Here, political scientists share their strategies for teaching. Included posts and articles, from PoliticalScienceNow.com, the Journal of Political Science Education, and PS: Political Science, address ways to incorporate specific substantive issues into the class curriculum or how to encourage student civic engagement more generally through teaching. Links to posts will be updated as new posts are published. We are grateful to Cambridge University Press and Taylor & Francis for providing free access to the JPSE and PS articles featured in the campaign through the end of 2019.
Best Practices in Encouraging Student Civic Engagement
| “Audience, Purpose, and Civic Engagement: A Reassessment of Writing Instruction in Political Science” | Ian G. Anson (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) |
| “Best Practices in Civic Education: Lessons from the Journal of Political Science Education” | Elizabeth A. Bennion (University of Indiana, South Bend) and Xander E. Laughlin (Indiana University Bloomington) |
| “Can All (Intro to American) Politics be Local Politics?” | Emily Farris (Texas Christian University) |
| “Civic Action Projects for Your 100% Online (COVID-19 Adapted) Courses” | Elizabeth Bennion (Indiana University South Bend) |
| “Civic Engagement Through Service Learning in Pomona, California” | Robert Nyenhuis and Brady Collins (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona) |
| “Civic Reflection as Conversation Model: Building Skills for Discussing Values” | Sarah Surak (Salisbury University) |
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“Does U.S. Marine Corps Recruit Training Constitute a Type of Civic Education?” |
Eric B. Hodges (University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee) |
| Lauren Elliott-Dorans (Ohio University) | |
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“Getting out the Vote in the Valley: Connecting Politics and Participation to Youth” |
Randy Villegas (University of California, Santa Cruz) |
| J. Cherie Strachan, Central Michigan University | |
| “I Will Register and Vote, If You Teach Me How: A Field Experiment Testing Voter Registration in College Classrooms” | Elizabeth A. Bennion (University of Indiana, South Bend) and David W. Nickerson (Temple University) |
| “Nonpartisan Student Voter Education and Engagement: Putting Research into Action at TLC at APSA 2019” | Elizabeth C. Matto (Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics) |
| “Pedagogical Value of Polling-Place Observation by Students” | Christopher B. Mann (Skidmore College), Gayle A. Alberda (Fairfield University), Nathaniel Birkhead (Kansas State University), and Yu Ouyang (Purdue University Northwest) |
| “A Pedagogy of Civic Engagement for the Undergraduate Political Science Classroom” | Debra L. DeLaet (Drake University) |
| “Promoting Civic Literacy and Engagement During the COVID-19 Pandemic” | Elizabeth Bennion (Indiana University South Bend) and Judithanne Scourfield McLachlan (University of South Florida St. Petersburg) |
| Sarah E. Croco (University of Maryland), Elizabeth Suhay (American University), Rachel Blum (Miami University), and Lilliana Mason (University of Maryland) | |
| “Teaching Active Citizenship: A Companion to the Traditional Political Science Curriculum” | Michael Smith (Emporia State University) and The Honorable Bob Graham (US Senate, Retired) |
| “Teaching Community Organizing and the Practice of Democracy” | Jyl Josephson (Rutgers University-Newark) |
| B. Welling Hall (Earlham College) | |
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“Want to Build Students’ Civic Engagement? Teach Them How to Use Social Media” |
Jennie Sweet-Cushman (Chatham University) |
| Melissa Michelson (Menlo College) | |
| Sara Chatfield (University of Denver) | |
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“Engagement through Experience: Student-Led Voter Registration Efforts” |
Chelsea Kaufman (Wingate University) |
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“‘Teachnology’ and Civic Engagement in the Year of COVID-19 Instruction” |
Alison Rios Millett McCartney (Towson University) |
Best Practices in Getting Students to the Polls on Election Day
| “Getting Millennials to the Polls: An Extra-Credit Assignment on Voting and Citizenship” | Jeffrey Isaac (Indiana University, Bloomington) |
Candidate Recruitment and Campaign Finance
| “The Cora Brown Lecture Series – American State & Local Government Course at Howard University” | Keneshia N. Grant (Howard University) |
| “Simulated Complexity: A New Classroom Simulation to Teach About Campaign-Finance Laws” | Dick M. Carpenter (Institute for Justice) and Joshua M. Dunn (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) |
| “Campaign Simulation for American Government: An Active Learning Approach to Campaigns and Elections” | Gayle Alberda (Fairfield University) |
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Amber R. Dickinson (Oklahoma State University) |
