ISA - The Teaching Curve: Recent Episodes
Jamie Frueh
This month’s episode is with Dr. Jessica Auchter, Full Professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Université Laval in Quebec, Canada. Jessica moved to her current role after 10 years teaching at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga in the United States. Her research is on visual culture and politics, including the visual representation of atrocity and corpses and human rights. She teaches courses on the visual representation of human rights, methodologies of visual analysis, gender, and humanitarianism. She teaches in English and in French.
Our conversation explores
§ Modeling for students how to navigate the intersections of really horrible human tragedies and the emotional burdens that thinking about and even studying those tragedies evoke.
§ A tools-based mindset as perhaps the most lasting learning objective of international relations courses.
§ The politics of the language of instruction and how instructors can use those politics to open conversations that connect students to deeper learning.
The interview was edited for length.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
This episode is with three scholar/teachers from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts in the US. Phi Su is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Williams. Liz Gallerani is Curator of Mellon Academic Programs at the Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA), and Christine Ménard is Head of Research Services and Library Outreach for Williams College Libraries. The three have collaborated on the design, execution, and revision of two courses that earned Phi recognition as the recipient of ISA’s 2024 Deborah Gerner Award for Innovative Teaching.
Our conversation explores
- Course structures that get students to engage in ways that push them beyond memorization to imagination and creativity.
- The rich opportunities for pedagogical insight and collaboration that exist throughout institutions of higher learning, especially with staff members who often sit at the intersections of resources that can inspire creativity.
- And how pedagogical experimentation and pedagogical evolution feed each other in response to the natural feedback that students provide to our efforts.
The interview was edited for length.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
This month’s episode is with Dr. James Der Derian, Michael Hintze Chair of International Security Studies and Director of the Centre for International Security Studies, and Dr. Jayson Waters, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Centre for International Security Studies, which is part of the University of Sydney in Australia. They have been working together on the fundamentals of Quantum IR, which seeks to find connections between the quantum theory that explains the dynamics of subatomic particles and explanations of global political dynamics.
Our conversation explores
· Definitions of Quantum IR as a theoretical approach to global politics.
· Approaches to teaching Quantum IR to graduate students as an exercise in unlearning assumptions and authorizing innovative thinking.
· And the value of dialogical, flat, and mutually empowering pedagogical contexts in which everyone involved thinks of their interactions as resting on the power to make the future.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for the International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Joel Lorenzatti, Sarah Dorr, and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
This month’s episode is with Dr. Anahita Arian, a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Centre for Geopolitics and a College Research Associate at King’s College at Cambridge University in the UK. Among other positions in Europe, Latin America and the Middle East, Anahita has taught International Relations at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and at the University of Erfurt in Germany. She is the author of a forthcoming chapter on teaching Non-Western IR theory that will appear in the Palgrave Handbook on the Pedagogy of IR Theory.
The episode explores
· How teaching theoretical pluriversality requires significantly different approaches than teaching a focused canon.
· The importance of teaching students how to wrestle with the emotions studying global politics can evoke.
· Pedagogical tactics for improving that emotional intelligence in three overlapping phases.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for the International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Joel Lorenzatti, Sarah Dorr,and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
Dr. Misbah Hyder, a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Teaching Excellence Center at the United States Naval War College in Rhode Island in the US. She consults with faculty there and trains instructors in trauma-informed teaching in professional military education environments. She is co-editor with Michael Murphy on a forthcoming volume Teaching Political Science and International Relations for Early Career Instructors.
The episode explores
• How to leverage the study of pedagogy into a fulfilling institutional role supporting the development of colleagues as teachers.
• The concept of trauma-informed teaching and how adopting it shifts perspectives on pedagogy.
• Specific trauma-informed teaching tactics that make a difference in both the content and practice of IR courses.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for the International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Sarah Dorr, Joel Lorenzatti and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
This episode is a conversation with Jochen Kleinschmidt, a Research Associate and Coordinator of the Center for Latin American Studies (ZILAS) at Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Germany, and Margaryta Rymarenko who has degrees from Central European University in Vienna Austria and who works for humanitarian organizations in Kyiv, Ukraine. Jochen taught at two institutions in Colombia from 2014 to 2020, and Margaryta was a CEU Global Teaching Fellow in Myanmar, teaching undergraduate students in Political Science and International Relations programs at the University of Yangon. They are co-authors of a forthcoming chapter on teaching IR Theory as visitors to classrooms in the Global South.
The episode explores
• The role of teachers, both generally and when teaching in cultures other than our own, in empowering students.
• Problems that accompany the simplifications built into terms like Global South and Global North.
• Processes for helping students connect their personal experiences to the types of knowledge particular to the study of IR and global politics.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Sarah Dorr, Joel Lorenzatti and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, including one from Naeem, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
This episode’s conversation is with Dr. Luba Levin-Banchik, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Cal State University San Bernadino and the 2023 recipient of the International Studies Association’s Deborah Gerner Award for Innovative Teaching. Luba has published on using simulations and other active learning techniques and is a leader in the ISA West region.
Our conversation explores
· Attitudes and policies that allow for mistakes and even failure as mechanisms to inspire student investment in learning.
