Methods Discussion and Active Learning in a Volatile Age: A Reflection and Analysis

Abstract

From 2012 to 2016, American news headlines were dominated at various times by the killing of black men either stopped by police or presumed to be engaging in suspicious activity, and protests that spread through the Internet social media hashtag #blacklivesmatter. In this piece, the author revisits his time in teaching at an historically black university (HBCU) during this era, as a White professor. In so doing, the piece analyzes how teaching and using strategies and tools borrowed from the teaching of political science research methods, and active learning strategies generally, can help political science instructors at all weary of taking on similarly explosive issues in their classes—especially, but not exclusively, when the backgrounds of students and faculty differ considerably. Issues are analyzed through a literature review that focuses on issues and matters including: Whether to keep current events discussion and related activity and the emotional reactions they can provoke out of the classroom, incorporating research methods into and promoting scientific thinking in undergraduate classes, and the need for critical thinking and active learning in the political science classroom.

Keywords:

• Active learning
• critical thinking
• peer learning
• research-based learning
• undergraduate education

Notes

1 This season of racial protest is typically said to have begun with the killing of Trayvon Martin by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, near Orlando, in early 2012. The first mention of the term “Black Lives Matter” came after Zimmerman’s acquittal, the next year, on second-degree murder charges. It came, more specifically, out of a social media hashtag, used to tag or catalog stories with keywords. For more information, see (http://blacklivesmatter.com/herstory/).

2 One student in an introductory American Government class later suggested, to me and fellow students, that Black students often do not like talking about racial issues when White people are in the room, a statement which led a few other students to nod their heads. Despite this student’s opinion being a case of N = 1, and the lack of any solid meaning for me to take from the head-nodding of other students, her comment did not seem out of line. It seems safe, on an intuitive level, to say my presence may have had some effect on the classroom, in and of itself. This echoes (information and citation withheld for information that could reveal the author’s identity).

3 I did, as an ice-breaker, tell students a story about being pulled over after stopping to look at a new suburban hotel, with the officer asserting that I warranted suspicion given recent break-ins and the county listed on my car’s license plate. This county happened to be more urban and majority Black. Students would then ask me how this made me feel, the answer to which was: Terrible. The story ended with an officer asking if I had been drinking. My response: No, I watched the movie 12 Years a Slave at a nearby theater. Laughter ensued each time I told this story. Now, Edmin (2016), whose ideas about collaborative learning inform this piece, asserted that being pop-culturally aware was important, at least for high school teachers. This might also apply for collegiate faculty from a more privileged background than their African-American or other minority students. On the other hand, such thing as trying too hard exists, but Edmin did not get into this.

4 I remembered reading about such surveys before. One, from 2015, is at the Cornell University’s Roper Center for Public Opinion Research under the headline “Black, White, and Blue: Americans’ Attitudes on Race and Police” at (https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/black-white-blue-americans-attitudes-race-police/).

5 Also worth some mention here is that I led an online Introduction to Political Science course in Fall 2016. For this, I required students to post reactions to articles involving citizen and National League Football player-led protests of racial injustice and the killing of young Black men. I responded to student comments with critical commentary. However, I do not know, and rather doubt, that all students in the class saw my remarks. Replies in discussion made via the Blackboard learning management system, then used by our campus, could only be made to single student posts. This, in my opinion, made Blackboard, and thus the class, less effective than it could have been for critical discussion.

6 I have one practical research suggestion that comes from trying to put together a timeline for this article; namely, to write about or otherwise somehow document what issues that student discussed on different class days in one’s classes, while also taking note of the day’s top stories. Today’s computer and mobile device applications for notes should make this easier.

7 The phrase, not incidentally, was famously used by the Obama White House in reaction to criticism of his suggesting that a White police officer had “acted stupidly” in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, a Harvard professor of African-American studies, at his home in 2009. See the July 31, 2009 article by Elizabeth Williamson and John Hechinger from The Wall Street Journal entitled “‘Teachable Moment’ Observed With Beer” (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124899365578295227).

8 Critics focused particularly, Thomas noted, on students’ seeking safe spaces to organize and discuss minority issues, as well as their talk of “microaggressions,” a word used to describe racial slights and stereotyping language. The latter, curiously enough, was a term with roots in higher education, having been coined decades earlier by a Harvard education and psychiatry professor Charles M. Pierce (1974). For more on the controversy here, see the March 22, 2014 article by Tanzina Vega from The New York Times entitled “Everyday Slights Tied to Race Add Up to Big Campus Topic.” For a typical conservative critique, see the June 16, 2015 article by Thomas Sowell from The National Review entitled “The Left’s ‘Microaggression’ Obsession Is Indicative of Its Micro-totalitarian Tendencies” (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/419806/lefts-microaggression-obsession-indicative-its-micro-totalitarian-tendencies-thomas).

9 Curiously, Marks noted that one study in the pedagogy of psychology suggested that teaching about prejudice and discrimination through fictional cinema would work well, since it can present ordinary problems as abstractions. The study he cited, however, involved a showing of “The Breakfast Club,” a 1980s teen comedy-drama that involved a wholly White group of suburban Chicago high school students, albeit ones with varying backgrounds, social standing, and personalities (Christopher, Andrew, J. L. Walker, Pam Marek, and C. S. Koenig. 2004. “Using a ‘New Classic’ Film to Teach About Stereotyping and Prejudice.” Teaching of Psychology 31 (3):199–202).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ray Mikell

Dr. Ray Mikell has worked as an adjunct and visiting assistant professor at Jackson State University since 2012. He has also done instructional work at institutions including the Tulane School of Continues Studies, Tulane University, the University of New Orleans, and Augusta State University. He earned his doctorate in political science at the University of Alabama.