Data visualization is an important tool for communicating research results. This manuscript discusses a method that instructors can use to introduce political science students to visualizations and discusses strategies that instructors can share with students about how to create high-quality visualizations. These strategies can help students make…

Events of recent years both in the United States and around the globe have highlighted the fragility of democracy. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has prompted educators to seek evidence-based civic engagement methods for helping students understand the invasion and its implications. This paper offers a set of recommendations on how to teach the…

U.S. undergraduates often hold ill-informed and stereotypical perceptions about the Middle East. While theories of comparative politics can help undergraduates gain a more nuanced view of the region, these theories often strike students as extremely abstract and unrelated to actual experience. The use of novels from the Middle East can help…

The 2018 Icelandic film entitled "Woman at War" deals with one of the common tensions explored in feminist literature, that of a woman being forced to choose between a public/political life and private/family life. In this case, the public life is one as an environmental justice vigilante, and the private life is becoming an adoptive…

Simulations offer opportunities for students to receive instruction in political strategies and practice developing political skills without the real-world consequences faced by policymakers. Budget simulations introduce students to collective action problems prevalent at all levels of American government and can be used in a variety of courses.…

Teaching the social contract tradition to students can be frustrating. Works by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau may seem arcane, abstract, or irrelevant to students. Yet, it is important for students to think about what processes or mechanisms would make consent and dissent legitimate. To address this problem, this paper explains how to use a short…

Active learning--and gaming, in particular--is now a well-established part of many political science courses. First, we discuss the design and implementation of a "Gateway Game", a pedagogical tool with broad applicability and test its effectiveness in increasing student motivation, satisfaction, and learning. Crucially, we provide…

This paper describes a relatively new active learning approach--Design Thinking--and its adoption in two comparative politics courses. I draw on my experience using Design Thinking in political science courses to offer instructors another pedagogical tool in the active learning toolkit. I outline the rationale for adopting a Design Thinking…

This article outlines a semester-long advocacy project that walks students through the steps to develop a successful advocacy campaign, culminating in a trip to the state capitol to "lobby" legislators. The manuscript provides faculty with the basic structure for the project and suggests gradable assignments. The project builds on the…

This study brings together insights from the Science Education Initiative with a new course, "Spy Novel Diplomacy: Propaganda and International Relations," which has been taught as a General Education Seminar for first year students. The class will continue on an annual basis from the spring semester of 2020 onward. Thus what follows is…

The 1963 Peter Brook version of Sir William Golding's "Lord of the Flies" is a classic film that can be an instructive metaphor for International Studies and Political Science students to think about the concept of anarchy. This article explores a variety of International Relations theories by juxtaposing them with six separate themes…

In recent decades, nationalism has emerged from the distant purview of history to become the primary driver of some of the world's biggest news. Given the prominence of nationalist conflict, students in political science increasingly study the subject with modern references in mind. This article describes the design for a timely undergraduate…

The simulation that we present here was designed to introduce students not only to climate change policy making but also to the Green Climate Fund and the process of negotiation. Rather than concentrating on either the political debate about climate change or doom and gloom scenarios, the focus of this simulation is on taking action and…

Ideological and Political courses are compulsory lessons for Chinese students throughout their schooling, which also are taken for granted as Citizenship Education courses by the authority. What's the real state of the lesson? Here we show you one example of the lesson. The lesson was recorded in September 2013, in a special classroom with two…

Framing theory is one of the most thriving and complex fields of communication theory, and as such it has grown to be an integral part of many political communication, public opinion, and communication theory courses. Part of the complexity stems from scholars' efforts to develop accounts of framing processes that are closer to the "real world" of…