Content area
Full Text
(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)
The Teacher
Political science lends itself to a wide range of active learning activities. Unlike traditional teaching methods, where students more passively take in information through at-home readings and professor-delivered lectures, active learning demands more--and more engaged--student participation. Active learning helps students not only learn content but also develop critical thinking and writing skills (Bonwell and Eison 1991). These activities require instructors to offer opportunities "for students to meaningfully talk and listen, write, read, and reflect on the content, ideas, issues, and concerns of an academic subject" (Meyers and Jones 1993, 6; emphasis in original). Indeed, the annual National Survey of Student Engagement includes increasing active and collaborative learning as one of only five benchmarks of effective educational practice (NSSE 2012). In the United States, millennials (the generation born after 1980) account for more than 75% of all undergraduates and more than 85% of full-time undergraduates (US Department of Education 2012); because this generation is more likely to attend college, more ethnically and racially diverse, and more likely to embrace technology than previous generations (Taylor and Keeter 2010), engaging them in more interactive ways is critical. Because students have diverse learning preferences, a broad range of active learning activities can help engage them in their learning.
In political science, often we focus on a single active learning activity: simulations. These include mock conventions, assemblies, debates, and other collaborative activities when students take on roles and make decisions accordingly. Simulations and role plays are the most common active learning activities in introductory courses (Archer and Miller 2011), and these are also used in upper-level, graduate, and online courses (e.g., Baylouny 2009; Brynen 2010; Parmentier 2013). Since 2006, simulations and role plays have been featured in one or two tracks at the annual APSA Teaching and Learning Conference; a recent issue of The Journal of Political Science Education focused exclusively on simulations (Asal et al. 2013); and many articles show faculty how to integrate these activities into their classes (e.g., Auerbach 2012; Wedig 2010). Role plays are common in all subfields, including American politics (e.g., Baranowski 2006; Rinfret, 2012), comparative politics (e.g., Baylouny 2009; Biziouras 2013), international relations (e.g., Loggins 2009; Oros 2007), and even political theory (Ahmadov 2011;...