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PS Special Issue: Forecasting the 2026 US Midterm Elections Teaching Guide
Published: October 23, 2026
Contributor:Debra Leiter
Content Type:Teaching Material
PS: Political Science and Politics has published a special issue on Forecasting the 2026 US Midterm elections. This teaching resource is designed to make it easier for faculty to use the Special Issue in their lectures. The presentation includes a simple overview of the 2026 elections, background on forecasting, and then a simple summary of each of the 17 articles in the collection, along with some discussion questions. This is designed to supplement the use of the Special Issue in…
Who Decides What “Free” Means? Reweighting a State Policy Index: In-Class Data Activity
Published: October 19, 2026
Contributor:Zachary Norris
Content Type:Teaching Material
A ready-to-run, 75-minute in-class data activity (instructor guide plus two-page student handout) that teaches measurement and composite indices through federalism and state politics. Every group receives the same open dataset, all 50 states scored 0-10 on ten policy categories, but a different set of weights. Students first replicate the published ranking from its components, then reweight it, and discover that their “top five” differs from the group beside them. The disagreement is the lesson: a ranking is an argument about…
Democracy Under Stress: Institutions, Elections, and Civic Resilience: A Course to Examine the Causes and Consequences of the January 6, 2021 Attacks on the U.S. Capitol
Published: October 19, 2026
Contributor:Carah Ong Whaley
Content Type:Teaching Material
This course uses the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the documentary Defenders of Democracy: The Thin Blue Line (https://www.pbs.org/show/defenders-of-democracy-the-thin-blue-line/) as a case study in how democratic institutions are stressed, defended, interpreted, and rebuilt. Defenders of Democracy: The Thin Blue Line examines the causes and consequences of the attack, the electoral certification process, and the experiences of police officers and families affected by the violence.
POLI LIT: Political Science Data Literacy Module
Published: October 19, 2026
Contributor:Edwina Chih-Yu Chen
Content Type:Teaching Material
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…
American Political Thought Assignments and Syllabus
Published: August 31, 2026
Contributor:Alec Arellano
Content Type:Teaching Material
All three of the following essay prompts require students to produce a response between 5-6 double-spaced pages. Additionally, students are required to substantiate their arguments with appropriate textual evidence in the form of direct or paraphrased quotations in order to receive credit. I have given these essay prompts as take-home assignments. They could probably be given as in-class assignments with some modification. Essay Prompt 1: Paradoxes of Self-Government in the Constitution essay (p. 2) Essay Prompt 2: Interpretating the Constitution:…
Navigating an Icy Semester
Published: August 21, 2026
Contributor:
Content Type:Blog Post
Tanisha M. Fazal, University of Minnesota Most of the many challenges of teaching Political Science during the Trump Administration have been intellectual and traditionally pedagogical. But what happens when the challenge becomes more physical, so much so that students and faculty alike may become concerned for their safety? Minnesota’s colleges and universities confronted exactly this situation from December 2025 through – and beyond – March 2026, as the result of Operation Metro Surge, a major federal immigration operation in the…
Civic Education as a Precondition for Civility and Civil Discourse
Published: July 31, 2026
Contributor:
Content Type:Blog Post
Prakash Chenjeri, Southern Oregon University In an era marked by rising political polarization, violent rhetoric, and a decline in public trust, there is a widespread call for civility. Yet, this demand for respectful discourse often overlooks its most critical precondition: a foundation of shared civic knowledge. The idea of civility is not merely an external performance of polite behaviors or a code of conduct for debates. Instead, it is a direct consequence of an informed and engaged citizenry equipped with…
Announcements, Copyright Policy, Submission Policy Summer/Fall 2026
Published: May 21, 2026
Contributor:
Content Type:Blog Post
Political Science Educator: Volume 30, Issue 1 Back Matter Announcements Chapter proposals are currently being accepted for an upcoming edited volume, Teaching Civic Engagement Online, currently under contract for inclusion in the APSA / De Gruyter Teaching Civic Engagement series. We are reaching out to a small group of respected colleagues who we thought might recognize the value of this project and either submit proposals themselves or forward to call to folks they admire who are working in this space. As civic education increasingly…
Navigating AI in the Classroom: Institutional Policy and Instructor Discretion
Published: May 21, 2026
Contributor:
Content Type:Blog Post
Political Science Educator: Volume 30, Issue 1 Reflections By Niva Golan-Nadir (niva.golan@post.runi.ac.il) Responses to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI) in academia are rapidly evolving and taking diverse forms. Recent literature highlights growing concern in higher education regarding generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, Bing, and Microsoft Copilot, particularly in relation to academic integrity (Bittle & El-Gayar, 2025). A central concern is that students may rely on these tools to cheat or plagiarize written assignments and exams (Akintande 2024;…
Listening Across the Rural-Urban Divide: Teaching Democracy When Trust Is Thin
Published: May 21, 2026
Contributor:
Content Type:Blog Post
Political Science Educator: Volume 30, Issue 1 Teacher Scholar By Elizabeth A. Bennion (ebennion@iu.edu) Political science instructors have long asked students to engage across difference. What has changed is not the existence of political disagreement, but the context in which that work now occurs. Disagreement has always been part of democratic life. Yet increasingly, political differences are experienced not simply as disagreements over policies or ideas, but as conflicts tied to identity, dignity, and belonging. Canonical scholarship has long documented…