Squares and Triangles

Last week I taught a combined class of students from my undergraduate globalization course and from the digital materials and fabrication (DMF) program at the IYRS School of Technology & Trades. I used an exercise based the Stars and Triangles game that Tricia Stapleton wrote about in 2013. I’m calling my version Squares and Triangles. Here is …

Twitter Campaigning with IRiA, Part 1

Today is the first of a two-part series by guest contributor Tricia Stapleton, Director of the Society, Technology, and Policy Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As I’ve noted in previous posts (here and here), I’m in the process of tweaking my Intro to IR class. I’ve successfully used the International Relations in Action (IRiA) simulation, but I …

A Simulation for the Flipped IR Classroom

Today we have a guest post from Tricia Stapleton: I recently joined the Social Science and Policy Studies Department at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), a science- and engineering-focused school. The curriculum is heavily-focused on project-based learning and to facilitate at least three major projects over a student’s WPI career, semesters are split in two. That …

Stars and Triangles

This morning brings a third post by guest contributor Dr. Tricia Stapleton, Assistant Teaching Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her previous posts are here and here. “Stars & Triangles” is an in-class application of comparative advantage, a concept frequently included in the political economy section of politics textbooks. Unfortunately, political science students …

TPR in Role-Playing and Simulations

Here is the second post by guest contributor Dr. Tricia Stapleton, Assistant Teaching Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute: After using total physical response (TPR) in my French classrooms, I found three benefits to using it in political science courses. First, linking concepts to action leads to higher levels of retention in the …

Let’s Get Physical

Today begins a series of posts by a guest contributor, Dr. Tricia Stapleton, Assistant Teaching Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute: I first started teaching when I was a graduate student in a French literature program. Instructors there were trained to teach languages with the communicative method, which involves creating a classroom “immersion” …