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| Leslie Caughell (Virginia Wesleyan University) | |
| Jeffrey L. Bernstein (Eastern Michigan University), et al. | |
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Jocelyn Sage Mitchell (Northwestern University in Qatar) |
| “Navigating Partisan Differences in Class Discussions: Engaging Students’ Policy Recommendations” | Eric Schwartz (Hagerstown Community College) |
Conventions and Party Politics
| “Teaching Party Systems: A Culinary Demonstration” | Andre P. Audette (Monmouth College) |
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“When the Party Comes to Town: Experiential Learning During a Presidential Nominating Convention” |
Karen M. Kedrowski (Winthrop University) and Katarina Duich Moyon (Winthrop University) |
COVID-19 and Effects on Politics
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“Using COVID-19 and Connecticut’s Primary Elections to Teach Political Science Concepts” |
Gayle Alberda (Fairfield University) |
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“Will The Pandemic Weaken The Union To The Point Of Collapse?” |
Jennifer Nicoll Victor (George Mason University) |
Democratic Processes, Institutions, and Representation
| “From Rules to Representation: Teaching about the Territories and their Delegates in the US Congress” | Jonathan Lewallan (University of Texas at Austin) |
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“Teaching Trump: Why Comparative Politics Makes Students More Optimistic about US Democracy” |
Hannah Baron (Brown University), Robert A. Blair (Brown University), and Shelby Grossman (University of Memphis) |
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“Working Together: An Empirical Analysis of a Multiclass Legislative-Executive Branch Simulation” |
Nicole Kalaf-Hughes (Bowling Green State University) and Russell W. Mills (Bowling Green State University) |
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“For the Students: How to Analyze a Congressional District Election” |
Josh Franco (Cuyamaca College) |
| “The Presidency and the 25th Amendment in Popular Culture” | Lilly J. Goren (Carroll University) |
Key Local and State Races for 2020
| “I Researched the Sheriff, and I Researched All the Other Local Races” | Emily M. Farris (Texas Christian University) and Mirya R. Holman (Tulane University) |
Media and Political Communication
| “Laughing our Way to a Stronger Democracy: Political Comedy’s Potential to Equalize Political Interest in Community College Students” | Lisa Lawrason (Delta College) |
Polling, Forecasting, and Data
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“Bet Out the Vote: Prediction Markets as a Tool to Promote Undergraduate Political Engagement” |
Lukas Berg (United States Military Academy) and Major John Chambers (United States Military Academy) |
| Eric Loepp (University of Wisconsin-Whitewater) |
Preparing Students for Post-Election Climate
| “‘We Have to Fight Back’: Students’ Thoughts, Feelings, and Plans for Action the Day after the 2016 Election” | Clarissa Hayward (Washington University, St. Louis) |
| “What to Expect When You’re Electing” | Shannon Bow O’Brien (University of Texas at Austin) |
Theoretical and Philosophical Foundations for Democratic Engagement and Political Participation
| “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to ‘Democracy in America’” | Craig Douglas Albert (Augusta University) |
| “Civic Republicanism: How to Make an Animal Out of the Politically Uninterested” | Daniella Mascarenhas (American University) |
| “Practicing Democratic Engagement in the Political Science Classroom” | George Davis (Marshall University) |
| “Racial Liberalism: Connecting Protest and Electoral Politics Today” | Sanford F. Schram (City University of New York) and Richard Fording (University of Alabama) |
| “Challenging Times Demand Focus on Fundamentals of Democracy” | Eric Schwartz (Hagerstown Community College) |
Tips for Continued Engagement Post-Election
| “The Presidential Election “Postmortem”: Preparing Students for Election Outcomes” | Athena King (Virginia State University) |
Voting Behavior and Political Participation
| “Is There a Catholic Vote and Does it Matter?” | Vincent Stine, George Washington University |
| “Will Trump & Congressional Republicans Benefit from White Racial Attitudes in 2020?” |
Isaac Hale, University of California, Davis Carlos Algara, University of Texas, El Paso |
| “Divine Intervention: Can Historically Black Fraternities & Sororities in the Divine Nine Shape Political History in the 2020 Election?” | Caroline Harper (Howard University) |
Voter Suppression, Voter Fraud, Voter Engagement
| “Simulating Redistricting in the Classroom: A Binding Arbitration Decision Game Using Louisiana Census Data” | Peter Miller (Brennan Center for Justice), Steven Kimbrough (University of Pennsylvania), and Johanna Schact (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology) |
| “Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy” | Alice Malmberg (University of California, Santa Cruz) |