Leanne C. Powner

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Teaching and Learning in Political Science

My passion for teaching revolves around three closely interrelated themes: the imperative of developing critical thinking skills, engaging students in the learning process, and the opportunity to interact with and mentor students. These themes are tightly intertwined in my pedagogical practices, and they profoundly shape my approach to teaching.

Critical thinking is a foundational skill and primary emphasis of a college education. In political science, much of what we consider critical thinking in our own work comes from training in research methods, broadly defined: What argument am I trying to make? What information is useful to support that claim? What information helps reject counterfactual or alternative explanations? The teaching of research methods, either separately or integrated into other coursework, is to me a critical component of what we do as political science educators. We want our students to understand the world around them. The tools of empirical social science are designed for identifying and explaining patterns and behaviors; they are a very effective means to reach this end. Our challenge, then, is to combine our students’ interest in discussing current events with opportunities to explore the deeper currents and patterns that these events represent and that our research tools allow us to explore. In class, I use current events and well-known examples as starting points to brainstorm other similar-and-different events in world history, and we discuss patterns that emerge across the cases. I’ve developed an extensive set of problem-based learning worksheets which draw heavily on major events and well-known cases to help students explore the dynamics of bargaining and conflict in international relations. These activities, ranging from the median voter theorem in negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement, to spatial modeling in the end of the Cold War, and strategic interaction and uncertainty in the Iraq War of 2003, formed the backbone of my work with CQ Press.  My introductory classes simulate the Munich crisis of 1938 using diplomatic documents for private information and contemporary newspaper accounts for public information. We then construct a Fearon-esque model of the bargaining situation to establish that British intervention was the only way to avoid war. Through these activities, I help my students to develop skills at thinking abstractly about cases, analyzing social dynamics, applying concepts and models to real life, and evaluating and using primary sources.

As those examples may suggest, I strongly believe in the development and use of active learning teaching strategies and other forms of student-centered instruction. Including all students and activating different learning styles in the classroom contributes to a more diverse discussion as previously unheard viewpoints enter the conversation. Active learning is, to me, particularly important in teaching abstract concepts and developing critical thinking skills. By placing students in the middle of the action in simulations, by creating games whose incentives mimic those of the situations we wish to analyze, by using multimedia in the classroom, I strive to help students connect to the material through their own experiences. I introduce the scientific method using concealed (unobservable) dollar store objects which the students must identify without seeing; teaching levels of measurement involves us ‘measuring’ a large collection of fruit (and a couple vegetables) to draw on their intuitive understanding of the concepts. My classes put the “mock” in democracy when we explore bureaucratic politics in a one-day crisis simulation. We discuss, we reenact, we mimic, we observe, we explore.

Learning by doing extends from the classroom to paper assignments and exams as well, and I firmly believe that both should be growth experiences rather than demonstrations of previously-acquired skills and knowledge. Writing is, in its simplest form, demonstrating your critical thinking skills in a way that can be shared with others. My introductory course culminates with the movie paper, where students use any concept or set of concepts from the class to analyze a feature film of their choice. Despite being an ‘extra’ section paper beyond the coursewide requirements, students repeatedly encourage me (via evaluations and informal comments) to give the assignment again; many have “lightbulb” moments when they realize that they can use these terms and concepts to think independently. Reading these papers is one of my favorite parts of this course, and how often can an instructor honestly say that?  As another example, the potential essay questions for the final exam for my comparative politics course were released in advance, and all explicitly asked students to compare across cases in an analytically robust way and with reference to generalizeable theories and claims that we had covered during the term. The resultant essays exceeded expectations in their level of argumentation and evidence.

This may seem like a lot to ask of undergraduates, and it is. As one of my mentees once said, though, “there are no unfunded mandates.” I ask a lot but provide extensive support resources, office hours consultations, and peer review. My website contains a collection of writing and learning support resources that I’ve developed myself, as well as links to items developed elsewhere. Virtually all paper assignments include graduated development and peer review, with plenty of opportunities for revision. The result is that the vast majority of my students finish the course with substantially strengthened writing skills, a sense of what it means to ‘think like a political scientist,’ and an introduction to many of the critical concepts and ideas that they’ll revisit in upper-level courses.

One advantage of being a challenging instructor is the opportunities it provides me for intensive interaction with students as they go through the process of intellectual development and maturation, both in day-to-day classroom support and also in long-term mentoring relationships. Over the last five years, I’ve mentored somewhere around twenty students. Most start out with me in Introduction to World Politics, visiting my office hours regularly as they struggle with the challenging content, and then they return voluntarily, term after term, for informal advising, career guidance, and personal conversations. I typically write fifteen or more recommendations a term, for everything from study abroad and law school to internships, dental school, and nationally competitive fellowship competitions. Even in terms when I’m not teaching, I have office hours to facilitate continued contact with my students. Some remain in contact even years after they graduate; this past spring I received a graduation announcement for a student who had received his Master’s in Public Administration, and an invitation to see another perform in a Broadway in Chicago production when I was there for a conference.

The mark of an effective teacher is one who makes a difference in the lives of students. Ten years from now, my students probably won’t remember facts and trivia from my classes – and that’s entirely all right, because that’s not what I’m trying to teach them. What they will take with them is the ability to think carefully about questions, a deep-rooted understanding of the strategic nature of political interaction, and the memory of an instructor who cared.

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