Simulations In The Political Science Classroom

This book is premised on the assumption that games and simulations provide welcome alternatives and supplements to traditional lectures and class discussions—especially in political science classrooms, where real-world circumstances provide ideal applications of theory and policy prescriptions. Implementing such an active learning program, however, is sometimes daunting to overburdened professors and teaching assistants. This book addresses the challenges of using games and simulations in the political science classroom, both online and in person. Each chapter offers a game or simulation that politics teachers can use to teach course concepts and explains ways to execute it effectively. In addition, the authors in this volume make a proactive case for games and simulations. Each chapter offers research to evaluate the effectiveness of the activity and pedagogical design best practices. Thus, the book not only serves as a game design resource, but also offers demonstrable support for using games and simulations in the political science classroom. Aimed at teachers at all levels, from high school through college, the book may be especially appealing to graduate students entering teaching for the first time and open to new teaching and learning approaches.

Simulation-based education (SBE) is a teaching strategy in which students adopt a character as part of the learning process. SBE has become a fixture in the university classroom based on its ability to stimulate student interest and deepen analytical thinking. Simulations and Student Learning is the first piece of scholarship that brings together experts from the social, natural, and health sciences in order to open up new opportunities for learning about different strategies, methods, and practices of immersive learning. This collection advances current scholarly thinking by integrating insights from across a range of disciplines on how to effectively design, execute, and evaluate simulations, leading to a deeper understanding of how SBE can be used to cultivate skills and capabilities that students need to achieve success after graduation.

This book provides a resource for political science faculty wanting to increase their research productivity and/or teaching effectiveness in a time and resource efficient way. Faculty from various subfields and institution types offer examples of how they align their research and teaching activities to “get more bang for their buck.” While some contributors discuss projects within the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research tradition, others go beyond this approach and integrate their teaching and research in other ways. As a result, this volume offers diverse, innovative, and practical ways faculty can leverage the teaching/scholarship connection to both improve scholarly productivity and ground political science instruction in pedagogical literature.

An invaluable guide to creating successful simulations for teaching and scholarly research

This volume combines curricular themes and teaching methods to provide practical teaching tools for international studies faculty. The authors explore the case method, games, simulations, role-play exercises, and uses of technology. Each chapter features classroom activities.

Teaching Research Methods in Political Science brings together experienced instructors to offer a range of perspectives on how to teach courses in political science. It focuses on numerous topics, including identifying good research questions, measuring key concepts, writing literature reviews and developing information literacy skills.