Data-Based Teaching: An Introduction and Call for Collaboration

Abstract

Political science instructors increasingly use interactive pedagogies that emphasize active learning over traditional lecture formats. I contribute to this effort by developing a data-based teaching method that relies on student-generated data to illustrate course concepts and to serve as a foundation for a variety of activities in political science classrooms. This article summarizes the technique based on my experience in an introductory course in American government. However, given that this method is not intrinsically limited to any topic or area, I also provide examples of how the basic framework may be applied to other subfields in political science. I conclude by calling for the creation of a network of teacher–scholars interested in developing, sharing, and refining best practices related to data-based teaching.

Introduction: COVID-19 and Emergency e-Learning in Political Science and International Relations

“… 3. For an extended discussion of literature related to teaching political science online, see Loepp 2020. …”

From Genre Approaches in Teaching English as a Second Language to the Integrated Cross-Cultural Model of Genre Pedagogy: A Theoretical Review

“…An example of it is the genre-based theme-rheme analysis that results in the acquisition of textual cohesion and generic/contextual coherence (Qin, 2022; Gill, Janjua, 2020). This task-based research should encourage an active participation of students who are the makers of the content and the curriculum design in the databased teaching (Loepp, 2019).…”

Teaching Data Science in Political Science: Integrating Methods with Substantive Curriculum

“…When students apply data-analysis skills outside of the classroom, student outcomes improve (Rosen 2018). Outcomes also improve when students apply data analysis to their own learning (Loepp 2019). In contrast, traditional approaches to teaching methods have disengaged students (McBride 1994).…”