In 2004, 40 political scientists gathered in Washington, DC, to inaugurate the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC), which aimed to explore how we teach and how students learn best within the discipline. A common theme linking the active-based curriculum to political science over the past eight years has been the theory of experiential education. Over time, the vibrant conversation within this track has included community-based learning, service learning, civic engagement, community-based research, simulations, case studies, problem-based learning, and internships. The discourse has also shifted away from asking what civic engagement is and how we can integrate it into the curriculum toward questions such as:
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• How do we assess and document learning?
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• What is the long-term impact of civic engagement?
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• What are the affordances to all participants?
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• What constitutes success?
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• What is more important, political engagement or civic engagement?
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• What models can measure efficacy?
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• Can we develop systematic standards?
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• Is there a bias within the framework of some experiential education that favors more affluent students?
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• Do traditional students', nontraditional students', and faculty's definitions of what constitutes political and civic engagement fall within the same realm of activities?
The exchange of ideas within this track has matured as the discipline has developed best practices while documenting effectiveness.
This year in Albuquerque, 30 participants gathered to continue the conversation of civic engagement in track I. The majority of the track participants were first-time TLC participants, although some had attended more than one TLC, and one participant had attended six. The panel also had numerous international colleagues representing the United Kingdom, Ireland, and the Middle East. The track theme proposed to assess and evaluate active learning techniques that engaged students in their local and global communities by investigating the impact of these techniques on civic participation, class participation, political knowledge, and student learning. We talked in-depth about efficacy and explored the notion of how we define and determine success. Similar to the discussion that occurred in 2006, we agreed that planning was imperative in order to achieve the intended learning outcomes. In 2006, the panel called this approach the 3P model (planning, planning, and more planning). As participants did in 2007, we grappled with how best to assess outcomes and the overall impact of students' experiences. Do we know if these activities have a long-term impact, especially as it pertains to efficacy? Several of the papers discussed the immediate benefits, social capital, and affordances of a civic engagement curriculum, which may be organized around four constituents: students, colleges and universities, the community, and the agent or organization receiving the student participation.
What We Discussed
Although many professors know experiential education to be a successful methodology, Mary McHugh (“Why Do We Do Civic Engagement? A Study of How and Why College Professors Use Experiential Learning in Their Classrooms”) discussed the reasons why certain professors use experiential learning in their classrooms and why others do not. One hurdle to experiential learning that emerged in several of the papers was the difficulty in demonstrating results in teaching course objectives, civic engagement, and social capital. It may be that the most important outcomes, such as internal efficacy (Shea Robison and Mark K. McBeth, “I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Using Group Project–Based 101 Course Designs to Enhance Internal Efficacy”) or emotions (Christine Pappas, “The Effects of Service Learning on Internal Efficacy and Emotions”), are hard to see. For example, Dr. Pappas examined students' emotional reactions to service-learning projects and produced many important observations. The discussion among participants explored the role of emotion and questioned whether emotion imparts strongly encoded learning. S. Suzan J. Harkness' paper (“Beyond Service to Learning: Best Practices and Affordances of Experiential Learning”) also conveyed evidence that sustained and repeated civic engagement correlated with increases in efficacy and plans for future engagement.
Projects described experiential learning that ranged from limited six-hour internships in local government (Jennifer Jackman, “Mini-Internships, Public Administration and Civic Engagement”) and classroom-based case studies (John Craig, “Using Scenarios for Learning in Political Science”) to broad multiyear projects (James Simeone, “Assessing the Quality of Citizenship: Do Project Pedagogies Make a Difference?”; Maura Adshead, Andrea Nicole Deverell, and Eídín Ní Shé, “Fostering Inclusivity in Service Learning Initiatives through Emancipatory Action Research”). Jackman described outcomes from a mini-internship model. This study recognized that the trial balloon internship provides outcomes that may lead students into longer-term experiential engagement. Moreover, the study documented that a six-hour shadowing experience impacted students' understanding of municipal complexity and afforded students a greater appreciation of public work. Simeone's small study discussed the importance of networking and social capital and how they dovetail with recently developed models to explain how the notion of new citizenship works. Adshead, Deverell, and Shé presented a very novel approach to civic engagement in which students worked on real-world problems. The project involved students in an effort to catalog the experiences of the Irish Travelers and people with the experience of the asylum process with respect to public services and discrimination. The project was creative, highly involved, and included action research. The decidedly successful outcome yielded numerous affordances beyond meaningful relationships that benefited the community and groups associated with the respective parties involved.
Experiential learning through extended internships and poll working was also discussed. Robbin E. Smith (“Civic Engagement: A Comparison of Community College and University Students”) examined the outcomes of college students engaged in poll working and found that this experience produced a greater likelihood that students may maintain civic engagement in other areas of their lives. In analyzing the 2010 data, it was surmised that the students showed a marked willingness to engage in certain future activities. Jeffrey Sosland and Diane Lowenthal (“The Forgotten Educator: Experiential Learning's Internship Supervisor”) shifted the focus to discuss the important role that the intern supervisor plays in students' experiential learning. Their study found that internship supervisors take their role seriously and feel that they play a dynamic and focal educative role in student learning.
Michael K. McDonald's innovative piece (“Out of the Classroom and into the Field: Helping Students Integrate Their Classroom Learning, Experiential Learning, and Professional Development”) was an excellent capstone to the exploration of experiential learning, because it challenged professors to integrate and collaborate across disciplines and experiences both within and outside of the curriculum. Just as we try to help students understand why English composition or logic are important building blocks for the study of political science, we need to help students scaffold their study abroad, service learning, internship, and research experiences as a continuum of traditional courses and curriculum. Another point that became clear through our discussion was how a student's gender, class, or sexual orientation may mediate his or her response to experiential learning.
Lessons Learned and Conclusions
There were numerous takeaways from this panel that we would like to note:
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• Reflection is critical to the experiential learning process and helps students clarify meaning.
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• The unscripted and sometimes unpleasant experiences that may accompany out-of-the-classroom experiential learning may enhance the learning moment and provide value to augment the construction of knowledge. Real life is not always neat and tidy.
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• Integration of experiential education across the institution—our departments, colleges, and universities—is important.
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• We need to dig deeper into the complex experiences in which students are involved.
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• We must recognize the dialectic between the construction of knowledge and the development of efficacy.
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• The developmental journey is important, and its effects are likely to be long-term and not always easy to evaluate or measure at the end of the semester.
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• As political scientists, we need to be revising what we are talking about and how we are doing it, as one shoe does not fit all feet.
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• Gender and different populations may benefit more or less from experiential education.
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• The role of the community partner and its link to the university is very important in the student learning process.
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• We need to better understand the differences (as well as overlaps) among service learning, civic engagement, and learning for political engagement.
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• The National Society for Experiential Education (NSEE) offers “Eight Principles of Good Practice for All Experiential Learning Activities” that are significant in sharpening the experiential learning process and outcomes.
