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Kweku Ainuson, Clemson University
Stacy G. Ulbig, Sam Houston State University

Meeting Our Challenges with Innovative Tools
The Core Curriculum/General Education track comprised a wide range of institutions, different areas of expertise, and levels of teaching. Institutions represented were both private and public, and four year colleges and community colleges. Participants were made up of seasoned and experienced teachers, novice teachers, and graduate students. Presenters described their innovative teaching techniques and how they could be effectively employed both inside and outside the classroom. Presentations gave rise to the discussion of various teaching methods and how to tailor the techniques to fit specific needs. In the ensuing discussion one thing became apparent. The goal of the successful teacher is to engage students in a number of ways. 

At the most basic level we wish to impart a knowledge base by engaging students in the class material. More generally we seek to make connections between our classroom activities and the larger civic world around us by engaging students in politics and public affairs. Additionally we aspire to enable students to view themselves as active world citizens by engaging them with their own internal self-image. Finally we encourage students to positively interact with those around them by engaging each other. In achieving these levels of engagement, two more specific tasks emerged during our conversations. First, many of us stressed the importance of imparting basic knowledge and skills. Second, our group felt it was important to strike the appropriate balance between specific facts and larger concepts. As last year’s track participants pointed out, political science courses can “teach several key skills, including critical thinking, independence, citizenship, global awareness, and the importance of recognizing and respecting alternate viewpoints” (Boomgard et al. 2007, 576). 

In seeking to achieve these goals, we came to recognize that we often face a number of perceived dichotomies. Most of us face the challenge of teaching both non-majors and majors in the same classroom. We are confronted by the task of conveying a general knowledge base to non-majors while simultaneously laying the foundation for continued study of political science by majors. We grapple with the task of imparting knowledge to students who have little interest in the material, while at the same time providing political science majors with a rewarding experience that fuels their interest in the subject. Similarly we are often faced with the decision of teaching breadth versus depth. Should we be concerned with covering only the most basic information about most topics or should we focus on communicating a comprehensive understanding of a subset of topics? At the same time we struggle to teach substantive knowledge and build critical skills. We often find ourselves quizzing students on basic factual knowledge on objective exams at the expense of assignments that build more advanced critical thinking and communication skills. Finally we often feel a tension between institutional requirements and the classroom experience. Institutional imperatives such as teaching more students for fewer dollars and measuring learning outcomes often collide with a fruitful and productive classroom environment.
Throughout our conversations the members of this track offered a number of strategies for managing these numerous, and often seemingly irreconcilable, goals. We hope that by sharing a number of the approaches presented and discussed we might encourage others to think creatively about navigating the turbulent waters of teaching classes in the general education/core curriculum area, and to share their survival tools with the rest of us. As practitioners one important issue that confronted us was how to overcome the challenges outlined above. As a group we felt that we could better achieve our goals if we utilize effective and creative teaching methods, better align our assessment with our goals, and approach our challenges as reinforcing rather than contradictory. 

Use Good Tools
Our goals can be reached by effectively presenting the materials to the students, engaging the students by encouraging participatory learning both inside and outside the classroom, and by developing critical thinking skills so students will be able to make sense out of their experiences in the classroom and apply them effectively to understand important issues confronting society. Our track participants explored a number of different methods for achieving these goals, including classroom presentation methods, out-of-class participation exercises, and development of critical thinking skills.  

We explored a number of classroom presentation methods that help to engage students on a number of different levels. One presentation method that was considered particularly useful by this track was the use of PowerPoint presentations in the classroom. The use of PowerPoint is relatively common in the classroom and its use now transcends all disciplines in colleges. However, as experiences in this track showed, it is only when PowerPoint has been applied skillfully and effectively that students can really benefit from it. Many students tend to lose concentration and descend into boredom by just looking at slide upon slide in their classrooms. Incorporating breaks in the monotony of slides is therefore very important in getting student to be more engaged and thereby more willing and able to learn the information being presented. One researcher (Myles L. Clowers, “Using PowerPoint to Teach the American Government Survey Course”) showed that incorporating humor into the slideshow has been successful in getting students to stay focused and get involved. With the widespread use of the Internet, it is relatively easy to find relevant and pertinent humorous Internet links or pictures to go with PowerPoint presentations. It was further noted that even incorporating simple illustrative pictures into PowerPoint slides was very effective at improving classroom engagement. Students exposed to PowerPoint lecture presentations containing simple, colorful images were more likely to report that they understood concepts better and were more likely to show an interest in the subject matter than students who viewed text-only lecture visual presentations (Stacy Ulbig, “Engaging the Unengaged: Using Visual Images to Enhance the ‘Poli Sci 101’ Experience of Non-Majors”). Similarly the use of personal response systems was shown to increase student engagement in the classroom; students reported higher classroom satisfaction when they utilized this classroom technology (Kweku Ainuson, “Effectiveness of Personal Response Systems as a Classroom Technology Tool at Clemson University”). Additional gains can be made when these computerized response systems are used in conjunction with interactive in-class exercises. For example students might be asked to answer a quiz question using the response system technology, but they should do so after having small group discussions about the appropriate answer. Such exercises engage students with the material and each other in a manner that they find appealing. Interestingly another researcher suggested that different modes of instruction can yield equally good results. Knowledge gains from online instruction were shown to be comparable to those that occur in a traditional classroom setting, and that similar gains are garnered from instruction at community college and a major state university (Jane Bryant, “American Government Across Time, Space, and Location”). 

