ISA - The Teaching Curve

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Kate Schick and Dr. Claire Timperley. Dr. Schick is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Dr. Timperley is Lecturer in Political Science at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. They are co-editors of Subversive Pedagogies: Radical Possibility in the Academy (Routledge 2021). The episode explores how pedagogical choices can subvert the constraints of the neoliberal, colonial university for the benefit of students, instructors, and society at large.  

Our conversation covers:
• Emotional and life-affirming rewards that can be found in investing in the practices of teaching

• Approaches to the profession that create synergies between academic responsibilities that are normally considered separate and distinct obligations 

• How pedagogical choices can subvert the constraints of the neoliberal, colonial university for the benefit of students, instructors and society at large. 

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Jack Kalpakian, Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane in Morocco explores how to deal with religious perspectives in a social science classroom, using liberal arts pedagogies in a culture where education is traditionally based in respect for authority, and how simulations help students find their own voices.  

Our conversation covers:
• Managing religious perspectives in a social science classroom.

• Bringing a liberal arts perspective to  an educational culture that has traditionally been based primarily in  respect for authority.

• Using simulations as a mechanism for reducing the barriers students often feel to expressing their own perspectives and opinions.  

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Rebecca Glazier, Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in the US explores attitudes and strategies for connecting with students in online teaching environments. Dr. Glazier is the author of a new book on the subject, Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students from Johns Hopkins University Press. 

Our conversation covers:
• How a faculty member taking the time to notice and express confidence in a student can have profound, even life-changing effects.

• What exactly makes online courses such a more difficult learning environment for many students, and what kinds of pedagogical tactics can address those challenges. 

• How innovative classroom structures and assignments can leverage the advantages of our discipline to create student engagement. 

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Jan Luedert, Associate Professor and Director of Curriculum and Instruction at City University of Seattle, in Washington state in the US. Jan is currently Visiting Research Scholar at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at City University of New York's Graduate Center. The conversation explores a liberal arts approach to teaching and the benefits for student skills and attitudes, the value of having students identify assumptions as they embark on learning IR theory, and signature pedagogies as a concept that enables reflections on teaching. 

The episode explores:
• A “liberal arts” approach to teaching and how adopting one builds a variety of broader skills and attitudes into global politics courses. 

• How having students identify and own their assumptions helps frame the nuances of IR theory and the nature of politics generally.  

• The concept of a signature pedagogy and how it can inspire reflection about the deeper structures that affect our teaching. 

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Ralph Carter, Piper Professor of Political Science at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas in the US, explores case study techniques in US Foreign Policy courses, methods for helping students engage their power as both analysts and decision makers in ways that serve them well beyond the classroom, and the role that happiness should play in the career and lifestyle choices we as scholars make. 

The episode explores: 
•How teaching with case studies humanizes practices of global politics that can seem to students linear and inevitable. 

•Methods for helping students engage their power as both analysts and decision makers in ways that serve them well beyond the classroom.

•The role that happiness should play in the career and lifestyle choices we as scholars make.  

Today’s conversation is with Dr. Eric Leonard, Professor of Political Science and Henkle Family Chair in International Affairs at Shenandoah University. Eric has run Shenandoah’s General Education Program and edited a textbook for teaching International Relations Theory. 

Our conversation 

·      Explores how flipped classroom techniques can help undergraduate students of all levels energize their learning.

·      Unpacks assessment structures that transparently focus both instructor and student attention on learning how to learn rather than nuances of global politics.

·      And challenges the academic hierarchies between scholarship and teaching that can leave those of us who devote significant energies to the latter feeling insufficiently part of our discipline.  

The Teaching Curve is a podcast exploring the teaching and learning of global issues. This episode with Dr. Shampa Biswas, Paul Garret Professor of Political Science and chair of the Department of Politics at Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington in the US, explores the balance of professional authority and student agency in a global politics classroom and advising, whether to share one’s own political dispositions with students, and tactics for activating students’ personal relationship to the global.  

The episode explores
·      The balance of professional authority and student agency in a global politics classroom and advising

·      Whether to share one’s own political dispositions with students

·      And tactics for activating students’ personal relationship to the global  

Dr. Mvuselelo Ngcoya is a Senior Lecturer of Development Studies in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies (SBEDS) at the University of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. His research and teaching is on agrarian issues as land reform, small-scale agriculture and rural development, as well as the role of subjugated philosophies in International Relations. 

Our conversation explores  

• The politics of student empowerment in a post-colonial university; 
• Approaches to the challenges of decentering Western knowledge, including by expanding the classroom to bring students to the wisdom of the encompassing culture and community;
•  The pedagogical power of disrupting student expectations

Dr. Aparna Devare is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science in the School of Social Science at the University of Hyderabad in India. Her research and teaching is on Post-colonial Theory, Indian Political Thought, and the intersection of Religion and Politics in International Relations. 

The episode explores  

• The use of literature as a way of connecting students emotionally to post-colonial politics; 
•  Adaptations necessary to teach to a wide variety of backgrounds and levels of student preparation, especially with respect to the common language of instruction;  
• And the power of establishing personal connections with students as a way of empowering their learning.  

Dr. Heather Smith is Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada. She has received the 3M National Teaching Fellowship, the Canadian Political Science Excellence in Teaching Award and numerous teaching awards at UNBC. She has held multiple leadership positions with the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 

This episode explores  

• How an awareness of disruption can improve both teaching and learning 
• The importance of mutual appreciation of the human dimensions of the student/teacher relationship
• And the transformative power of the authority to be curious.