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The value of storytelling in teaching and research

Central Panel of Storytelling Session

photo credit: Choconancy1

Scholarly work on storytelling as a device to enhance the learning experience of students has shown the value of introducing learners to storytelling techniques. Some researchers have explored the use of storytelling to advance learning in the workplace (Swap et al 2001). For those of us who have been trained in the qualitative research methods, narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly 2000) is a key strategy that helps us advance our understanding of individual and collective behaviour.

Egan (1989) championed the use of storytelling as a non-mechanistic approach to teaching. It is clear to me, from the works I have reviewed while thinking about this topic, scholarly research has been and continues to be undertaken on how storytelling can be successfully in teaching contexts, and as a qualitative research strategy. It recently all “clicked” in my brain when I realized that I have been doing a lot of storytelling both in my teaching and in my research. And I wanted to pass that on to my own students.

My former doctoral supervisor, someone I profoundly respect as a scholar and as an educator, taught me always to look at data with a rigorous and analytical mind, and to tell a story around the data. He asked me to look at data and think critically and make sense of it. And that’s how I conduct research, and how I hope my own students will undertake theirs. I told my students recently that I want them to do rigorous research, empirically-grounded and theoretically-informed.

In the classroom, I tell my students stories around the topics I research and the relevance of those research projects for the advancement of our understanding of comparative environmental and public policy. And the interesting thing is, my students react very positively to storytelling. This week, I taught a class in “full low-tech mode” (e.g. without any power point nor visuals, only the chalkboard and my own voice). I drew a road map of what I wanted my students to learn and as I was drawing the pieces of the puzzle, I put them together in an overview for them to see.

Students reacted extremely well, some even to the point of commenting “dear Dr. Pacheco-Vega, I really prefer low-tech classes”. I will continue to mix technology-supported lectures with “low tech” ones, but the experience really left me pondering on how valuable storytelling can be in my own teaching, and how much of it I use in my own research.

Posted in research, teaching.

5 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 19, 2010

Transboundary Water Governance Panel Seminar at UBC’s IAR

I’m attending the Global Transboundary Water Governance panel organized by the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the Institute for Asian Research.

Posted in water policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 6, 2010

Crowdsourcing POLI 351 Environmental Policy and Politics

In previous years, I have taken the decision as to which topics I want to cover in my courses unilaterally. I decide what I think would benefit my students and proceed to explore those issues in depth. This year I am taking a somewhat unusual approach. I am seeking input from potential (and currently enrolled) students in my POLI 351 Environmental Policy and Politics course (’10W, Sep-Dec 2010). I have already decided on a list of topics, but I want to see whether there is more interest in one than another. As I have done previously, I will continue to be firmly against “examining the topic of the moment“, so I will not use climate change as the central issue throughout the course.

The current list of topics is as follows

1. Overview of global environmental issues
2. Global public goods
3. From Stockholm to Johannesburg – 30 years of sustainable development
4. The global commons
5. The analytical framework for environmental policy analysis: The policy regime framework (ideas, interests, institutions)
6. Interests in environmental politics
7. Institutions in environmental politics
8. Ideas in environmental politics
9. International environmental regimes (regime theory)
10. North American environmental policy (an overview)
11. The policy process – agenda setting to evaluation
12. Agenda setting – problem definition
13. Instrument design – instrument choice
14. Implementation and evaluation
15. Environmental policy instruments: regulation
16. EPI – market-based instruments
17. EPI – information-based and voluntary instruments
18. Corporate environmental strategy and CSR
19. ISO 14000 series, etc.
20. Environmental non-governmental organization and their strategies
21. Environmental perception, attitudes, values – environmental psychology

In my notes I wrote down that I did not like putting as much emphasis on international environmental politics. Given this, I am thinking to eliminate most of the global environmental politics/international environmental politics and add subject-area topics (e.g. water policy in Canada, solid waste policy in Canada, etc.). Bear in mind that this course is primarily focused on Canadian environmental policy, and that it is mostly a methodological course (e.g. at the end of the course the student should be able to analyze environmental policy).

Posted in teaching.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – August 5, 2010

Modeling the Behaviour of Participants in Social Networking Sites: Insights from Transnational Environmental Movements

I have always had a keen interest in understanding the behaviour of networks. I have previously studied how transnational environmental activist coalitions are built in North America. But before this year, I had never attempted to map out online social advocacy networks of environmentalists. I enjoy challenging myself by tackling uncharted territory and exploring whether a research topic is worth of me delving into. This a brand new talk that I just proposed (and got accepted) to give at Social Media Camp in October of 2010. This talk will synthesize my findings in what I think is still a fairly unexplored topic. The only other scholars who have explored this topic in some depth to my knowledge are Dr. Alexandra Samuel and Dr. Kate Milberry. My approach is much more network-based and explores the sociology of networks (using much of the work of Granovetter and my own empirical research).

