Though scholarship has long championed the positive impacts of classroom considerations of controversial or difficult issues, teachers have often hesitated to broach divisive topics for numerous reasons, including legislation purporting to limit controversy in classrooms and, often, that they had limited or no preparation to teach controversies,…

Today's political environment continues to become more polarized as Americans find themselves taking sides on controversial issues. While this is certainly not new to the American democratic experience, the way we as a country are combating it is. With the nation engulfed in a political maelstrom, people are forgetting how to have a civilized…

This paper explores how PurpleState, a political simulation designed to foster skills and knowledge for informed civic participation, develops students' abilities to counter or resist the effects of political polarization and partisanship. Throughout the simulation, which has been implemented in Virginia and Wisconsin, students are asked to…

With nationwide concerns about the declines in youth voting turnout across the United States, increased attention has focused on schools to promote "civic education," a broad curricular approach aimed at facilitating students' development of key civic knowledge, skills, and behaviors. However, less is known about how civic education…

Recent scholarship has highlighted the importance of increasing the intellectual viability of lower-level foreign language (FL) study while facilitating connections between academic practice, learners' lives, and global communities. This article reports on a content-based role-immersion simulation (RIS) designed to incite a critical orientation…

Five years ago, Diana Hess was teaching a graduate seminar called "Democratic Education." The purpose of the seminar was to critically analyze two seemingly simple, but actually very complex, questions: What is democracy? What is democratic education? Both are contested concepts, and the seminar was designed to help students understand…

This four-day learning activity on the controversy of exclusion of gays and subsequently atheists in Boy Scouting is particularly relevant because it highlights the complexities that surround issues of equality, equity, the provision of leisure services, First Amendment rights, and the implications of court decisions on social justice. This lesson…

There is a dearth of research into teaching strategies and learning approaches for units involving sensitive topics that can provoke an emotional response in students. In a business ethics unit, attempts to strike a balance between conceptual knowledge and theory and skills training can be challenging because the unit can involve personal,…

Attentiveness to and transparency about the methodological implications of the level of analysis selected for peace and conflict exercises constitute essential elements of good game design. The article explores the impact of level of analysis choices in the context of two key portions of exercises, scenario construction and role specification. It…

In this two-part activity, high school biology students examine human karyotyping, sex-chromosome-linked disorders, and the relationship between biological sex and gender. Through interactive simulations and a structured discussion lab, students create a human karyotype and diagnose chromosomal disorders in hypothetical patients, as well as…

In thinking about teaching nonfiction, the authors acknowledge that many contemporary and important nonfiction texts that students should be encouraged to read take up social issues that are not easy to talk about or even to think about. They discovered that combining well-chosen nonfiction on social issues with specialized digital games and other…

Although Western cultures tend to view dolphins as friendly and benevolent, in Japanese fishing communities, "iruka" (dolphins) are often viewed as food or pests. These perspectives have led to intense conflicts between Japanese fishermen and activists from the west. This article presents an exercise that simulates intercultural conflict by asking…

The authors describe a pedagogical exercise that conveys the multilayered properties of gender to undergraduate students. They propose a simulation that demonstrates the social constructiveness of gender, maintaining that gender should be conceptualized and portrayed as a process, system of stratification, and social structure. The authors begin…

Simple role-play simulations can not only demonstrate the dynamics of a conflict but also create awareness of multiple perspectives even among populations relatively set in their opinions. To teach my student population of military officers, I utilize simple, nongame simulations of multisided Middle East conflicts that not only facilitate learning…

"Approaches and Strategies in Next Generation Science Learning" examines the challenges involved in the development of modern curriculum models, teaching strategies, and assessments in science education in order to prepare future students in the 21st century economies. This comprehensive collection of research brings together science educators,…