Active Learning in Political Science © – Made possible in part by Soomo Learning

January 16, 2024October 21, 2026

Meet the ALPS Blog team!

At ALPS, we’re always trying to get out more to meet up with colleagues, talking active learning and sustaining our community.

If you’d like to chat with any of us, then you find a handy list of events we’re signed/signing up to this year below. We’re all very pleasant, friendly types, so you’re always welcome to have a chat.

We can help with all your learning & teaching queries, and we’re also happy to advise on getting published (both here at the blog and elsewhere).

And if you’re not at these events, then we’re only an email away.

Event	Who’s there?
Military Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (MSOTL) Forum, virtual, 9-10 Dec 2026	Amanda
APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, Portland, OR, 5-7 Feb 2027	Amanda
Teaching Day at ISA, March 2, 2027 (virtual) and March 20th, 2027 (Atlanta, GA)	Amanda, Pigeon

October 22, 2026October 22, 2026

Pace-setters, foot-draggers and fence-sitters: Simulating Europeanization with an imagined Directive

It is Week 4 on my second-year European Union Politics module which means something very exciting is happening this week… we are discussing theories of European integration!

It goes without saying that this is the stuff students joining the module most look forward to, will discuss in detail for years to come, and that they would have barely been able to sleep the night before their seminars, what with all the excitement etc. It is a sacred moment, theory is, after all, the narthex of understanding.

But while this is a subject that is already exciting enough on its own, this week I want to share an exercise I use in the Week 4 seminars to increase the joy of it all. This exercise focuses on Europeanization. Europeanization is a concept that, time and again, students can define in an essay or an exam but that they struggle to really conceptualise in seminar discussions.

To build an understanding of Europeanization, I used Tanja Börzel’s 2002 JCMS article ‘Pace-Setting, Foot-Dragging, and Fence-Sitting: Member State Responses to Europeanization’. The article is a great way into Europeanization. In it, Börzel makes the case that EU member states respond to EU policy making either by pace-setting (leading the way, uploading their own rules), foot-dragging (blocking or delaying costly rules, or holding out for a better deal and maybe even some compensation) or fence-sitting (backing neither side, deciding that maybe this isn’t your fight and that there is another prize to focus in on).

This is a compelling split and can help students think about why there are varieties in commitment to European integration on specific and differing policy issues. However, these aren’t simply labels that students need to memorise and that they can assign consistently to respective member states. Börzel’s point is that the positions member states take are outcomes – a government’s position follows from its policy preferences and whether it has the capacity to act. So, in short, there is benefit in getting students to go beyond the labels and to think about why member states might react as pace-setters, foot-draggers, or fence-sitters on a specific issue.

October 20, 2026October 19, 2026

Call for Proposals: New Volume on AI in the Political Science Classroom

I’m pleased to announce an open call for a new project, an edited volume on AI in teaching political science. I’m co-editing this with Dr. Charity Butcher and Dr. Devon Cantwell Chavez, and inviting anyone who teaches in the field to consider submitting to the volume. As we say in our call, “this project is born from the urgent need to respond to the growing presence of AI in university education and its impact on how faculty teach, learn, and express our identity as instructors. We hope to capture academic voices from across the field to understand the impact and how faculty are responding in different countries, institutions, classes, and environments. The intent is to create a volume that captures the ongoing experimentation and create a resource that supports a wide range of responses to AI, and presents the varied perspectives that academics currently have about AI in the political science education space.”

The volume will have three parts. First is a primer on generative AI and its impact on education, so we can understand how AI is changing the teaching part of our job, but also get everyone up to speed on a common vocabulary and understanding of what’s underpinning that change. Second, we want to explore some pedagogical approaches in the use of AI–these are theoretical, framework, or approach-oriented pieces that consider everything from how to think through when to allow AI use, what kinds of skills we need to emphasize/deemphasize in our teaching, preserving faculty-student trust, and applications of learning theory and standard teaching approaches to AI. Finally, part 3 will share use cases–activities, assignments, techniques, campus efforts, and teaching materials that either use AI, or mitigate its misuse.

