Undergraduate Courses
POLI 260: Introduction to Global Politics. MOST RECENT SYLLABUS (Spring 2015).
POLI 360: Security Studies. MOST RECENT SYLLABUS (Spring 2015).
Course descriptions are available here. Students should be aware that in POLI 360, I use a 'flipped classroom' approach - posting some lectures online and using class time for focused group assignments. Reliable research (e.g. this article) suggests student learning is improved when students work through applied problems with peers. I have found this format to improve student engagement and understanding, and thus continue to use it. However, student reactions have varied, from grudging acceptance to flat-out dislike. So in the interests of full disclosure, you can read the student evaluation comments below and decide whether this approach is best for you.
Textbook chapter
Arjun Chowdhury. 2015. "Regime Change and Persistence." In Chris Anderson and Rand Dyck (eds.), Studying Politics: An Introduction to Political Science, 5th Edition, 390-416. Toronto: Nelson Education.
Undergraduate Honors (Date of completion)
Sajjad Dewji (2011)
Shamim Shabani (2012)
Sam Rowan (2013)
Mohamed Said (2014)
Kasra Behnampour (2015)
Vivian Wan (2017)
Student evaluations
I am told that students want access to course evaluations (e.g. this recent article). I would hope students choose courses based on their own interests and/or the advice of peers they trust. However, I am also in favor of students taking responsibility for their own decisions, which is harder to do when information - even somewhat misleading information like course evaluations - is unavailable. I am therefore posting all my evaluations in unedited form. Before you read them, please have a look at the comment below. Here's how to read and understand these evaluations
Bottom line: IGNORE THE AVERAGES, LEARN FROM THE COMMENTS.
IGNORE THE AVERAGES: look at the response rates in the top right (the number of responses divided by the number of students enrolled). They are 40-60% meaning that a large minority, or even a majority, have not responded. The evaluations do not constitute what social scientists call a ‘representative sample’ because we don’t know who is responding and who is not responding. We don’t know what the averages would be if a representative or random sample had responded. Maybe it’s just the people who like the class who are responding, meaning the average is higher than it would be if everyone responded. Maybe it’s just the people who have strong reactions, whether positive or negative, meaning that there are few ratings in the middle of the scale (3 or ‘Neutral’ on the UBC scale). Either way, we don’t know. It’s not that the average is necessarily wrong. It’s worse than that: we don’t know what it means. You should never make decisions based on information that is so indeterminate. If you often make decisions based on this sort of information, you are probably making a lot of bad decisions. You need to learn how to make decisions (and you would benefit from taking my class).
LEARN FROM THE COMMENTS: in my experience, UBC students generally provide useful and fair comments. I certainly update my classes based on these anonymous comments, especially if several students make similar criticisms. The anonymity is good in one way for you, and bad in another. It is good because students can express their disapproval without fear of penalty. Therefore, the comments can give you red flags. It is bad because you don’t know the student who has made the comment, and therefore don’t know whether to trust them. The best way of choosing classes remains the advice of peers you know and trust. These evaluations are not a substitute for that advice. But there are a lot of comments - far more than there are on my page at ratemyprofessor.com - so they should provide some information.
POLI 260: Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Spring 2013, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Fall 2016, Fall 2017
POLI 360: Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013, Fall 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018