Dr. Daniel Schaub, a Teaching Fellow in the Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs program (HRHA), has consistently worked to enhance the classroom experience at UNL by actively integrating human rights into his curriculum.
Dr. Schaub’s research focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, with an emphasis on creating classroom experiences engaging for students. His courses are heavily reliant on active learning methods through discussions, simulations, and interactive activities. Dr. Schaub helps students understand and appreciate different perspectives by teaching them how to analyze a single question from multiple viewpoints, an essential skill for critically evaluating various scenarios.
He says, “Political science is rooted in history, and history is a type of narrative that is framed; teaching students to objectively look at these framed viewpoints gives them a useful practice to take away from any course, beyond the subject matter at hand.”
While teaching International Law, Dr. Schaub designed a semester-long simulation in which students took on various roles of science fiction civilizations set 700 years in the future. Each of the four civilizations frames international law differently, reflecting contemporary perspectives and realities.
Dr. Schaub often incorporates human rights and the HRHA program into his classroom by centering on the human impacts of the topics he teaches. He deeply values the program and says how “it’s intensely important that students are able to have conversations about human rights in an academic setting.”
He shared how his teaching “contributes to human rights conversations. In every class I teach we have human rights conversations, and I know from feedback that these conversations stick with students. I hope that they take the things they learn from my courses and apply it in their lives wherever their careers take them.” Dr. Schaub is eager to try new simulations in his upcoming courses.
