My goals
As a professor and teacher, my purpose is to design and teach my courses in a way that helps my students learn the course content, improve their critical and analytic thinking skills, and become systematic observers of social and political phenomena. I want students to demonstrate the skills of deep inquiry and to be skeptical consumers of knowledge in the current media-saturated environment. Moreover, I want my students to communicate effectively with others and to articulate, defend, and revise their own ideas. Furthermore, I aim to help my students use their newly acquired knowledge and skills in their daily lives, both to improve their own lives and the lives of others.
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How?
Can one work toward these diverse goals at the same time? My research on teaching pedagogy, my professional training, and my personal experiences all suggest that this is most certainly possible. In fact, helping learners of different backgrounds and skill levels meet this group of objectives is, as I see it, the core of the craft of teaching. As a result of attending a workshop with Dr. Dee Fink, the author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences, I gained a key insight: even though we may not be able control everything in the classroom, we can achieve most of our goals with something that we can do—purposeful, learning-centered course design.
Course design
As a graduate student teacher, I began my research into pedagogy by reading How Learning Works (Ambrose, et.al., 2010) and What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, 2004), but it was finding Creating Significant Learning Experiences (Fink, 2013) that led me to transform my teaching. Fink advocates a learning-oriented Integrated Course Design (ICD), which convinced me that it was possible to create courses in which students reach and exceed my content-specific, critical thinking, and social engagement goals. I began adopting ICD gradually. Student feedback was consistently favorable: students indicated that they now felt more informed when reading news stories about current events and thus approached such stories with a more critical eye, and that they felt more confident and willing to discuss these issues with their peers. For example, a student in my very first ICD course, my Introduction to Political Theory, noted on the course evaluation that “I learned how to work in groups on projects and assignments.” Inspired by the positive response to changes I'd made on my own, I decided to attend the Designing Courses for Significant Learning workshop. There, I worked closely with Dr. Fink and designed a syllabus under his supervision.
The ICD is a dynamic model that integrates four components of a course—situational factors, learning goals, feedback and assessment procedures, and teaching and learning activities—in an interactive, mutually reinforcing way. The first step in designing a course is to gather information about situational factors, such as the learning expectations of the department, program and university, as well as the number of students, their prior knowledge of the subject, and the level and frequency of class meeting. This prior knowledge helps develop other components more purposefully.
The next step in the ICD model is to determine the learning goals for the course. Here, Fink revises Bloom’s taxonomy, incorporating new types of learning goals, such as learning how to learn, leadership and interpersonal skills, communication skills, character, tolerance, and the ability to adapt to change. An important feature of Fink’s approach is that these learning goals are understood to be relational and interactive. Thus, “each kind of learning is related to the other kinds of learning and achieving any one kind of learning simultaneously enhances the possibility of achieving the other kinds of learning as well.” Viewing learning in this way allows me to leverage activities involving course content so that the activities also develop the student as a thinker and citizen. These rich learning experiences also allow students with different skill sets and learning styles to feel successful in my classes: the diversity of objectives and activities means that students frequently make connections with their unique experiences and prior knowledge. These moments allow students to discover new insights about themselves and to see their peers in a new light.
Case Study projects in my Comparative Politics course embody this kind of rich learning. I assign each student team one of the core concepts of the course, such as military coups, social revolutions, or democratization. Each team member selects a case—usually a country—as an exemplar of the concept. If a team is assigned military coups, then students pick countries such Nigeria, Pakistan, or Chile, and complete in-depth research. Then, the group comes together to compare and analyze their cases guided by the theories studied in class. At the end, each team writes a short research report and presents their research in class. This careful examination of a single case and subsequent comparison with other cases gave my students first-hand practice in concept formation, as they refined their understanding of key course concepts. Additionally, students gained experience working on a team, writing a group report, and making a group presentation—all skills their eventual employers will expect of them.
The third element of ICD is educative assessment, which provides students with opportunities to apply what they learned to real-life problems. Here, students have an opportunity to assess their own work with the help of criteria, standards, and feedback from me. In my Middle East Politics class, students carry out a simulation in which they assume the roles of key political actors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stage the peace meetings between the two sides, and, building on their individual research and group study, try to find a solution. This experience is an active, engaging way to learn the history of the conflict, and it provides students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned in order to present their own solutions to a significant problem in international politics. As their instructor, it is extremely rewarding to see the creative thinking, passion and excitement that students bring to finding peace as well as to observe the civility and respect with which they conduct these negotiations.
