SYLVES’
TEACHING
Course Groupings
Fall 06 POLITICS AND DISASTER POSC456
Fall 06 POLITICS AND DISASTER POSC656
Fall 06 SPECIAL PROBLEM
Spring 06 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY SEMINAR POSC818
Spring 06 PUBLIC BUDGETING POSC455
Instructor Effort:
Fall 06 POLITICS AND DISASTER POSC456-656. I employed
problem based learning with team and individual
presentations.
I used WebCT to
present chapter extracts, team assignments, to manage
student email, to provide rolling reports of student
performance via “What’s My Grade,” to present course
syllabi, assignments, to make special announcements, and to
make available old examinations or quizzes.
I
conducted three exams 70% short answer and 30% essay on
each one. For each exam I prepared a different take-home
essay question for each student in the class, they had the
option of doing that take-home essay or completing the
closed book essay portion of the test.
I was pleased
to have nine graduate students in the course, among them,
seven from our Global Governance program. The graduate
students wrote two sets of exceptionally good papers, one
of which is being published in an academic journal.
There
were almost three times the number of undergraduates in the
class as graduates, but I was fortunate to have a wonderful
group of undergraduates. The undergraduates wrote terrific
final papers.
Fall 06 PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION POSC303 is a course I enjoy
teaching. I looked forward to my weekly 2 hour meetings
with Mike G.
I learned much
about Mike and myself in our meetings. Mike works
exceedingly hard, perhaps two or three times as hard as
average students, to master material. We parted friends and
I was happy to make possible Mike’s early graduation.
Mike
did a great job on his “My Ideal Federal Job Search” paper
and average on his first research paper assignment. Mike is
super conscientious.
Spring
06 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION SEMINAR POSC818
is a graduate-only course that enrolled 18. This is one of
my flagship courses and I enjoy teaching and preparing for
it when I get to teach it every other year. This course is
dual listed in Urban Affairs as UAPP818.
I basically
assigned one book for every two class sessions. We used
Chasek et al.’s book entitled Global
Environmental Politics and Durant,
Fiorino, O’Leary’s Environmental
Governance Reconsidered, plus
Eckersley’s The Green
State. These books
gave half the course and international thrust. I think the
three Global Governance students in the course appreciated
this.
I
used WebCT to great advantage in this course and it is of
particular help for once-a-week 3 hour courses.
This
course required three major papers. I was thrilled that the
class had several older and experienced environmental
activists, one a career-long California organizer of the
Nature Conservancy. Most of the students in the course are
Environmental and Energy Policy graduate students.
The
toughest to read and comprehend, and the book that drew the
most criticism was Karen Eckersley’s The Green
State, which is a
social constructivist take on the compatibility of
democracy and environmentalism. To say Eckersley’s book is
abstruse is an understatement. I ended up writing summaries
of the final half of the book in order to make it
understandable to about half the class, the other half
grasp what it said. This probably hurt my course
evaluations as this book came at the end of the course.
However, I made it clear that books like Eckersley’s
The Green
State are commonly
assigned in graduate seminar at many major U.S. and
European universities.
Spring 06 PUBLIC BUDGETING POSC455 is a course I enjoy
teaching but which is a tough draw for students, as many
expect it to be quantitative.
I employed
problem based learning with team and individual
presentations. In many sessions I asked students to make
short presentations on portions of the assigned readings.
I
used WebCT to present chapter extracts, team assignments,
to manage student email, to provide rolling reports of
student performance via “What’s My Grade,” to present
course syllabi, assignments, to make special announcements,
and to make available old examinations or quizzes.
This
course demands that students memorize over 100 terms. My
key word lists and glossaries and article extracts helped
them prepare for tests given in the course.
I conducted
three exams 70% short answer and 30% essay on each one. For
each exam I prepared a different take-home essay question
for each student in the class, they had the option of doing
that take-home essay or completing the closed book essay
portion of the test.
I assigned
three books in the course.
I bonded with
several students in the course. I wrote letters of
recommendation for several.
Advisement and
additional variables:
I served on Ruth Norman’s thesis defense committee. I
continue to serve as advisor to Environmental and Energy
Policy student Carol Luttrell. I also served on Nick
Galasso’s MA thesis defense committee.
I have written letters of recommendation for graduate
students Robert Alfano, Ruth Norman, Joseph Pereira, Sarah
Schuld, Matt Webb, and Neil Roosman.
I also wrote letters Daniel LoFaro, Lauren Ross, Ingrid
Albaugh, Chris Campbell, Chris Byrne, Paul Connelly, Nicole
deBrabander, Rachel Eisinger, Jeff Engle, Elizabeth
Hopkins, Joseph Neutzling, Rick Nietubicz, Bradley Smith,
Caroline Spangler, and Melissa Turner.
I
continue to provide advisement to the pool of
undergraduates assigned me, which I understand, numbers 45.
Besides academic advisement, many of these students are
seeking career advice.
Contribution
to Political Science and IR Department’s Mission:
I used WebCT intensively in all my courses in the review
period. I continued to use it in my Spring and Fall
semester 2006 courses. I believe that my professional
development efforts will help the department’s
undergraduate program, provide more automated services to
our students, and relieve department staff of a significant
number of clerical activities that would be necessary were
I not using WebCT in my courses.