We have set an initial proposal deadline of December 1st, 2026with an anticipated deadline for first drafts of May 1, 2027. Find out more information about this project and how to submit here: https://tinyurl.com/AI-Volume-CFP

October 9, 2026October 9, 2026

Call for Nominations: Award for Best Paper in Human Rights Education

ISA’s Human Rights section is accepting nominations for the best paper in Human Rights Education. This award recognizes a paper presented at any ISA conference in a session sponsored by the Human Rights section. The deadline has been extended to October 16th, 2026. To apply, send a copy of the paper with information on where and when it was presented to prove eligibility, to myself and Professor Cher Chen. Our emails and all the info on the award can be found here:https://www.isanet.org/Programs/Awards/HR-Best-Paper-Human-Rights-Education

October 1, 2026October 1, 2026

October SoTL Roundup

We are back with the latest installment of the monthly SoTL roundup, wherein, each month (as the name implies), I scroll through Journal of Political Studies Education, Politics, PS: Political Science & Politics, International Studies Perspectives, and European Political Science to bring to you, esteemed ALPS reader, the latest Scholarship of Teaching and Learning publications.

After last month’s double-feature SoTL feast, I’m sorry to report that it is lean times in this month’s SoTL round-up.

However, I will simply take that to mean that there is a building of SoTL energy with much more to come in the coming months.

Read on to see this month’s Politics SoTL output…

September 24, 2026September 24, 2026

Stop the job application cruelty.

I took a look today at the APSA job postings, curious to see what was required of would-be assistant professors who are trying to land an ever-scarcer job in a shrinking landscape of opportunities. At a time when many political scientists are finding their contracts and tenures to have less meaning, with programs closing and lay-offs routine, surely we are being kind to the new PhDs who are just trying to get started in their careers. I had thought the market bad in 2008, when the financial crisis led to some folks seeing verbal offers withdrawn as the financial crisis hit that fall. But there are even fewer jobs available now, and those jobs are less secure, so, I imagined that those in the discipline running searches would practice kindness and make the submission process as painless as possible.

What do I mean by kindness? Simply that we demystify the job process and reduce the amount of work expected up front for applicants competing with hundreds of others for precious few jobs. In the past we asked for all kinds of customized documents to help guide the choice, but in an age when we can conduct zoom interviews with our short lists and request additional materials by email, surely–SURELY–we are only asking candidates to submit cover letters and cvs, and maybe letters of recommendation (since those are common across all jobs) or transcripts (better left for the actual hire).

yeah…no.

September 21, 2026September 22, 2026

Crafting your Teaching & Scholarship career narrative: Reflections from an ASPIRE workshop

This blog post is a write-up of a workshop run by the ASPIRE Network at this year’s Political Studies Association’s Teaching and Learning Network Conference, held at the University of Glasgow. This post and the workshop were produced by Prof. Stuart McAnulla, Dr. Jillian Terry, & Dr. Jeremy Moulton.

How do you tell the story of a Teaching & Scholarship career? For many colleagues on education-focused academic career pathways, this deceptively simple question can be surprisingly difficult to answer. That challenge was the focus of our recent ASPIRE workshop, held on the final day of the recent PSA Teaching and Learning Network conference in Glasgow. The workshop brought together colleagues from across career stages and a wide variety of universities to work on something practical: a usable draft of their own career narrative.

The problem

Why do so many talented educators struggle to articulate their professional story as academics? In the workshop, we identified three primary, interlocking difficulties.

September 19, 2026September 21, 2026

“News Portfolio” as a creative course assignment

This guest post comes from Dr. Olga Burlyuk, University of Amsterdam.

Earlier on this blog, I wrote about two creative assignments that I use in my Bachelor and Master political science courses: “book club” and “creative foreign policy speech”. In this article, I will introduce the third quirky assignment – “news portfolio” – which was not a creative assignment in my original conception of it, but acquired a creative spin on the initiative of students themselves. The basic idea is quite simple: students follow the news regarding a particular subject (in my case, country) for the duration of the course, select the most significant news of the week to include in our “weekly newsletter” and discuss in class, and assemble all news items in one file accompanied by a reflection note at the end of the course (the portfolio itself). The first cohort of students came forward asking if I wished them to design their portfolio as a newspaper, if they may have some creative license in this, and if the “reflection note” may be as an “editorial” – and I thought these were fabulous suggestions making the assignment that much more creative, stimulating and, well, fun. So this is what students need to do since.

Below, I discuss the impetus for developing this assignment, its various components and how they evolved, and the assessment criteria.

September 18, 2026September 18, 2026

Submit to the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference

If you are looking for a great teaching and learning conference in the US, look no further than APSA TLC, the biannual conference dedicated to all things teaching in political science. This time it is in Portland Oregon, 5-7 February 2027. The submission deadline is coming up on October 7th, so if you have a paper, workshop, or roundtable idea, definitely get those submissions in soon.

For those new to TLC, it’s a small, dedicated teaching and learning conference that follows a track-based system. Attendees stay with their track the entire conference, getting to focus on a single area and to really get to know their fellow track members, but can also attend workshops and roundtables throughout the event. Examples of tracks include simulations and games, civic engagement, America @250, AI in teaching, and many others.

