Renan Levine: Promoting Critical Thinking
http://www.duke.edu/~rml5/ Renan Levine, a doctoral student political science, won one of the Deans Award for Excellence in Teaching, given to a graduate student. He teaches political science and public policy courses
The annual distinguished teaching awards sponsored by Trinity Colelge and the Center for Teaching, Learning and Writing were awarded Wednesday, April 23, at a ceremony at the Washington Duke Inn. Below, Renan Levine, one of the graduate school winners, discusses his teaching philosophy:
I strive to be the kind of professor that I admired and enjoyed as an undergraduate. These teachers enjoyed teaching, valued getting to know their students and made the content of the course both relevant and interesting. The most satisfying classes I took challenged me to think critically. Getting to know Duke students quickly became one of the most fulfilling aspects of my job, but designing courses to achieve the other goals proved to be a challenge.
Like most graduate students, when I started teaching, I was eager to share volumes of knowledge I acquired in graduate school. My teaching mentor, Professor Frederick Mayer, stressed that there is a big difference between an entertaining lecture packed with interesting anecdotes and insights and one that leaves the students informed about a particular topic. I had to understand how to control the amount of what I share to ensure that the students retain the information. Redundancy in lecture content can be pedagogically useful; simulations, case studies, in-class group activities and research projects that reinforce important themes from the class are even better.
For example, as part of a two week unit on framing and heuristics in my public policy course, "Political Analysis for Public Policy," my students watched part of a comedian's video to identify heuristics, primes and frames highlighted during the monologue; they rewrote a popular reggae song in class; they designed a webpage presenting an analysis of a news story; they applied what they learned during small group discussions on the anniversary of September 11; and they wrote a persuasive memo based on a case study from an assigned reading.
In general, I find that class activities that ask the students to role-play, listen to their classmates' views on a similar problem, complete a task as a team and/or apply the class concepts to contemporary events all play a role in helping the students challenge their own thinking while deepening their understanding of the subject matter. I much prefer these assignments to asking them to regurgitate information in a final exam.
To make the courses relevant to my students' professional careers, I try to give students an opportunity to develop cutting-edge communication skills in the context of substantive course content and research.
In PPS 114: Political Analysis for Public Policy, my students learn to compose policy memos and design web-sites. Websites assist peer-to-peer learning because students can easily see each other's work, enabling them to benchmark their own work and compare their analyses to other cases. The non-linear nature of websites facilitates delegation on group projects because team members can independently work on different elements of the site. I hope that my students can then advertise these skills when they seek employment. I am delighted whenever former students contact me after using their website design skills when completing their public policy internships.
Teaching Awards
The David and Janet Vaughn Brooks Award
The Robert B. Cox Award
The Howard D. Johnson Award
The Richard K. Lublin Award
Naomi Quinn, cultural anthropology
The Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching (Graduate School)
Renan Levine, political science
The Duke University Award for Excellence in Teaching Writing