Introduction to Political Science

whoever made this course is amazing and i love you. your powerpoint slides looks so interesting and the jokes and narration are so creative!! i'm enjoying the lesson so much so far and this is coming from someone who always has a hard time focusing. and i love the literature references you left because i would love to read more

The course is fairly complete, covering the most prevalent theories in the Western world. An eventual update could include schools of thought such as antic cynism which implicates rejection of wealth, fame, and public life, or Confucianism which implies very codified practices as well an orderly, patriarchal, and gerontocracy society structure. The definitions are fairly easy to grasp and the instructor does a good job at presenting the key point of each theory as well as the pros and cons. I appreciated the effort to present the etymology behind each theory. The instructor does a good job of presenting her source and offering at least one quote per theory. To be fair, though, multiple quotes would be necessary to properly cover the multiple angles to which such complex theories should be approached. Notwithstanding the fact that reflection questions take hours to answer if the student realistically hopes to answer reasonably well, such open questions require a holistic understanding of political philosophy and would be difficult to answers would be difficult to answer even for graduates in political science. Therefore, those questions as far too complex for an introductory course. It would have been better to use quizzes to validate the understanding of the key idea(s) underlying each theory with, maybe, narrow case studies to be analyzed through a specific epistemology. On a more subjectivist level, there seems to be some polishing to be done on the contextualization and the delivery of the jokes. Often, in marketing, we try to build low expectations and over-deliver. I strongly suggest not announcing your jokes before telling them because it builds expectations that fire back if the joke is not funny or too complex. As a presenter, by not announcing your joke, you can simply move on as if nothing happened if the audience doesn't react the way expected. Similarly, you do not want to specify that your own jokes are funny which makes it even more awkward when people are not laughing. The best comedian uses verbal and non-verbal cues such as smiling, modulating the voice pitch, laughing, etc. to subliminally communicate to the audience that it the time to laugh.

While the resource is a useful basis to understand basic political beliefs, there is some bias evident with how some beliefs are described such as Communism and Socialism. It becomes clear that the 'tutor' is using their own indoctrination/experience of political framework when they describe these beliefs.

Good introduction to the topic given the wide range of alternative political systems covered. The length of the sections on each ideology is just about right.

I liked thsi course very very much. Being the first online course I did not know what to expect but I was surprised! I really enjoyed the fact that it was made to look like a notebook and all the pictures chosen! And of course I loved the jokes at the end of each video.

This is great. I have had debates about the differing definitions of some of these concepts. This is giving me more clarity. I am gracious enough to admit I do not know everything, but with courses I can improve my knowledge as well as make an informed decision on where my political leanings my lie and then try to overcome confirmation bias to logically make choices going forward.

I enjoyed the easy explanations of concepts, and the humor was always a motivator to keep learning. It really expanded my knowledge of the different systems out there as well.