The use of social networking sites (SNS) has become widespread in a variety of non-profit and social justice contexts. While before Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund would need to organize mail-in campaigns, now all it takes is a tweet, a Facebook wall message or a YouTube video to spark a movement.

Using insights gained from 10 years of empirical research in the field of environmental policy, as well as my experience as a power social media user, and drawing from the body of work of the sociology of networks, I posit that successful environmental activism campaigns are founded on the basis of a strong understanding and modeling of the
behaviour of participants in SNS.

Drawing from case studies I have analyzed in the past 10 years (and focusing on cases that have used social media in the past 24 months) I offer some general conclusions into how we can model the online behaviour of transnational environmental activists.

Posted in environmental NGOs, research, social media for public policy, social media for sustainability.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – July 13, 2010

Theory and methods in global environmental politics and comparative public policy

I never guess. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My former PhD advisor is a very wise man and I owe a great deal of what I have accomplished to the formidable PhD training I had under his supervision. He shaped my thinking, enhanced my research skills by encouraging me and demanding from me to undertake empirical analyses. Even though my memorization capabilities and speed-reading skills have enabled me to master a broad variety of theoretical frameworks, my former PhD supervisor always wanted me to empirically test theories. Doing so gave me the best of both worlds (theory and empirics).

Throughout the course of my teaching, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, I have refined my instructional skills and summarized in a few sentences what I demand from my students: I want my students’ research to be evidence-based, empirically-grounded and theoretically sound.

As Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s quote has indicated above, it is foolish to theorize before one has data. Even though much of my comparative environmental policy work has focused in the development of better theories that allow us to understand why governments at various scales choose different policy options, I have years of training in empirical research methods, both qualitative and quantitative. I have undertaken in-depth qualitative studies (interviews and institutional ethnographies) and built massive datasets that have been explored through a variety of quantitative methods (including firm demographics and multivariate analysis).

Much as my students may think I’m too demanding, I strongly believe in providing them with a strong foundation in research methods. Even if I do not teach a methods course per se, I showcase examples of studies that have both sound theoretical grounding and robust empirical research methodologies. I think that the best long-lasting learning experience I can give any student is the self-confidence of knowing how to tackle a problem using empirical research methods.

Posted in comparative public policy, teaching.

2 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – April 5, 2010

Whither the research agenda for environmental security?

Salivoli

photo credit: Laurina

In preparing my lectures for this week (in the course POLI 375 Global Environmental Politics), I found myself at a loss. While I am well immersed in the academic literature, reading every issue of the associated journals in the discipline (Global Environmental Politics and International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics), I couldn’t find one single short piece that described to me (and obviously to my students) the state of the research agenda in environmental security.

The work of Simon Dalby, Geoff and Dave Dabelko, Thomas Homer-Dixon and a number of other scholars is focused on environmental security. And while the definitional issue seems to have been left behind in the conversation, I still find that scholars have difficulties in determining what exactly encompasses environmental security.

Recent work by Joshua Busby has focused on demonstrating the linkages between climate change and international security. This link is particularly visible because of the obvious nexus between vulnerability to climate change in nations and bad governance/past conflict. The above mentioned negative conditions have made these countries even more vulnerable. Responding to disasters thus becomes a challenge.

In my primary research field (water), the concept of water security has been at the forefront of academic discussions, but I ponder whether the field of environmental security can afford to continue to focus on “security in resource X or Y” rather than examining the inextricable linkages between environmental degradation and international security/foreign policy.

So I ponder, where is the debate going in the field of global environmental security? Is it going to continue in the two sub-fields (interconnected) of environmental refugees and climate-security? I wrote this blog entry to help set the stage for an online conversation between me, my students in the course, and potentially other research colleagues in the field. Comments, as always, appreciated.

Posted in climate change, climate policy, teaching.

32 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 31, 2010

The challenge of thinking comparatively in cross-national public policy analysis

Book Mooches in North America

photo credit: Digital Sextant

Teaching public policy has always been a delight for me. Exploring the challenges of creating and implementing policies that are effective, efficient and equitable along with my students has been one of the highlights of my academic career. Previously, I taught POLI 350A Public Policy, with a focus on Canadian public policy (urban, social, health and environmental). This year, I am teaching POLI 352A The Comparative Politics of Public Policy. I was thrilled to be offered to teach comparative public policy, given that my research is focussed primarily in understanding cross-national environmental policy puzzles.