The fourth component of ICD is formulating proper teaching and learning activities that support the learning objectives. This brings us to active learning: learning via doing. In my classroom, I seek to transform students from passive listeners to active learners. I value active learning because it is a way of creating excitement in the classroom and building students' meta-cognitive skills. In comparison to traditional lectures, active learning puts more emphasis on developing deep thinking skills and increases student motivation. I have found Fink’s “enlarged view of active learning” to be a model that embraces content knowledge, engaged students, and increased student self-awareness. In this holistic view, students access the content; grow their initial understandings through carefully structured active learning events such as simulations, debates, and team-based challenges; and then reflect on their learning experiences via minute papers, journals, or learning portfolios. This reflection not only helps students retain their newly gained knowledge, it can also provide them with the opportunity to think more largely about their prior knowledge or learning strategies. These reflective assignments also provide me the opportunity to observe how my students perceive the learning activities, how they viewed their learning, and whether they were mastering the stated learning objectives. I was especially heartened to see students recognize the role that these learning activities had played in their intellectual development. Significantly, one of my students even reported that “I will take some of the teaching, workshop, and active learning approaches into my own classroom.”
The ICD is a dynamic model that integrates four components of a course—situational factors, learning goals, feedback and assessment procedures, and teaching and learning activities—in an interactive, mutually reinforcing way. The first step in designing a course is to gather information about situational factors, such as the learning expectations of the department, program and university, as well as the number of students, their prior knowledge of the subject, and the level and frequency of class meeting. This prior knowledge helps develop other components more purposefully.
The next step in the ICD model is to determine the learning goals for the course. Here, Fink revises Bloom’s taxonomy, incorporating new types of learning goals, such as learning how to learn, leadership and interpersonal skills, communication skills, character, tolerance, and the ability to adapt to change. An important feature of Fink’s approach is that these learning goals are understood to be relational and interactive. Thus, “each kind of learning is related to the other kinds of learning and achieving any one kind of learning simultaneously enhances the possibility of achieving the other kinds of learning as well.” Viewing learning in this way allows me to leverage activities involving course content so that the activities also develop the student as a thinker and citizen. These rich learning experiences also allow students with different skill sets and learning styles to feel successful in my classes: the diversity of objectives and activities means that students frequently make connections with their unique experiences and prior knowledge. These moments allow students to discover new insights about themselves and to see their peers in a new light.
Case Study projects in my Comparative Politics course embody this kind of rich learning. I assign each student team one of the core concepts of the course, such as military coups, social revolutions, or democratization. Each team member selects a case—usually a country—as an exemplar of the concept. If a team is assigned military coups, then students pick countries such Nigeria, Pakistan, or Chile, and complete in-depth research. Then, the group comes together to compare and analyze their cases guided by the theories studied in class. At the end, each team writes a short research report and presents their research in class. This careful examination of a single case and subsequent comparison with other cases gave my students first-hand practice in concept formation, as they refined their understanding of key course concepts. Additionally, students gained experience working on a team, writing a group report, and making a group presentation—all skills their eventual employers will expect of them.
The third element of ICD is educative assessment, which provides students with opportunities to apply what they learned to real-life problems. Here, students have an opportunity to assess their own work with the help of criteria, standards, and feedback from me. In my Middle East Politics class, students carry out a simulation in which they assume the roles of key political actors in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stage the peace meetings between the two sides, and, building on their individual research and group study, try to find a solution. This experience is an active, engaging way to learn the history of the conflict, and it provides students with an opportunity to apply what they have learned in order to present their own solutions to a significant problem in international politics. As their instructor, it is extremely rewarding to see the creative thinking, passion and excitement that students bring to finding peace as well as to observe the civility and respect with which they conduct these negotiations.
The fourth component of ICD is formulating proper teaching and learning activities that support the learning objectives. This brings us to active learning: learning via doing. In my classroom, I seek to transform students from passive listeners to active learners. I value active learning because it is a way of creating excitement in the classroom and building students' meta-cognitive skills. In comparison to traditional lectures, active learning puts more emphasis on developing deep thinking skills and increases student motivation. I have found Fink’s “enlarged view of active learning” to be a model that embraces content knowledge, engaged students, and increased student self-awareness. In this holistic view, students access the content; grow their initial understandings through carefully structured active learning events such as simulations, debates, and team-based challenges; and then reflect on their learning experiences via minute papers, journals, or learning portfolios. This reflection not only helps students retain their newly gained knowledge, it can also provide them with the opportunity to think more largely about their prior knowledge or learning strategies. These reflective assignments also provide me the opportunity to observe how my students perceive the learning activities, how they viewed their learning, and whether they were mastering the stated learning objectives. I was especially heartened to see students recognize the role that these learning activities had played in their intellectual development. Significantly, one of my students even reported that “I will take some of the teaching, workshop, and active learning approaches into my own classroom.”
