Active Learning in Political Science ©
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We love games and simulations here at ALPS, so much so that it’s the subject of my next book. As part of that project, I’m reading through every published game and simulation in the political science literature, and friends, I’ve noticed a problem: We don’t name them. Seriously. I have a column in my spreadsheet …
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 …
Today is the second of a two-part series by guest contributor Tricia Stapleton, Director of the Society, Technology, and Policy Program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I recently wrote about incorporating a social media activity into my Intro to IR class as part of the IRiA sim. For the assignment, students developed Twitter campaigns to support their efforts to …
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 …
Today is another guest post from Tricia Stapleton, a follow-up to her post from last week: Last year, I began using Brock Tessman’s International Relations in Action: A World Politics Simulation in my Topics in International Politics course. I’m slated to teach the course at least once a year for the foreseeable future, and I …
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 …
Continue reading “A Simulation for the Flipped IR Classroom”
Today brings the final post by guest contributor Dr. Tricia Stapleton, Assistant Teaching Professor of Social Science & Policy Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Her previous posts are here, here, and here. While the Stars & Triangles simulation was beneficial, it did have some drawbacks. First, it needed to fit better with a political science …
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 …
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 …
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” …