I have spent the better part of the past decade exploring the cross-regional dynamics of industrial restructuring in Mexican cities. My research has examined patterns of water governance across 5 different states in a Mexican watershed. Current projects include an investigation of how environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in Canada, the United States and Mexico, use the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC)’s Citizen Submission on Enforcement Matters Mechanism (CSEM) to pressure national governments to remedy failures to comply with their domestic environmental regulations.

Paso de guadalupe

Throughout this semester, I’ve found teaching this course particularly challenging. Given that the course has no prerequisites, students can take this class without any previous coursework in public policy. While not unsurmountable, the challenge I faced was to ingrain the comparative method in my students’ thinking process. Thinking about how other nations design and implement policy and various factors influencing policy process and outcomes becomes challenging.

When one is required to detach oneself from his/her own national and cultural biases, and undertake a cross-national, or cross-regional policy comparison, recognizing those biases and going beyond our accumulated knowledge about a particular country’s policy style becomes part and parcel of the challenges in undertaking the analysis. I noticed this particular challenge in an article I recently assigned to my undergraduate students by Jacob Hacker:

Hacker, Jacob (2004) “Dismantling the Health Care State? Political Institutions, Public Policies and the Comparative Politics of Health Reform” British Journal of Political Science (2004), 34:4:693-724

In this article, Hacker undertakes a challenging cross-national comparison of public health reform in affluent democracies (Britain, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States), focusing primarily on the politics of reform, and attempting to explain cross-national variations in legislative and policy outcomes. Hacker’s article offered my students a really good example of comparative analysis of health policy across five different nations.

When I asked my students to think critically about Hacker’s analysis, I requested that they indicate any shortcomings that they may have perceived in Hacker’s methodological approach, his theoretical framework and his case selection. For me, the main goal of this exercise was to test to what extent I had been successful in inculcating my students with an evidence-based, theoretically-grounded, comparative policy analytical framework.

I find comparative public policy analysis incredibly exciting, rewarding and challenging at the same time. Exploring causes of cross-national policy outcomes’ variations and offering empirically-grounded explanations for these is a highly exciting process. Throughout the semester, I did a lot of in-class analysis and application of various analytical frameworks, including the Bardach 8 step model.

Moreover, in teaching this course (The Comparative Politics of Public Policy), I have perceived that my students’ main challenge has been to think comparatively from the start. I wonder why this is the case, and I prepared this blog entry with two goals in mind: First, to ask my colleagues who have experience teaching comparative public policy, what their experience has been and what the main challenges have been in teaching this course. Second, to ask my own students to provide in here (on this blog) a written response to the main challenges they have faced throughout the course, and to test whether my perception is accurate.

Posted in comparative public policy.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 28, 2010

British Columbia Water Modernization Act Workshops

Sheep Outside My Window

photo credit: smaedli

I’m delighted to see that the government of British Columbia is using social media to encourage public participation. The year 2009 saw a number of politicians begin exploring the use of social networking sites to reach to their constituents. While there is still ample room for improvement, it is a great move on the part of governments to start implementing these public participation tools.

Thanks to David Hume and Christine Wood (both with the BC government), I learned about the workshops that will take place throughout April 2010 in the province of British Columbia to gather input on the BC Water Act. The Vancouver workshop is on April 21st, and I’ll do my best to attend.

The Ministry of Environment is hosting Water Act Modernization multi-sector workshops in March and April 2010 in the following communities:

• Nanaimo – March 5
• Prince George March 8
• Kamloops – March 11
• Kelowna – March 12
• Abbotsford – March 29 • Smithers – April 13
• Nelson – April 16
• Fort St. John – April 20
• Vancouver – April 21

These workshops are designed to share information, discuss principles for the Water Act and explore proposals for change. The main focus of the workshops is to explore options and solutions for change proposed in a public discussion paper, to be released in February.

Posted in BC Water Act, public participation, water policy.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – March 27, 2010

Ann Markusen on “Researching and making the case for creative/cultural policy”

I can’t liveblog the full seminar, but I’ll type a few notes here on CoverItLive as I can.

Posted in cluster theory, comparative public policy.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 10, 2009

Independent Power Producers Conference (#IPPBC09) livetweets

I am speaking on a panel on social media at the Independent Power Producers Conference of British Columbia in Vancouver (held at the Hyatt Regency) and we are tweeting during the event. The hashtag is #ippbc09. I am using ScribbleLive to capture the livetweetage.

Posted in bridging media and academia.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 2, 2009