I’ve begun integrating Perusall into my online, asynchronous graduate international relations courses. First up is a course in our master’s degree program that starts next month. I’ve chosen to start with this one because I typically assign an analysis of a peer-reviewed journal article in lieu of a midterm exam, and the questions in my Perusall assignments for undergraduates mirror my instructions for the article analysis. Regular Perusall assignments will give them opportunities to develop skills they will need for the article analysis.
While practice improves performance generally, in this case I see it as particularly important. A growing proportion of our M.A. students are undergrads who have opted for a fifth-year master’s degree. They begin taking graduate courses in their fourth year of college. My four-person department only has about ten political science majors per year, but given the organization of the department’s curriculum, I encounter only about half of these majors in the classroom prior to their graduation. This means a wide variation in content knowledge and writing ability among the majors who enter the five-year program and first pop up in my M.A. courses. Making the situation even more complicated: the two-year M.A. students are often mid-career military officers who have first-hand international experience and are very academically talented.
These courses are seven weeks long. Previously I assigned an extensive list of readings, two writing prompts, and discussion board participation each week. I’ve replaced one of the writing prompts with two Perusall assignments in each week. I’m hoping that this change will help build a sense of community among the students, which is more difficult to achieve in an asynchronous online environment than it is in a physical classroom. At minimum the use of Perusall should cause students to notice the superior skills of some of their classmates and stimulate them to increase their own efforts.