PUBPOL-302D

POL CHOICE/VAL CONFLICT

Offered Fall 2026

PPS · Taught by Slank, Shanna · Last offered Fall 2025

Overview

Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that discussion is a clear strength. Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent.

DepartmentPPS

Terms offeredFall, Spring

Typical enrollment14–58

Semesters of data5

4.1

Hrs / week

225

Responses

528

Enrollment

43%

Response Rate

Evaluation Scores

Overall quality

Teaching, content, and experience combined.

4.3

12345

Intellectually stimulating

Challenges students to think deeply.

4.5

12345

Instructor effectiveness

Explains concepts and facilitates learning.

4.4

12345

Difficulty

Higher means harder.

3.3

12345

Feedback Analysis

Feedback Analysishigh

Analysis based on student evaluations

Based on 518 comments across 16 sections

Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that discussion is a clear strength. Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent.

Student Reports

How hard is the A?

A difficulty is mixed

The reports split here. Some comments frame grading as fair and reachable, while others describe stricter standards or more work than expected to land top grades.

Homework Load

Moderate homework load

Homework load looks moderate. The recurring signal is steady weekly work, but not a course that turns every assignment into a grind.

Lecture Load

Lighter lecture burden

Student comments describe this as more discussion-, seminar-, or workshop-driven than lecture-dependent. The lecture burden itself does not sound like the main source of friction.

Strengths

• Discussion is a clear strength; students repeatedly describe the class conversation as engaging and useful.

• Readings, films, or outside materials come up repeatedly as a real strength rather than filler.

Tradeoffs

• There is no single dominant complaint theme, but the feedback is not uniformly glowing either.

Best fit for

Best for students who will actually talk in class instead of sitting silent.

Student Responses

I learned about different ethical considerations that go into policy making; I learned about news kinds of policy; I learned how to have conversations with my peers about these topics.