Six Tools for Teaching Political Science Interactively without Embarrassing the Students

For many colleagues, teaching political science interactively without embarrassing the students is a challenging venture. Lectures, power point presentations and unstructured discussions are shaping teaching and learning in many universities. However, methodical-didactical research has developed a number of nice teaching tools which are effective and easy to implement, among them warmups, energizers, fish-bowls, placemats, the think-pair-share method, and the world café. Aim of the paper is to introduce these methods briefly and to discuss the practicability for a political science seminar. In contrast to “ordinary” conference presentations, this contribution is designed as a hands-on presentation: We will test the didactical tools and discuss their benefits.