· How to use active learning techniques, such as jigsaw exercises, to get students both to learn new material and teach it to each other.
· Options for framing the work required of building active learning tactics in terms of the returns on those investments.
The interview was edited for length.
Thanks to the steering committee for International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Sarah Dorr, Joel Lorenzatti and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, including one from Naeem, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
Charity Butcher is the Director of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development, and a Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at Kennesaw State University in Georgia in the US. Alasdair Blair is Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic at De Montfort University, in Leicester in the UK.
Charity is the Editor-in-Chief and Alasdair is the Lead Editor of the Journal of Political Science Education, which is published under the auspices of the American Political Science Association.
The episode explores
• The concept of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) as a systematic and rigorous exploration of the mechanisms of successful pedagogy.
• How JPSE and publications like it promote both the wisdom of particular teacher/scholars and the value of pedagogy scholarship more generally.
• Suggestions for how to improve the chances that a submission to JPSE will be accepted for publication.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Sarah Dorr, Joel Lorenzatti and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, including one from Naeem, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
Dr. Alexander Cromwell is a Professorial Lecturer and the Associate Director of the Dean’s Scholars and Experiential Learning program at the Elliott School of international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, DC in the United States. He is the coauthor, along with Saaya Miyashiro, of a recent article in International Studies Perspectives entitled “Promoting Learning about Precarity and Resilience in War: Virtual Encounters between Afghan and American Students in International Studies Courses.”
The episode explores
· The value of cross-cultural interactions for teaching students what it means to have empathy on a global scale.
· Logistics and common problems of integrating international interactions into a global politics course.
· Suggestions for how to improve the process now that online video interactions are more accessible and normal.
The interview was edited for length.
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to the steering committee for International Studies Association’s Innovative Pedagogy Initiative, the folks at ISA HQ, and special thanks to Sarah Dorr, Joel Lorenzatti and Josephine Anderson for logistical and technical support.
Teaching Curve contacts:
Twitter: @TeachingCurve
Email: TeachingCurve@isanet.org
For 23 more stories about innovative and effective teachers of international studies, including one from Naeem, check out Pedagogical Journeys through World Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2020: https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9783030203047
Dr. Mark Harvey is an Associate Professor and Director of the Masters of Business Administration Program at St. Mary University in Kansas in the United States. He teaches courses on global management, international political economy, international business and leadership.
Dr. James “Pigeon” Fielder is an instructor at Colorado State University in the United States. He joined CSU after retiring from the U.S. Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel and Associate Professor of Political Science at the U.S. Air Force Academy.
Dr. Ryan Gibb is an Associate Professor teaching courses in International Relations and Political Science at Baker University in Kansas in the United States. His research focuses on East Africa and issues of land reform.
The episode explores
Adapting games and simulations to different audiences and classroom settings.
Practical considerations about how to run games that increase student learning in assessable ways
How identities of students and instructors intersect with the identities learners and teachers adopt as a critical part of games
The interview was edited for length.
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 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 over the hurdles that too often keep them from engaging both material that can often be depressing and faculty members that 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.
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
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.
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. 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
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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
When we recorded this episode in late 2020, Dr. Cristina Inoue was Associate Professor at the Institute for International Relations at the University of Brasilia. She is now Associate Professor of Environment at Radboud University in the Netherlands. She is a former president of the Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS) of the International Studies Association.
reference
Freire, Paulo, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 4th edition, Bloomsbury, 2018, ISBN 978-1501314131
Dr. Jeff Lantis is Professor of Political Science, Global and International Studies at the College of Wooster in Ohio, US. He is chair of the Innovative Pedagogy Initiative of the International Studies Association (ISA) and co-editor of International Studies Perspectives. He was awarded the 2020 Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award by ISA’s Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS).
Links referenced in the podcast:
Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS) https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Sections/ALIAS
Innovative Pedagogy Conference 2020: https://www.isanet.org/Conferences/Pedagogy-2020
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.
Dr. Esther Jordan is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Faculty Success at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the Kennesaw State University in Georgia, US and the former president of the Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS) of the International Studies Association.
Resources referenced in the podcast:
Maryellen Weimer, Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice, Jossey-Bass, 2013 ISBN: 978-1-118-11928-0
Maggie Berg and Barbara Seeber, The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy, University of Toronto Press, 2016 ISBN: 978-1-487-52185-1
Active Learning in International Affairs Section (ALIAS) https://www.isanet.org/ISA/Sections/ALIAS
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
Today’s dialogue is with Seb Kaempf of the University of Queensland in Brisbane Australia. I invited Seb because he is the recipient of the ISA’s Deborah Gerner Award for Innovative Teaching in 2020. He was awarded the Australian National Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013, and has earned numerous other teaching honors at UQ. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace consistently recognizes his MOOC “Media War X” as one of the top 10 courses on Conflict Resolution worldwide. With his UQ colleague Al Stark, he hosts a podcast on teaching called HigherEd Heroes.
Links referenced in the podcast:
Media War X MOOC through EdX : https://www.edx.org/course/global-media-war-and-technology
Higher Ed Heroes through Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/813707