scholarly journals Can Developing Virtues Improve Dialogue Across Political Difference?

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Halteman Zwart
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Intellectual Humility ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Difficult Conversations ◽  
Student Reflections

After the polarizing 2016 presidential election, I heard from many distressed students who felt they lacked the skills or confidence to have difficult conversations with those who disagreed with them politically. In response, I developed a course that aims to help students grow in the virtues and skills necessary for listening and dialogue, putting these to use discussing controversial issues including abortion, gun rights and regulations, cancel culture, speech on campus, immigration, environmental policy, and kneeling for the national anthem. In this article, I make the case for foregrounding virtues such as attentiveness, curiosity, intellectual humility, and empathy to promote good dialogue and prepare students to engage productively across difference. Then, I describe the course design, share qualitative results from student reflections, and highlight insights that are applicable across disciplines. Finally, I address practical obstacles and ethical concerns that have arisen when teaching polarizing topics and offer responses to these challenges.

scholarly journals Refusing to Wait: Just-in-Time Teaching

2018 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 88-102
Author(s):  
Ann J. Cahill ◽  
Tom Mould
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Student Learning ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Just In Time ◽  
Institutions Of Higher Education ◽  
Practical Skills ◽  
Faculty And Staff

Shortly after the presidential election of 2016, a group of faculty and staff at Elon University committed to developing and offering a one-credit course  designed to provide students with intellectual and practical skills that would be useful in facing contemporary social and political challenges. This article describes the process of developing the course, its structure and content, and its effects on the students, faculty, and staff who participated in it. The article also discusses strengths and weaknesses of the course design as a means of helping to ensure the success of any future endeavors. The course, which eventually came to be titled “Refusing to Wait: Intellectual and Practical Resources for Troubled Times,” is an example of how institutions of higher education can respond quickly and effectively to political developments, while keeping student learning at the center of their mission.

The Intersection of Politics and Pedagogy: Teaching Race in Biological Anthropology

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-18
Author(s):  
Corina M. Kellner
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Biological Anthropology ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Job Descriptions ◽  
Anthropological Perspective ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Effective Learning ◽  
Cultural Character ◽  
Academic Year

Abstract As a biological anthropologist, I discuss controversial issues such as race, gender, and anti-scientism with my students. In the light of the 2016 presidential election and the documented upswing of racist attacks at campuses and in everyday life, I tackle the issue of teaching about race in the upcoming academic year. Biological anthropologists should be at the forefront of helping students understand what race is (and is not) and how racism works since we have a complex view of both its biological and cultural character. In this essay, I argue that we acknowledge to ourselves and to our students that this subject can be fraught, and guidelines for discussion should be in place to promote effective learning. Because the anthropological perspective takes a holistic view of humanity, intertwining policy and politics with what we teach in the biological anthropology classroom has to be part of our job descriptions.

The Means and the End Teaching Digital Literacy to Nonprofit Students

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Schatteman ◽  
Li-Yin Liu
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Service Organizations ◽  
Individual Student ◽  
Future Career ◽  
Public Service Organizations ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Student Reflections

For their future career, nonprofit students need to attain the necessary skills and knowledge to leverage the power of technology appropriately to serve their communities. As faculty, we need to design our courses to improve the digital literacy of our students and therefore improve their ability to effectively communicate, manage, and lead public service organizations. This article examines an undergraduate course called Community Organizations in a Digital World that responds to the new demands for innovations in nonprofit organizations. We present the overall course design, including assignments, and the findings of a pretest and a posttest of individual student digital literacy and student reflections on their digital literacy. Based on the two-stage survey, students’ digital literacy significantly improved when they completed the course. Moreover, students appreciated the importance and the difficulty of using social media in their future career. They also recognized the effect of algorithms and social justice issues of accessing technology. This evidence demonstrates the active learning exercises used in this course successfully improved students’ digital literacy.

scholarly journals “Thanks for the Assignment!”: Digital Stories as a Form of Reflective Practice

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorayne Robertson ◽  
Janette Hughes ◽  
Shirley Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Arts ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Course Design ◽  
New Literacies ◽  
Transformative Pedagogy ◽  
Classroom Experience ◽  
Digital Stories ◽  
Student Reflections ◽  
New London

