The Task Force on Educating for Excellence in the MPA Degree acknowledged the essential role of active learning when it advocated the use of pedagogical strategies such as classroom exercises and collaborative projects with agencies. The extent to which these strategies foster reflexivity and praxis is limited by stimulus-response learning, i.e., students deciphering what the instructor wants and producing the appropriate responses/materials. To measure the students' preferences for stimulus-response learning, the authors developed a questionnaire that was distributed to students enrolled in MPA courses at a mid-western university. The findings suggest the students' strong preference for stimulus-response learning arises from a fixation on maximizing grades within the allotted time for studies. Given this finding, a program's success in cultivating reflexivity and praxis is impacted by the adoption of strategies that counteract the preference for stimulus-response learning and thereby encourage students to become more self-directed. Several of these strategies are discussed in the paper's final section.

Focus groups were convened in 2005 and 2013 as the first step in successive MPA curriculum review and revision processes. Although the criteria for selecting participants and the questions posed to the groups were similar, the focus groups generated dramatically different perspectives regarding the challenges confronting administrators. An analysis indicates that the differences in focus group perspectives are a reflection of the evolving economic, political and fiscal environments. It also reinforces the need to adopt instructional strategies that cultivate the students' creative, critical thinking and life-long learning skills. Since anchored learning maximizes the probability of achieving these outcomes, this article provides three examples of implementation.

Students in two iterations of a statistics course were required to develop work-related research questions that could be analyzed by the statistical techniques discussed in class. They were also expected to present the question and other research design components in a manner that could be comprehended by statistical novices. To provide sufficient class time for the groups to begin work on their assignments, the course’s second iteration substituted Kahn Academy videos for a portion of the lecture material. However, observations of the students’ behaviors and qualitative analysis of the responses to open-ended course evaluation questions indicate that efforts to encourage self-directed learning were undermined by an allegiance to stimulus-response learning, i.e. a preference for courses in which students are told what they need to know. Since the preference is based on a desire to maximize the grades generated by a given investment of time, the impending iteration of the course incentivizes self-directed learning by incorporating into the course grade calculation the students’ contributions to their group’s efforts and participation in class discussions. The revised grading structure is intended to encourage self-directed learning in which students teach and learn from one another and thereby engage in deep learning.

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The process of transforming students from novices into experts relies on active learning and the development of an appreciation for the links among topics. Since rote or stimulus-response learning is preferred by a majority of students who are beginning their programs of study but does not optimize learning and understanding, the first step in the process is changing students' preference to active learning. As students progress from 100-to 400-level courses, this outcome can be accomplished by reducing the amount of class time that instructors dedicate to lectures that introduce new material and increasing the amount of time dedicated to active learning strategies. Because of PowerPoint's linear structure, teachers can foster learning by supplementing traditional slides with tables, charts, graphs, and concept maps that explicate the links among topics. Concept maps also lend themselves to assessing students' mastery of concepts and the value added by class discussions. Both measures enable instructors to enhance their teaching effectiveness and, over time, use class sessions more efficiently. O ne of the goals of a political science program is to transform novices into experts by developing a foundation on which students can build a structure for analyzing and understanding complex political processes. The achievement of this goal is partially dependent on the use of teaching strategies that are congruent with the students' preferred learning styles (Beck 2001;Fazarro et al. 2009). If, however, students' preferred learning styles do not maximize learning and understanding, then cultivating expertise also requires instructors to change the learning styles and adapt instructional strategies to the evolving learning styles. The process of cultivating expertise is also dependent on instructional strategies that assist students in developing knowledge structures that are readily amenable to expansion and revision.Given the role of learning styles and instructional strategies in the development of experts, the first section of this article examines the preferred learning style with which most students enter higher education and contrasts this approach with one that maximizes learning and understanding. The discussion is followed by an examination of teaching strategies that are appropriate for each learning style and that promote the evolution of learning styles. Since the use of PowerPoint presentations is pervasive in higher education, we also examine this approach's impact on the way in which students structure knowledge. The final section discusses the implications for political science instruction. LEARNING STYLESRote learning, or stimulus-response learning, is the preferred learning style of most students who are beginning their undergraduate programs of study . As is suggested by the terminology, this learning style emphasizes a process in which the instructor conveys and students passively consume the course materials. Since the accompanying assessment mechanisms focus on a prescribed set of readings,...