Active learning
I am very proud to report that my extremely positive experiences employing various active learning techniques have helped me to enhance student learning across multiple dimensions. In addition to case studies and simulations, I have found role play to be an especially effective tool. In my Political Ideologies class, I assigned each student one political ideology, such as liberalism, socialism or feminism. Students studied the assigned ideology and came to class with an overview to share with everyone. We used that day as a workshop: students with same ideology worked together as a group to discuss their ideology and prepare a poster to be presented at the end of the day. This gave all students the opportunity to become familiar with the wide range of ideologies present in the classroom. Additionally, I was able to conduct some informal assessment by conversing with students about the ideologies and reviewing their posters. Next, students were instructed to behave as partisans of that ideology for the first half of the term: they were required to react to any topic introduced in the class from their assigned ideological perspective. I assigned everyone a new ideology for the second half of the term. Students reflected on their experiences at the end of each activity, recording what they learned in their journals. From reading these responses, I see how different this activity is from traditional lectures: students really embraced their perspectives, coming to know the core principles, the ideological nuances, and the way in which their ideology allied with or opposed other ideologies. That class also finished the term with a simulation of the European Parliament. Students explored the political parties in Europe, and studied the political party corresponding to their assigned ideology. I selected some controversial policy issues, student groups drafted policy proposals, students then attempted to convince other students via debate and informal lobbying, and the class voted at the end. These experiences gave me the opportunity to witness the effects of motivation, excitement, and engagement on the results of instructional activities and exams. More importantly, students' own assessments of their learning and growth closely paralleled my own positive observations: one student stated “I improved my interpersonal skills,” and others reported that they had learned “how to form argument and counter arguments in debates,” “[t]he ability to think critically,” or had improved their “[a]nalytical thinking,” and “[p]ublic speaking.”
Use of active learning techniques has also provided me with the opportunity to employ the flipped classroom model in my teaching. I have used various mechanisms, such as quizzes and online discussion boards, to hold students accountable for familiarizing themselves with the content before class, I then use active learning exercises in class. This gives me the opportunity to detect the aspects students had problems understanding and focus more on addressing those parts. For example, in my Political Ideologies class, students had no difficulty acting as partisans of Liberalism or Conservatism, but struggled more with Socialism and Communism. Recognizing this, I addressed their needs by a focused lecture. Likewise, once I have ascertained that all students have done the reading and that the class comprehension is satisfactory, we can then have a discussion or do an activity that is a true extension of the concepts from the reading.
The ICD is applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses. Harmonizing the situational factors—such as the age, motivation, and knowledge of the students—and learning goals with equivalent learning activities may serve better learning outcomes in graduate courses as well. For example, employing active learning approaches in methodological training, such as learning research methodology via researching, followed by writing a research paper and getting constructive feedback from professor helps graduate students to be better prepared for writing a thesis or dissertation. By assigning active roles in class discussions and activities I hope to be able to train future professors and help them contribute to the field of political science.
Use of active learning techniques has also provided me with the opportunity to employ the flipped classroom model in my teaching. I have used various mechanisms, such as quizzes and online discussion boards, to hold students accountable for familiarizing themselves with the content before class, I then use active learning exercises in class. This gives me the opportunity to detect the aspects students had problems understanding and focus more on addressing those parts. For example, in my Political Ideologies class, students had no difficulty acting as partisans of Liberalism or Conservatism, but struggled more with Socialism and Communism. Recognizing this, I addressed their needs by a focused lecture. Likewise, once I have ascertained that all students have done the reading and that the class comprehension is satisfactory, we can then have a discussion or do an activity that is a true extension of the concepts from the reading.
The ICD is applicable to both undergraduate and graduate courses. Harmonizing the situational factors—such as the age, motivation, and knowledge of the students—and learning goals with equivalent learning activities may serve better learning outcomes in graduate courses as well. For example, employing active learning approaches in methodological training, such as learning research methodology via researching, followed by writing a research paper and getting constructive feedback from professor helps graduate students to be better prepared for writing a thesis or dissertation. By assigning active roles in class discussions and activities I hope to be able to train future professors and help them contribute to the field of political science.
Teaching experience
My experience at University of Cincinnati has given me the opportunity to teach undergraduate students with very diverse cultural and educational backgrounds—students who plan to go to law school, international students for whom English was not their first language, students majoring in humanities, social sciences and engineering. I have also had the chance to teach both introductory and advanced courses. In total, I have taught five different classes. Some of these courses were very closely aligned with my research interests, and others, like Political Theory, were outside of my area of expertise. While the former gave me chance to share my knowledge and passion for the subject with students, the latter helped me to become more confident in my ability to adapt to new teaching situations and to develop new courses. My graduate study at UC, which has included sophisticated training in research methodology and an exploration of one of the most understudied cases in the Middle East, has also provided me with an opportunity to teach a variety of classes, refine my pedagogical perspective, and excel in the classroom.
Ramin Ahmadoghlu ©
COURSES I TAUGHT AT GEORGIA GWINNETT COLLEGE
POLS 1101: American Government
Courses I taught at the university of cincinnati
POL 2071: Middle East Politics [Website] [Syllabus]
POL 2078: Iran: Domestic Politics & Foreign Relations
POL 160: Comparative Politics
POL 140: Introduction to Political Ideologies
POL 368: Nationalism and Identity Politics
POL 2078: Iran: Domestic Politics & Foreign Relations
POL 160: Comparative Politics
POL 140: Introduction to Political Ideologies
POL 368: Nationalism and Identity Politics
"Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness..."
"Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably and empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest.
They strive to improve the world in whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They strive never to think simplistically about complicated issues and always to consider the rights and needs of relevant others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world."