Maria Rost Rublee • University of Tampa This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2006 edition. My upper-level political science classes are focused on reading, discussion, writing, and presentations. I want students to grapple with material on their own, analyze it to produce their own insights, and come to class prepared to…
Gus Jones, Jr. • Miami University Michelle G. Briscoe • Miami University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s April 2006 edition. Census reports reveal that the U.S. is increasingly becoming a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and a multi-racial society. Aware of these demographic trends, colleges and universities are scrambling to formulate and implement curricula…
Jeffrey Bernstein • Eastern Michigan University John Ishiyama • Truman State University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2005 edition. During the 2006 American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, we were pleased to do a workshop that introduced colleagues to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) and offered…
Emmanuel C. Nwagboso • Jackson State University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s April 2006 edition. “Probabilities Pondering” is a method of teaching that allows the professor to vigorously probe the students in the classroom through the discussion of assigned materials to ascertain their comprehension, thinking and reasoning abilities. Generally, if applied…
Alison Rios Millett McCartney • Towson University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s April 2006 edition. Many professors look forward to student presentations as much as they relish day-long committee meetings. In both cases, one hopes that something is accomplished somehow, but the process can be boring with the output of time…
Scott Erb • University of Maine, Farmington This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2005 edition. On October 4, 2005, Chanda Luker, a survivor of the Cambodian genocide who was four years old when it began, spoke to a group of nearly 300 members of the University of Maine at Farmington community….
Jeffrey L. Bernstein • Eastern Michigan University This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2005 edition. If your graduate school experience was similar to mine, teaching and research were viewed as two very different aspects of the professional career, with an uneasy interaction between them. Time devoted to teaching was viewed as…
Nancy E. Wright • Long Island University – Brooklyn This essay originally appeared in the Political Science Educator’s December 2005 edition. Class participation, while always a component of course grades, is not always assigned as useful a role as it can play. Granted, if it comprises only ten or fifteen percent of a student’s grade,…
Written by Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach During this unusual election season, there rightly has been much attention to the importance of making a plan to vote. What might come immediately to mind: making sure one is registered, ensuring one has their voting materials, knowing how and…
Amy Cabrera Rasmussen, Professor of Political Science at California State University, Long Beach This week, something happened that has the potential to change some of how we understand the pandemic: the President of the United States tested positive for COVID-19. At this point, the better part of a year into the public health crisis, it…