One of my active learning mantras is: avoid reinventing the wheel. If I can find an idea for an activity from someone else, I have no shame in adopting it for my own needs. So, I was thrilled to stumble across this resource (from my alma mater, no less) called Pedagogy in Action. It is part of a larger grant project for earth science educators, but the searchable Activities portal tags other disciplines. Seventeen activities are tagged as “Political Science”. I would also expect that many of the other activities could be modified for other disciplines. Each activity is described in some depth, including a discussion of learning goals, tips for using the activity, and assessment ideas.
The Pedagogy in Action website also includes a rich section on Teaching Methods with over 60 links to different modules, with even more resources and examples. Again, some are specific to earth sciences, but most are general (such as “Just-in-time Teaching”, “Writing Strong Assignments” and many more).
I’ve only started to explore this resource and I haven’t tried any of the activities yet, but I anticipate spending a lot of time on this website this summer identifying promising activities for next year.