ISA - The Teaching Curve

Dr. Anna Meier is an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. Her research concerns terrorism, white supremacist violence, and racism in national security institutions and policies.

Dr. Liam Midzain-Gobin is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. His research concerns settler coloniality, Indigenous governance practices, and Indigenous-settler relationships as a form of international politics. 

The episode explores 

•       Meanings of the concept of decolonization.

•       How decolonization can change syllabi and curricula, that is, WHAT we teach.

•       How a decolonization mindset can change the interactions between teachers and students, that is, HOW we teach. 

The interview was edited for length.

Dr. Naeem Inayatullah is a Professor of Politics at Ithaca College in New York in the US. He has invested significant energy in thinking about how students learn global politics and how to create environments where that can happen. The most recent text exploring this is Pedagogy as Encounter: Beyond the Teaching Imperative (2022 Rowman & Littlefield). Naeem has also published widely on IR Theory and Global Political Economy.

The episode explores 

·       The value of the concept of “teaching” as a definition of the relationships we have with individuals in our courses 

·       Our often-unquestioned assumptions about students that determine so much about how we frame what we are up to

·       Whether teaching global politics (or any topic) can ultimately change the world; and why we should devote ourselves to the project even if the answer is no. 

The episode was edited for length,

This episode is with Dr. Maïka Sondarjee, Assistant Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Maïka’s research investigates multilateralism and international organizations, the white savior complex and feminist theories in international relations.
 Her article “We are a Community of Practice, not a Paradigm: How to Meaningfully Integrate Gender and Feminist Approaches in IR Syllabi” in the August 2022 issue of International Studies Perspectives explores how to integrate gender and feminist approaches into IR. 

Among other things, we discuss:
•       How academics ignore their agency as teachers even as they emphasize their agency as scholars
•       What it means to seize agency in rebuilding the often-unquestioned structures we have inherited for introduction to IR courses
•       How to integrate feminist and post-colonial perspectives throughout syllabi not just as one coherent point of view, but as a mechanism for teaching complexity

The interview was edited for length.

Today’s conversation is with Dr. Jenny Lobasz, Associate Professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the University of Delaware in the United States. Jenny teaches courses and researches on feminist and gender theory, human trafficking, interpretivist research methodologies, and teaching using non-traditional texts. For the last several years she has served as a mentor for the pedagogy workshops that are an annual part of the ISA Northeast Regional Conference.

Our conversation explores 

·      The power of a learning community as a way to understand the work that takes place in a course

·      The importance of being transparent with students about both the work you ask of them and the power relationships behind the ask

·      And ways to teach with confidence even in the face to challenges to your identity as a teacher

This episode's conversation is with Dr. Mauro Caraccioli, Associate Professor of Political Science and Core Faculty in the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and Cultural Thought (ASPECT) at Virginia Tech University in the United States. Mauro teaches courses on political theory, history of political thought, theories of political domination, empire and imperialism, religion and narrative, Latin America and the politics of historiography. 

Our conversation explores 

·      How institutional contexts can influence student attitudes and, by extension, how we empathize with them

·      Differences between the pedagogical approaches to undergraduate and graduate students

·      Ways to help doctoral students prepare for their role as teaching academics 

Today’s conversation is with Petra Hendrickson and Daisy Lupa. Petra is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at, and Daisy a 2022 graduate of, Northern Michigan University in the United States. Petra has published on student engagement, and she and Daisy together presented a workshop at the Innovative Pedagogy Conference that preceded the 2022 International Studies Association Conference in Nashville, Tennessee. This is the first time the podcast has had both instructor and student together to explain a strategy for teaching and learning global politics.

Our conversation covers 

·      Strategies for getting students over the hurdles that too often keep them from engaging both material - that can often be depressing - and faculty members - who can often be intimidating

·      Board games as teaching tools of global political concepts and processes

·      How engaging students in non-traditional active learning techniques can achieve teaching goals that go beyond the course content for any particular day. 

This episode is a conversation with Dr. Franklin Obeng-Odoom, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science Associate Professor of Global Development Studies at the University of Helsinki in Finland. In addition to being a prolific and accomplished scholar, Franklin is a Fellow of the university’s teaching academy, the highest recognition bestowed on its distinguished teachers, and he is the recipient of ISA’s Deborah Gerner Innovative Teaching Award for 2021.

Our conversation explores:
•How “pedagogical pluralism” influences relationships between teachers and students.

•The conceptual framework of “pedagogical citizenship” and how it helps diversify syllabus construction and approaches to teaching. 

•The benefits of and processes for truly empowered student feedback. 

This episode is an interview  with Andrew Szarejko and Sibel Oktay. Andrew is a Donald R. Beall defense fellow in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. Dr. Sibel Oktay is Associate Professor of Political Science and Global Studies and Director of the School of Politics and International Affairs at the University of Illinois Springfield in the US.

Andrew is the editor and Sibel a contributor to Pandemic Pedagogy: Teaching International Relations amid COVID-19 (2022) from Palgrave Macmillan. 

Our conversation covers 

·      Lessons from the adaptations we all had to make to respond to the disruptions of the COVID pandemic 

·      How disciplinary organizations can help support their members in the face of such disruptions

·      How to manage the demands of our profession to make the space to invest in one’s teaching. 

Patrick James is Dean’s Professor of International Relations at the Dornsife College of Letters Arts And Science at the University of Southern California. He has served as president of ISA Midwest and president of the International Studies Association. He is the recipient of numerous distinguished scholar awards including, in 2022, the distinguished scholar award from ISA’s Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS).

Our conversation covers 

·      Productivity at the intersections between research and teaching 

·      How fiction can be used to make abstract IR concepts more accessible

·      And the value for students and faculty of both pedagogical experimentation honesty when those experiments fail 

This episode is a conversation with Victor Asal, Professor Political Science at the University at Albany, part of the State University of New York system. In addition to his research on the use of violence by non-state actors and how states discriminate against groups within their borders, Victor has long been a leading voice promoting the use of games, simulations, and non-traditional exercises in political science and international relations pedagogy. After six years of service, Victor stepped down as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Political Science Education in July 2022.  

Our conversation covers 

·      The increasing acceptance of pedagogical research in political science and international relations. 

·      Why instructors should consider games, simulations and non-traditional exercises to teach concepts and theories of global politics

·      Tried and true games and exercises from Victor’s own courses.