Jeffrey L. Bernstein

Cultivating Civic Competence: Simulations and Skill-Building in an Introductory Government Class.

I examine the impact of simulations on student learning and on the growth of civic competence in an introductory American government class. By civic competence, I refer to an individuals skill and ability to make sense of vast amounts of political information; to work with others (and in civil opposition to other peoples ideas) where appropriate; and to develop effective strategies for political action. The simulations I describe here are successful in building political skills for students, albeit with some limitations seen across sex and racial lines. Students emerge from the class more confident in how well they can handle the tasks that effective civic participation requires. What is more, I show that their feelings of confidence are driven largely by the skills they have attained and not by the objective political knowledge they have gained. These results provide strong evidence that we ought to reconsider how we teach students in the introductory American government class.

Using Simulations and Collaborative Teaching to Enhance Introductory Courses

Professors who teach large sections of introductory classes often seek ways to involve their students in class. The traditional lecture can be bor ing and disengaging for instructor and student alike; this is an especially serious problem when the course is required for students with no interest in the subject matter. Moreover, studies consistently show that lectures are less effective than discussion-oriented teaching methods in developing problem-solving skills and the application of knowledge to other sit uations (McKeachie, Pintrich, Lin, Smith, and Sharma 1990). It therefore seems prudent for instructors to seek other ways to teach their introductory courses. One innovative approach to teaching introductory courses is simulations.1 Because they are difficult to implement in large classes, we suggest the use of simu lations combined with collaborative teaching. Employing student assistants, particularly ones who have participated in the simulation as students, is a gateway to creating successful simulations in large classes. In this article, we report on one experience using this approach.

Overcoming Methods Anxiety: Qualitative First, Quantitative Next, Frequent Feedback Along the Way

Political Science research methods courses face two problems. First is what to cover, as there are too many techniques to explore in any one course. Second is dealing with student anxiety around quantitative material. We explore a novel way to approach these issues. Our students began by writing a qualitative paper. They followed with a term paper, on the same topic, that incorporated material learned in the qualitative paper with quantitative data analysis. This helps students appreciate how different methods complement one another. By starting with more familiar qualitative techniques, then moving to the quantitative, and by writing the paper in stages, we help alleviate student anxiety. Students start within their comfort zone, then move outside it once their attention has been piqued by their research question. We offer a multimethod analysis of the advantages and limitations of this approach. While not perfect, it offers another option for teaching this challenging course. We conclude by discussing how to build upon this approach in the future.

Context Matters: The Influence of State and Campaign Factors on the Gender Gap in Senate Elections, 1988–2000

Since the 1980s, we have witnessed how the gender gap grows and shrinks in various elections; we address how the context in which the election takes place influences the size of the divide. Studying the gender gap in Senate elections allows us to look at multiple elections across time and space to determine when significant electoral gender gaps arise and when they do not. This contrasts with more traditional approaches that focus either on a single presidential election or on a single years House or Senate elections. We demonstrate that electoral gender gaps arise from campaign-level factors (such as candidate sex, the presence of an incumbent, and the issues raised in the campaign), state-level factors (demographics and politics of the states), and the complex interaction of these factors. We would like to thank the many people who gave us helpful feedback and comments on earlier drafts of this paper, particularly Suzanna De Boef, Susan Welch, Eric Plutzer, the Gender and Politics Working Group at Penn State University, Margaret Conway, the editors of this journal, and our anonymous reviewers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association.

Using “Think-Alouds” to Understand Variations in Political Thinking

One of the most important skills students can learn is how to use multiple, conflicting sources of information to formulate and defend positions on political issues. However, when we assign students to do this, all instructors see is the final product. Not knowing the process by which students do these assignments makes it difficult to help them perform the task better. I report on “think-alouds” done with upper-level political science majors and with introductory-level college students. Students use multiple articles about capital punishment to help them form/refine and defend their arguments about capital punishment. They do this while “thinking out loud” as they engage in the task. My results suggest that experts make more connections between sources and more effectively argue with the sources; knowing this will help me better scaffold this assignment to support novice students. I conclude by discussing possible future directions for work on the learning of political information skills.

A Collaborative-Teaching Approach to Linking Classes and Community

Abstract The potential benefits of academic service-learning are manifold, but service-learning is not used to its potential. In this paper, we discuss an innovative approach to the use of academic service-learning, that of collaborative-teaching. We address some possible reasons why faculty members do not use service-learning projects more, and we demonstrate how a collaborative-teaching method helps to expand the reach of this kind of project. The collaborative-teaching approach to academic service-learning helps to make this kind of project possible in a wide range of circumstances and benefits both students and the community partners involved with the project.

What Happens After Reacting? A Follow-Up Study of Past RTTP Participants at a Public Regional University

This chapter’s authors conducted an online survey of two matched groups of Eastern Michigan University (EMU) students and former students. Surveying a cohort of Reacting to the Past (RTTP)-experienced students and EMU students with no RTTP exposure produced findings on student engagement with learning, civic engagement, choice of major, career preparation, and in the case of the RTTP group, information about the class taken, depth of learning, and which elements of RTTP students considered most valuable. The authors report surprising results regarding the comparisons on student performance, retention, and disruption of students’ perceptions of success.

Using Creative Assignments to Help Students Integrate Their Learning in a Campaigns and Elections Class

ABSTRACT The ability to integrate learning—to make connections across classes or even within a single class—is integral to students becoming better learners, and to growing their capacity to perform as civic actors. We discuss an upper-level Campaigns and Elections class in which the course structure and assignments were set up to encourage students to integrate their learning. As part of the class, students played the role of state party committees during the 2016 presidential election, at first making arguments to devote more national party resources to their state campaign and then reporting back to the national party on how the election went in their state, and what the party must do to maximize its future success. Through coding of student final exam essay questions, we explore the degree to which students were able to achieve the integrative learning goals we had set for them, and examine factors that might help predict which students achieved these learning goals. We conclude by generalizing from our experience to discuss best practices for achieving integrative learning in our courses.