Supported by the Center for Teaching Excellence GTA/TA Teaching Resource Development Grant (USC)

POLI-LIT is an ongoing teaching innovation project designed to integrate data literacy, research methods, and AI-assisted learning into political science education. We piloted this module in POLI 101: Introduction to Global Politics (University of South Carolina, Fall 2025) with approximately 80 students. The module is designed for introductory-level courses but is adaptable for other political science and social science courses.

The module combines one in-person lecture with three online, self-paced units, each completion-based. It introduces students to data commonly used in political science research and develops their ability to interpret and visualize information responsibly, with the support of generative AI tools.

Module Overview (v1.2):

Pre-Unit Lecture: Introduction to political research methods, conceptualization and measurement, and how political scientists use data and indices.

Unit 1 — Data Literacy: Understanding datasets and codebooks, ethical data use, and basic statistical concepts such as distributions.

Unit 2 — R Basics: Getting started with R (Posit Cloud), learning R fundamentals, and creating basic visualizations using ggplot2.

Unit 3 — Data Visualization and AI: Using generative AI tools for coding support, exploring different chart types, and completing a small visualization project.

All datasets, readings, and materials are created for teaching purposes. We plan to continue improving and updating the module over time.