TLC is a great place to meet others who care deeply about teaching and to exchange ideas. It’s also a great way to get constructive feedback on your scholarship of teaching and learning papers prior to submitting to a journal. The vive is encouraging, positive, and sharing-friendly, and newcomers are welcomed enthusiastically. ALPS itself got its start at a TLC, after the original founders attended it and determined a need for an online resource to share teaching ideas. ALPS has now been running for 15 years, and many other great teaching practices and important scholarship owe their success to a past TLC.

This year, the theme is: “Building Bridges: Dialogue and Discovery in Political Science”. From the announcement: “America democracy and American higher education are facing significant challenges today. Partisan polarization is at all time highs, and the value of higher education, the liberal arts, and social science knowledge is under scrutiny, Political Science is in a unique position to address both threats by building bridges across differences.

With this backdrop, colleagues from diverse departments, campuses, institutions, and states must build bridges with one another. Building bridges requires two sides to meet in the middle, and while that chasm has grown, it just means greater effort needs to be made to dialogue with one another across our differences and disagreements. Only through dialogue can we continue to discover the commonalities that we share, the differences we have, and the respect that is necessary to actually, eventually, meet in the middle of these widening chasms.”

I’m on the planning team this year, and while the submission process refers only to papers, panels, roundtables, and workshops, the team is open to alternative proposals, such as author meets critics, ‘here’s how to teach with my textbook/sotl book’, or innovative formats. Anything you want to do to open up conversation or share ideas on teaching is worth submitting for consideration. For more information, head to: https://apsanet.org/events/teaching-learning-conference/

September 17, 2026September 17, 2026

A Pedagogy of Refusal: Join us to meet Claire Timperley and Kate Schick at UCL Centre for the Pedagogy of Politics

We’d love it if ALPS readers would like to join us in-person at UCL in central London for an opportunity to meet Claire and Kate from Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand to discuss ideas from their new upcoming book, A Pedagogy of Refusal. Please sign up on Eventbrite.

September 16, 2026September 16, 2026

ISA Virtual Course: Teaching Beyond the Classroom: A Practical Guide to Creating Educational Video Content

The latest ISA virtual PASS course, Teaching Beyond the Classroom: A Practical Guide to Creating Educational Video Content, will take place next Tuesday, September 22nd, from 12:00 PM to 1:15 PM ET. Offered by Dr. Mark Harvey at University of Saint Mary, this is a great opportunity to hone your skills in creating effective educational videos. From the description:

“This practical course introduces participants to the process of turning classroom instruction into educational video content. Topics include basic recording strategies, camera and audio considerations, simple production workflows, editing tools, video hosting platforms, and publishing practices. Participants will also explore how AI can support content creation by generating titles, descriptions, transcripts, keywords, and search engine optimization (SEO) recommendations.”

The International Studies Association routinely offers these virtual professional development (PASS) courses on a variety of teaching topics, and you do not need to be a member to attend (although you do need a free account on isanet.org). Click the links to get more information nd register.

Other upcoming webinars include:

Introducing Academic Chutes & Ladders, Wednesday, Sept. 23 3-4pm ET, with Kerry Crawford and Leah Windsor moderating a panel on the hidden curriculum in academia including Jarod Giger, Rachel Blume, Tami Micsky, and Rashna Richards.

Opportunities and Obstacles for Caregivers in the Academy, Wednesday, October. 21, 2-3pm ET. Part 2 of Academic Chutes & Ladders. Crawford and Windsor return to moderate, with new panelists Karen Sobel, Melissa Bowles-Terry, Lesley Thornton-Cronin, Jennifer Greene-Rooks, Lynn Bielski, Kathi Azim, Amanda Harmon, and Colleen Myles-Baltzy

Students as Decision-Makers: Simulations in Environmental Politics and IR, Wednesday, October 28 12-130pm ET, led by Roni Kay M O’Dell, who will help participants think through how to design and implement simulations.

Getting Started and Developing a Mentorship Network, Wednesday, Nov 11, 2-3pm ET. Part three of Academics Chutes & Ladders, again with Crawford and Windsor moderating, with panelists Crystal White, LeSheba Hilliard, Gina Tillis, Tera Warfield, Carrie Liu Currier, Jamie Scalera Elliott, and Sean Giovanello.

Lifting as we Climb: Service Burdens and Opportunities to Pay it Forward in the Academy
Wednesday, Nov 18, 2-3pm ET. Part four of Academics Chutes & Ladders, again with Crawford and Windsor moderating, with the same panelists as part 3.