2008 APSA Teaching and Learning Track Summaries—Track Ten: Teaching Across the Discipline

Extract

The Teaching Across the Discipline track explored the ways in which political scientists can enhance student learning through innovative techniques that connect political science to other academic disciplines and co-curricular activities. Participants in the discussion agreed that using such techniques require instructors willing to take a risk. That risk, which may involve borrowing from other disciplines, sharing power with students in the classroom, requiring students to engage with civic leaders, pitting students in debate and competition with each other, and recognizing that political science does not exist in a vacuum, can have great rewards for students and faculty alike. Those rewards include students' true engagement in the learning process and with it enlightenment on political issues and theories; and for professors, the satisfaction of knowing that they have helped to bring their students “out of the cave.”