Teaching Philosophy
I advocate a cooperative learning approach. To teach the essential skills like how to craft arguments or interpret political phenomena, I give assignments that prompt students to teach and learn from one another, with the ultimate goal of helping them develop the tools they need to analyze and interrogate the political world.
Student-to-student interactions are critical to the learning process. I often devote 15 minutes in the middle of class to have students work in pairs. In Introduction to International Relations, I give each group a short description of an issue such as global warming or North Korean nuclear proliferation, and ask one student to interpret it from the realist perspective and the other from the neo-liberal perspective. I then have every pair give the class a brief summary of their arguments and describe any conclusions reached. This process takes time, but it allows each individual space to develop their argument and apply the theories learned in lecture. Before I began using this method in my Introduction to Political Economy course, a few individuals often dominated the discussion, but now student participation in my sections has more than doubled, with most students participating most days. Furthermore, several students have told me that they no longer feel unsure about what to write when they are asked to argue a position on a paper or exam because they learned how to craft arguments through this assignment.
Peer learning strategies such as the one above also promote critical analysis and synthesis of course materials, though mainly in a group environment. To deepen those connections when students are alone with their reading, I provide a list of questions for every assignment. In Introduction to Comparative Politics, for example, I ask students to compare the Milgrim experiments with James Scott’s text on patron-client relations and think about what these works tell us about power, obedience, and authority. This exercise encourages students to process course materials and relate them to themes from lecture. In class, I follow up with a discussion on how governments exercise power and bring in examples from my own research on the ways Chinese police use shows of force such as “strike-hard” campaigns to underscore state power and keep residents in line. When presented with multiple examples through different mediums, students can better understand government power and the many ways in which it is used.
Finally, I give assignments that teach students how to interpret the political world around them. To link class discussions with real life, I ask students to complete short research projects, and in East Asian Foreign Policy, I have them find images they believe demonstrate Chinese “soft power.” Students have brought in everything from clips of the Beijing Olympics to clothing with “Made in China” tags. By turning an ordinary sweatshirt into an object of analysis, our class learns to connect theory with political and economic reality. Ultimately, we should teach students the skills they need to think critically about the news stories they read or the political events they witness. With strategies that emphasize peer learning, course material synthesis, and engagement of the political world, I aim to help students cultivate a working knowledge of politics that will last long after our class ends.