A community of practice is where a group works together toward a shared goal. This article argues that Twitter hosts a community of practice within political science and international relations. This occurs in three key ways: (1) offering an area to share feelings about our role as educators, (2) connecting to a wider network of educators in our discipline (and other disciplines), and (3) providing a space to proffer practical support. This has been especially true during the current COVID-19 pandemic, when many educators are teaching remotely and potentially feeling cut off from colleagues and students at their institution. In more normal times, Twitter also offers a valuable means of connecting with other scholars in the discipline across the world, providing a space to learn from and support one another. The article concludes by reflecting on what this might mean for continued professional development in the political science and international relations discipline.

Most research on diversity within political methodology focuses on gender while overlooking racial and ethnic gaps. Our study investigates how race/ethnicity and gender relate to political science PhD students’ methodological self-efficacy, as well as their general academic self-efficacy. By analyzing a survey of 300 students from the top 50 US-based political science PhD programs, we find that race and ethnicity correlate with quantitative self-efficacy: students identifying as Black/African American and as Middle Eastern/North African express lower confidence in their abilities than white students. These gaps persist after accounting for heterogeneity among PhD programs, professional and socioeconomic status, and preferred methodological approach. However, small bivariate gender gaps disappear in multivariate analysis. Furthermore, gaps in quantitative self-efficacy may explain racial/ethnic disparities in students’ broader academic self-efficacy. We argue that the documented patterns likely lead to continued underrepresentation of marginalized groups in the political methodology student body and professoriate.

This article examines the effectiveness of guided peer discussion in building news media literacy. Our longitudinal study finds that this instructional approach increased students’ interest in news headlines, particularly among those with initially low interest. Furthermore, qualitative results show students’ increased awareness of the quality and potential bias of news sources. We conclude that guided peer discussion is an effective means of promoting news media literacy.

Building on the concept of a one-minute paper, I suggest students’ takeaways as a simple technique for inclusive assessment of participation in a classroom. Acknowledging cultural and language barriers, the takeaways technique allows an instructor to grade participation not by observing the frequency of spoken comments but instead by the quality of written comments in students’ one-point takeaway memos completed at the end of each class. In this way, all students have an equal chance to be appraised for their participation, indicated by being attentive in class. This article surveys the scholarship on one-minute papers and participation grading in political science, outlines takeaway procedures, and discusses how to adjust this technique for face-to-face and online learning environments. I suggest that takeaways ensure transparency in grading participation, enable equal opportunities to participate, encourage students’ attentiveness, and create a communication channel for the exchange of immediate feedback between a professor and students.

Although senior capstone courses and projects globally are growing in popularity for undergraduate students in political science, with the potential to integrate prior curriculum and assess student learning, students generally undertake this milestone as individuals. In contrast, we present a teamwork-based capstone course wherein key student submissions—including the final project—are created in teams. Having conducted this course for several years, we describe in this article how we incorporated teamwork and demonstrate how students evaluate teamwork in in-person, online, and hybrid course formats.

In US government courses, simulations have been shown to increase students’ engagement and knowledge retention. We present an original simulation that focuses on both the interactions between political institutions that contribute to policy making and the normative ideas underlying politics. By exploring a civil rights or liberties policy area, students learn about the importance of both political institutions and foundational political ideas such as liberty and equality. Students role-play members of Congress, lobbyists for a pro- or anti-natural gas pipeline group, and Supreme Court justices. Although the goal of simulations in many US government courses is to teach students about the ways that institutions shape policy, this is the first (to our knowledge) that also integrates normative reflection on the ideas behind political arguments. Assessment indicates that the simulation was effective in increasing students’ knowledge of and/or interest in American political institutions and eminent domain.

Increased computing capacity and the spread of computational knowledge has generated the expectation that organizations and municipalities use large quantities of data to drive decision making. However, municipalities may lack the resources to meaningfully use their data for decision making. Relatedly, political science and public administration programs face the challenge of training students for success in this environment. We believe one remedy is the adoption of coproduction as a pedagogical strategy. This article presents a case study of a partnership between a university research team and a municipal emergency communications center as a demonstration of how coproduction can be harnessed as a teaching tool. Findings from this project were presented at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, January 8–11, 2020, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a global effect on higher education. Overnight, entire degree programs had to be moved online. Whereas this meant that teaching and learning in political science and international relations also went into “emergency e-learning” mode, as a recent teacher spotlight in PS: Political Science & Politics termed it, moving online also offered opportunities. One opportunity is collaborative online international learning (COIL) that enables students from universities in different countries to work on a common project. This article argues that working together collaboratively online not only mitigates the pandemic’s physical restrictions and sustains a global space of learning; it also provides for a particular active and affective learning in an intercultural virtual environment that substantiates classroom experiences even in post-pandemic higher education. To support this argument, this article reflects on the experiences of a British–Japanese COIL project that investigated political responses to COVID-19.