Pod Save IR: Podcasts as Effective Assignments in the International Relations Classroom

Abstract

This paper discusses the development of a podcast assignment as an alternative to a literature review paper in the international studies classroom. A podcast assignment still enables students to read, evaluate, and synthesize research in a given field, but also allows them to meet other important educational objectives such as application of research to a real-world problem or setting, teamwork, problem-solving, feeling a part of an intellectual community, communication and digital media skills, engagement with the field and the material, and ability to communicate academic research to an interested nonexpert audience. The paper situates podcasts within the scholarship of active teaching and learning, and describes the rationale for the development of the assignment in a course on international political economy, in part to deal with issues arising from the COVID-19 disruption. It describes how the assignment was run and was evaluated, and provides the assignment task description and scoring rubric, as well as supporting materials and resources. Finally, the paper uses student postexperience surveys to gather indirect assessment data on the podcast assignment's effectiveness in achieving a range of educational objectives.