SoTL as a Subfield for Political Science Graduate Programs

SoTL as a Subfield for Political Science Graduate Programs

By Lee Trepanier, Saginaw Valley State University

This article offers a theoretical proposal of how political science graduate programs can emphasize teaching in the discipline by creating the subfield of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Currently, these programs neither prepare their students for academic positions where teaching is valued nor participate in a disciplinary trend that emphasize SoTL. Furthermore, the recent political pressure for political science programs to demonstrate their public worth might be alleviated by the scholarship in teaching and learning, which is more understandable to the public than traditional non-SoTL work. The article concludes with some of the challenges political science programs may confront in institutionalizing a subfield of SoTL and how they can overcome them.

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Journal of Political Science Education | Pages 138-151 | Volume 13, 2017 – Issue 1, Published online: 8 December 2016