Watson earned his B.A. in religious studies from the College of William and Mary in 1995, his M.A. in international peace studies and conflict resolution from the University of Notre Dame in 2001, and his M.A. and doctorate in political science from the University of New Mexico in 2010 and 2013, respectively. Research interests include the…

Given the increasing prevalence of podcast listening, especially among young adults with college education, it is important to consider how student-produced podcasts can impact the student experience in the classroom, contribute to a more participatory course, and help achieve learning objectives. To engage these issues, this article reflects on…

A perennial problem for teachers of political thought is to decide what thinkers to include in the required course readings. In many cases, teachers have come to rely on an established Western canon as they seek to build a shared disciplinary identity, impart key theoretical insights and provide common points of reference. Increasingly, however,…

As colleges and universities push to offer more online offerings, particularly during this current pandemic, concerns about upholding standards of excellence surface. As a result, programs like Quality Matters (QM) have flourished in an attempt to make courses not only easily accessible, but also tied to learning outcomes. This paper takes a look…

This article details assignments and lessons created for and tested in research methods courses at two different universities, a large state school and a small liberal arts college. Each assignment or activity utilized scaffolding. Students were asked to push beyond their comfort zone while utilizing concrete and/or creative examples,…

The inclusion of supplemental online assignments and in-class active learning activities can lead to greater levels of student engagement and learning. Students reported that they were more engaged in the classroom and felt that both helped them in exam preparation. Both were also shown to have positively affected student performance and, perhaps…

Colleges and universities are increasingly intentional about meeting well-articulated and consistent general education goals and documenting substantive learning outcomes. Institutional imperatives to document the successful teaching of essential knowledge and skill sets frequently fall to faculty and departments, posing new challenges in an…

This article reports on our experiences in a German-American partnership in internationalizing the curriculum. In a globalized world, engaging other cultures and identities as well as understanding global issues and events from other perspectives are important qualifications that allow students to gain different insights in political science. Yet,…

Self-reflective political scientists have extensively reviewed the history of the discipline and argued over its future, but to date there has been little effort to systematically survey undergraduate scope and methods courses (for an exception see Thies and Hogan 2005). This lack of data leaves the discipline unable to assess how much we are…

Globalization, global citizenship, and political engagement have become such buzzwords and cliches that we often lose the sense of their meaning. Global citizenship in particular is an elusive concept to operationalize. This article proposes to look at three dimensions of global citizenship: legal (rights and obligations), psychological…

Studies show that metaphors are a useful way to help people understand new or difficult concepts. The research is largely silent, however, when it comes to the question of whether it is beneficial to ask students to go "beyond transference" by engaging in metaphoric critique and construction. This paper explores how critique and construction…

This article examines the growing body of literature on service learning as a pedagogical tool within political science. It also reports the results of a service learning experiment used in a course on State and Local Politics. Students completed service learning projects that combined community service, attendance at local political meetings…

Many political science departments offer, and increasing numbers of them require, undergraduate research methods courses. At the same time, studies cite high levels of student anxiety about such courses. Utilizing survey data from both students who take and faculty who teach methods, we conduct an analysis that compares the barriers students and…

A persistent question in undergraduate education is the question of getting students to prepare adequately prior to coming to class meetings. This article touches on some of the literature related to this "perennial issue" and then discusses the use of the Internet, via Course Management Software systems, as a solution to this problem. As opposed…

The "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education" generated by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL 2000) provides a plausible set of pedagogical goals to guide the construction and implementation of an undergraduate research methods course. We argue that the context of the undergraduate methods…