I have taught a broad range of courses about the American political system. My teaching philosophy focuses on developing critical thinking skills in my students. I want students to leave each of my classes knowing a great deal more about the content but also to have a greater interest in the study of politics. To see all of my electronically available teaching evaluations, please click here.
An example of interesting projects that challenge students to do something different is my campaign advertisement project. The idea comes from Tim Groeling who is the head of the Communications department at UCLA. I had students build a commercial about the 2016 presidential election and then required students to write a paper highlighting how they used what we know about advertisement effectiveness in their ads.
In 2015, I had students make advertisements on Hillary Clinton v. Jeb Bush. Below are some examples of student work on the campaign advertisements from spring 2015.
In the spring 2016 semester, we chose to do advertisements on Hillary Clinton v. Donald Trump. To see what the 9 groups from my class came up with, see the playlist here.
Benjamin Toll 