In this article we examine pre-service teachers’ digital literacy stories and post-assignment reflections for evidence of transformative pedagogy. The language arts course design employs both a new literacies approach (Lankshear & Knobel, 2006) and a multiliteracies pedagogical framework (New London Group, 1996). These frameworks are also applied to help us examine the pre-service teachers’ digital stories and reflections. The data consist of approximately 150 digital stories and written student reflections collected over three years. We are encouraged by the finding that the multimedia nature of the assignment appears to help pre-service teachers construct new understandings of literacies, particularly when the digital stories are shared as part of the adult classroom experience. We conclude that digital stories hold potential to encourage pre-service teachers to think critically about how they were taught relative to the teachers they wish to become.

scholarly journals Mapping Persian Twitter: Networks and mechanism of political communication in Iranian 2017 presidential election

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205395172110255
Author(s):  
Hossein Kermani ◽  
Marzieh Adham
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Digital Democracy ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Political Interests ◽  
Networked Publics

This paper investigates the structure of networked publics and their sharing practices in Persian Twitter during a period surrounding Iran’s 2017 presidential election. Building on networked gatekeeping and framing theories, we used a mixed methodological approach to analyze a dataset of 2,596,284 Persian tweets. Results revealed that Twitter provided a space for Iranians to discuss public topics. However, this space is not necessarily used by voiceless and marginalized groups; and the uses are not limited to discussing controversial issues. The growing body of conservative crowdsourced elites emerged to defend the regime’s ideology. Moreover, the dominant networked frames were shaped around normal and routine subjects in an election time. Thus, Twitter was not a platform for only seeking liberal demands. It was to some extent used to serve the regime’s political interests. Furthermore, while many ordinary users rose to prominence, mainstream media continued to act as powerful players. This study contributes to the existing literature into networked practices, digital democracy, and citizen journalism; particularly in restrictive contexts.

Presidential Campaign Funds, 1944

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (5) ◽  
pp. 899-925 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Overacker
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Convincing Evidence ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
Great Effort ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Political Action Committee ◽  
Action Committee ◽  
Close Study ◽  
Special Committees

The 1944 campaign was the second presidential election in which the ceilings of the Hatch Act were operative, and the first campaign in which contributions from labor organizations were prohibited. It furnishes convincing evidence of the ineffectiveness of these limitations and of the imperative need for complete revision of existing regulations of campaign funds.The financing of the 1944 campaign was subjected to close study by special committees of both the House and Senate, and their hearings and reports supplement at many important points the reports required by the Corrupt Practices Act. The most controversial issues of the campaign centered about the Political Action Committee of the CIO, and this organization was subjected to close study by both committees. The House committee, headed by Representative Clinton P. Anderson (now Secretary of Agriculture), also stressed the increasing importance and questionable practices of non-party “opinion moulders,” but did not attempt to summarize the total expenditures of the campaign. Senator Green's committee, in addition to studying certain party committees and independent organizations in detail, made a great effort to compile complete data on receipts and expenditures affecting the presidential campaign, and its report makes available what is probably the most complete and accurate over-all picture of the financing of a presidential election ever recorded. The notable recommendations of this committee will be discussed later.

scholarly journals Implementing a cross-course design for online international exchange in geography courses

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 59-72
Author(s):  
Leonieke Bolderman ◽  
Peter Groote ◽  
Euan Hague ◽  
Jellina Timmer ◽  
Hanneke Boode ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Course Design ◽  
International Exchange ◽  
Management Skills ◽  
Intercultural Awareness ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The University ◽  
Student Reflections

In 2017, the University of Groningen (UG) in The Netherlands and DePaul University in the USA (DePaul) connected undergraduate students in geography courses using an Online International Exchange (OIE) assignment involving videoconferencing. Whereas many international OIE projects are designed on joint alignment principles connecting similar courses and developing similar aims and assignments, this project had a cross-course setup with diverging learning outcomes. In the UG course, OIE was a pretravel activity primarily aimed at developing disciplinary skills. DePaul implemented OIE as an intercultural awareness assignment. Through reflection on the design process and thematic analysis of student reflections, we conclude that the OIE introduced students in the DePaul course to international perceptions and encouraged self-reflection, whilethe OIE stimulated disciplinary skills and introduced intercultural awareness to the UG course. Moreover, OIE stimulated cross-cultural project management skills, increasing awareness of differing educational and urban contexts and thereby training the students in global citizenship. Therefore, this cross-course OIE shows that adapting OIE design to local curricular needs using pre-existing courses can enhance and deepen disciplinaryspecific learning outcomes through cross fertilization, and may create unexpected new learning outcomes. This expands the potential application and benefits of OIE for the internationalization of higher education.

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