Margaret J. Foster
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Teaching

​ My goal is for students to leave my courses with experience and confidence in their ability to engage meaningfully and impactfully in their chosen fields.

Substantive: 
Teaching interests:  civil wars and substate violence, organizational behavior and change, international security, international and domestic terrorism, comparative politics of the Middle East,

I prioritize engaging students in case-based and interactive learning modules that integrate primary and secondary sources. In developing materials for substantive courses, I draw on my academic training as a scholar of organizations and substate violence and on my previous career as an analyst in a private intelligence firm. Students enjoy my combined approach, providing feedback such as: "It was very clear that [she] was very comfortable and knowledgeable about the topics she was presenting on. I felt like I could ask her a lot of questions and be both satisfied with the answer as well as lead to another part of the material” (Guest Lecture, Introduction to Terrorism, 2018).

Quantitative: 
Teaching interests: computational social science, quantitative methods, text-as-data

My own experience learning quantitative methods after a career in qualitative research has given me a firsthand appreciation for the challenges many students face in learning technical skills. As a result, I constantly seek out opportunities to implement a “learning how to learn” pedagogy.  I believe that hands-on projects provide a tangible anchor for students to develop their skills and showcase their abilities. Emphasizing iterative projects that develop along a clear trajectory of discrete steps can also bridge the training gap for students who feel that their background precludes developing quantitative skills.  

In Fall 2022, I am currently instructor of record for a section of POLI 281 (Data in Politics 1) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2019, while serving as a statistics assistant for the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute, scholars appreciated my novice-focused approach, saying: “Wouldn't have done it without her, she was absolutely amazing" and that I bought a “Different way of explaining and understanding problems.”


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