the representation of women and minorities in STEM subjects has improved in recent decades, a lack of diversity remains an issue across a range of fields (e.g. Porter and Serra, 2019; APLU, 2016). Within political science, gender and race…
Victor Asal, State University of New York, Albany This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s Winter 2017 issue. I am writing to you as the new editor in chief of the Journal of Political Science Education (JPSE). The team of editors — myself, Mitchell Brown, Shane Nordyke, Joseph W. Roberts, Mark Johnson, and…
William O’Brochta, Washington University in St. Louis Political science instructors across subfields utilize civic and community engagement activities to increase the relevance of course content, to help students understand diverse perspectives, and to provide avenues for students to get engaged in their community. Many such activities are one-time assignments that students complete on their own….
Adam Irish University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s Spring 2012 edition. My first experiences teaching students to write occurred during a two‐year stint as a Teach For America (TFA) teacher in Las Vegas, NV. I struggled to illuminate the importance of basic writing concepts to my students….
Ellen Grigsby – University of New Mexico This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s Spring 2011 issue. Political theory instructors seeking to emphasize close textual analysis may find it challenging to teach in such a manner as to achieve a balance between the time-consuming task of modeling and underscoring a close reading of…
This essay is part of Educate’s Political Science Educator reading list.
Kenneth W. Foster • Concordia College This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s February 2008 issue. When I took up an assistant professor position in 2003 at the University of British Columbia (UBC—I left this past summer, as discussed below), I had received little training in pedagogy and was focused completely on doing…
Lanethea Mathews-Gardner • Muhlenberg College This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s April 2007 issue. This essay explores several important pedagogical lessons that emerged from a multiple-semester service learning partnership between students in introductory American National Government classes at Muhlenberg College and fifth graders at Jefferson Elementary School in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The partnership…
John Ishiyama • Truman State University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s April 2007 edition. “Active learning” is a buzzword in higher education. There is good reason to believe that it promotes student learning better than “passive” approaches (Shellman and Turan, 2006). Active learning leads to deeper learning of abstract concepts. Brock…
Nancy E. Wright • Long Island University – Brooklyn This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2006 edition. American university students typically have two paths by which to take courses in public administration—through a department or school awarding degrees in public administration or through a political science department. The former offers the…