Todd K. Hartman

Teaching

During my graduate career, I have had the opportunity to teach undergraduates at two different universities. First, I taught two sections of an introductory American government course at San Francisco State University, and I also served as a teaching assistant for an upper division course exploring current issues in international relations. Later at Stony Brook, I have developed and taught two of my own courses, as well as served as a teaching assistant for an introductory research methods class.

My strong course evaluations and rapport with students helped me secure a regular position teaching Stony Brook's large introductory course in world politics, which I taught three times during the academic year and three times over the summer. For each class, I updated my syllabus with new readings and material concerning relevant global issues to supplement the textbook. I found that students really responded when they learned how to apply international relations theory to the world around them. In addition, the current events offered me a way to get students involved in class discussions, even in a room of nearly one hundred students.

I was also given the opportunity to design an advanced undergraduate course (Social Psychology of Politics), which introduced students to concepts from social psychology that we then applied to explain political behavior. Since the material was new to most students, I used an advanced undergraduate psychology textbook to serve as the framework for readings taken from scholarly journals. This format worked quite well, as it provided students with sufficient background to understand some of the more difficult, but interesting concepts in the readings. Whenever possible, I brought in short video clips of actual experiments (e.g., the Milgram Experiment in Obedience, the Stanford Prison Experiment, etc.) or recreated them in class to try to bring the material to life. At the end of the semester, students used what they had learned from the course to formulate their own research proposals.

Teaching Philosophy

My interactions with students over the past few years have helped me formulate what I consider to be very successful courses. My goal for any course is to get students to think critically about the material, as well as learn to express themselves clearly. For me, this means setting the right tone in class by communicating enthusiasm for the material. I find that students generally respond to my positive attitude and light humor. Moreover, I try to convey key concepts with various methods to accommodate different learning styles and keep the class engaged. I particularly enjoy generating group discussions by posing thought-provoking questions that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no" answer. In sum, I use various techniques to make students feel as though they are part of something important.

Teaching Interests

Given my background in political psychology, American politics, international relations, and research methods, I could teach a broad range of undergraduate and graduate substantive courses:

American Politics

• Political Behavior, Elections, & Voting
• Public Opinion
• Political Communication / Mass Media
• Race & Politics
• Psychology of Politics
• American Ideology
• Parties and Interest Groups

International Relations

• Theories of International Relations
• U.S. Foreign Policy
• International Conflict

Research Methods

• Introduction to Quantitative Methods
• Regression Analysis
• Maximum Likelihood Estimation
• Experimental Design & Analysis
• Survey Methods