scholarly journals Teaching Students to Hear the Other Side: Using Web Design and Election Events to Build Empathy in the Political Science Classroom

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (03) ◽  
pp. 659-663
Author(s):  
Leslie Caughell
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Science Classroom ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Student Learning Outcomes ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
The Political ◽  
Professional Skill ◽  
Course Content

ABSTRACTResearch suggests that technology in the political science classroom may enhance student experiences and help instructors achieve their student-learning outcomes. Yet, how technology may foster more empathy for opposing viewpoints—an essential characteristic of deliberative democracy—has received less attention. This article outlines an assignment that required students to use WordPress to construct a campaign website for an opposition candidate and write a paper justifying their content and design choices. After completing this assignment, students demonstrated increased knowledge of the candidates for whom they designed websites. Additionally, they displayed a greater level of confidence in the competence of those candidates and a greater understanding of why the candidates would appeal to certain voters. Students also expressed a belief that the assignment provided a tangible professional skill that they would use in the future, and they indicated that their belief in the demonstrated utility of the assignment made it more enjoyable and engaging. This assignment provides one example of how technology may be used in the political science classroom in a way that facilitates student engagement and democratic citizenship, while also helping the instructor to gauge students’ ability to apply course content to contemporary events.

scholarly journals The Democratic Syllabus

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (01) ◽  
pp. 167-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan McWilliams
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Science Classroom ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Student Surveys ◽  
Classroom Dynamics ◽  
Course Content ◽  
Science Courses ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
The Ideal

ABSTRACTThe ideal of the “democratic classroom” has been discussed in educational circles for several years. This article answers the question of whether there are specific advantages to be derived from a democratization of the political science classroom, especially one in which democracy itself is a focus of study. Can giving students more power over course content enhance their understanding of democratic authority and process? The author approached these questions by adding several “democratizing” elements to a seminar course, most notably a “democratic syllabus” in which students determined discussion topics, led class sessions, and submitted work of their own choosing. Student surveys and the author’s reflection suggest that the democratic syllabus was a success in terms of the classroom dynamics that it engendered and the thinking about democratic politics and citizenship that it encouraged. Both students and professor agreed that the democratic syllabus presented challenges that should be considered by anyone thinking about creating or modifying a course on this model. Yet this article argues that many political science courses would benefit from similar endeavors in classroom democratization.

Competing for Liberty: The Republican Critique of Democracy

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 607-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
NADIA URBINATI
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Rights ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Political Tradition ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

Freedom as non-domination has acquired a leading status in political science. As a consequence of its success, neo-roman republicanism also has achieved great prominence as the political tradition that delivered it. Yet despite the fact that liberty in the Roman mode was forged not only in direct confrontation with monarchy but against democracy as well, the relationship of republicanism to democracy is the great absentee in the contemporary debate on non-domination. This article brings that relationship back into view in both historical and conceptual terms. It illustrates the misrepresentations of democracy in the Roman tradition and shows how these undergirded the theory of liberty as non-domination as a counter to political equality as a claim to taking part inimperium. In so doing it brings to the fore the “liberty side” of democratic citizenship as the equal rights of all citizens to exercise their political rights, in direct or indirect form.

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