Moving outside the classroom we discussed a number of ways to engage students with others and get them to make connections between these outside activities and their classroom learning experience. We discovered that students responded positively when required to engage in a number of different political activities to fulfill class requirements, with students showing a willingness to engage in seemingly high-cost activities such as political protest (Lindsey Lupo and Rebecca Brandy Griffin, “Political Participation Exercises as a Means to Teach Civic Skills, Engage Students and Recruit Majors”).

Outside the classroom students’ political skills, motivation, and networking abilities were all enhanced through the use of such participation exercises. Inside the classroom gains in substantive knowledge were most greatly attained when the out-of-class exercises were explicitly discussed in the classroom setting. Thus such exercises can serve to engage students in a number of ways—with the material, with the civic world, and with each other. Similarly collaborative writing projects can be utilized to bring students into a dialogue with each other outside the classroom (Daniel E. Smith, “The Value of Collaborative Writing in Introductory Political Science Courses: A Case Study”). Students who interacted with each to produce class writing assignments appear to feel more positively about their critical thinking abilities and make significant gains in substantive knowledge. Thus it appears that out-of-class participation exercises can have a positive impact on in-class performance and satisfaction with the classroom experience. 

A third set of tools we discussed focused on helping students make the connection between the classroom and the “real world” by strengthening critical thinking skills. We discovered that a deeper substantive knowledge might be attained by foregoing the traditional textbook in favor of a series of writing assignments related to core class concepts (Andrew Steinfeldt, “Teaching American Government without a Textbook Revisited”). By building critical thinking and writing skills, students were able to gain a more thorough understanding of key concepts. Similarly intensive writing and rewriting exercises in introductory classes helped students relate class concepts to the larger political world (Lillian J. Lopez and Patrick F. McKinlay, “Serving the Greater Good: Delivering General Education Outcomes in a Small Liberal Arts College”). Importantly such exercises are most effective when students are given frequent feedback. Thus it is important to provide timely and adequate feedback at every stage of the writing process. Further, feedback in various forms, such as in class discussions, written comments, and electronic feedback through systems such as BlackBoard, were all shown to be beneficial.

While we felt that all these tools showed promise, each of us was acutely aware that all tools are not for everyone. We must each work within the context of our own institutions, tailoring these teaching approaches in ways that fit our own realities. Those of us teaching at institutions with small enrollments might be able to make more use of intensive, repetitive writing assignments, while those of us facing larger classes might find the presentation tools more effective. Similarly the value of these various approaches very much depends on how they are used. Out-of-class exercises are of little use if not connected to the classroom in a meaningful way. Personal response systems in the classroom are of limited use if they are not used in conjunction with more interpersonal activities. Finally not all tools do all things. Some methods help more with knowledge gain, some with skill building, and others with civic engagement. Each of us must find the right mix of teaching strategies that can deliver the outcomes we desire within the institutional structures we inhabit.

Align Assessment and Goals
In addition to incorporating innovative teaching methods that fit our institutional needs, we also felt we should strive to align our assessment measures with our goals. We are often called upon to conduct assessments that focus predominantly on student retention of basic factual knowledge, yet this is only one, and perhaps not the most vital, of our goals. Students may be able to score well on assessments that focus on short-term factual recall, but may benefit far more in the long run from the stronger grasp of larger concepts, stronger academic skill set, and personal growth that we often attempt to impart. Our nascent conversations on this topic centered on ways we might better gauge our success at meeting these higher-level goals. At the most basic level we felt the need to develop evaluation instruments that tapped students’ conceptual knowledge, core skills, and perceptions of the civic world and their place in it. We offer little in the way of guidance on this point, but hope that future conference participants will take up questions related to this task.  

Reinforcing vs. Contradictory Challenges
 In our discussion we came to realize that perhaps the most effective way to meet the challenge of engaging students in core curriculum classes was to fundamental change our view of that challenge. We entered our sessions seeing conflict between teaching both non-majors and majors in the same classroom, between teaching breadth and depth, between teaching substantive knowledge and important skills, and between institutional requirements and classroom environment. As we discussed the innovative teaching methods our presenters offered, we realized that these challenges do not have be seen as inhibitors. Teaching non-majors does not have to prevent teaching majors, teaching a depth of knowledge about some topics does not have to take a backseat to covering a breadth of topics, substantive knowledge and skill building do not have to be separate, and institutional imperatives and classroom goals do not have to collide. Instead of seeing these dichotomies as contradictory, we came to realize that we are better served viewing them as harmonious. For instance we can utilize classroom presentation methods to meet both the institutional imperative of teaching more students with fewer resources while at the same time creating an inviting and interesting classroom environment. We can use skill-building exercises to impart substantive knowledge. We can teach a breadth of subjects while allowing students to pursue out-of-class activities that allow a depth of knowledge on particular topics. We can hold the attention of non-majors while simultaneously giving our majors a fulfilling experience. Rather than seeing our goals as inhibitors to one another, we realized that they are better approaches as catalysts.

Reference
Boomgard, Michelle C., Molly Varnadore Campbell, Richard N. Engstrom, and Daniel E. Smith. 2007. “Track Two: Teaching and Learning the Core Curriculum: Political Science and General Education.” 2007 APSA Teaching and Learning Conference Track Summaries. PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (July): 576–7.