Anecdotal evidence suggests pedagogy research on simulations in political science is dominated by two subfields: International Relations and Comparative Politics. This belief may stem from the widespread use of things like Model United Nations and Model Arab League or the popular game Statecraft. While some other subfields, notably public law,…

Given the increasing prevalence of podcast listening, especially among young adults with college education, it is important to consider how student-produced podcasts can impact the student experience in the classroom, contribute to a more participatory course, and help achieve learning objectives. To engage these issues, this article reflects on…

While the model of deliberative democracy gives a crucial role to dialog, empirical evidence has not yet established if discussion helps to reach a better understanding of political issues and, above all, if individuals are prepared to change their views. It is still unclear when the deliberative model, and more specifically discussion, could be…

Satirical news shows such as "The Daily Show" are popular with students, but are they appropriate for classroom use? In this two-group, pretest-posttest study, I examine differences in engagement, political knowledge, and political attitudes between two American Government classes: one assigned to watch "The Daily Show" and the…

This article outlines a semester-long advocacy project that walks students through the steps to develop a successful advocacy campaign, culminating in a trip to the state capitol to "lobby" legislators. The manuscript provides faculty with the basic structure for the project and suggests gradable assignments. The project builds on the…

In the time following the 2016 presidential election, much has been written about the spread of false information on social media websites. Given the potential influence false information has had on American politics, it is more important than ever for people to critically evaluate the content they view and share on social media. This article…

In an effort to promote learning in classrooms, political science instructors are increasingly turning to interactive teaching strategies--experiments, simulations, etc.--that supplement traditional lecture formats. In this article, I advocate the use of student-generated data as a powerful teaching tool that can be used in a variety of ways to…

Sexual orientation continues to be an explosive issue in American classrooms. Increasing the political knowledge of students can reduce the volatility of this explosive issue by increasing tolerance toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. This relationship between political knowledge and political tolerance has been…

What are the challenges of teaching Cold War politics to the twenty-first-century student? How might the millennial generation be educated about the political science theories and concepts associated with this period in history? A college student today, who grew up in the post-Cold War era with the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, smart phones,…

Concerns regarding political knowledge and participation among young people continue to spur research into effective civic instruction. Through a quasi-experiment involving 361 students in four high schools as well as the parents of 152 of these students, we measured the effects of incorporating news magazines and discussion into social studies…

Using an example, this article demonstrates how instructors can make use of popular off-the-shelf board games to model politics. I show how the rules of the popular board game "Battleship" can be manipulated to simulate centralization of power and, more specifically, the differences between the Articles of Confederation and the…

In teaching the causes of the Iraq War, the use of "virtual history" can be employed in a conference setting in which different individuals are assigned to different plausible counterfactuals they use to construct virtual histories. The Iraq War lends itself to the virtual history approach because of the availability of many plausible…

Do individual-level student characteristics affect appreciation for, and benefit from, the use of student response system technology? We investigate the usefulness of in-class electronic student response systems ("classroom clickers") to understand if it benefits some college students more than others. Specifically, we investigate…

An emerging assumption in undergraduate political science education is that role-playing simulations are an effective teaching tool. While previous studies have addressed the pedagogical advantages of simulations as compared to more traditional teaching techniques, less attention has been paid to student perceptions of these simulations. This…

Experiments provide a simple and engaging framework for familiarizing students with the process of quantitative social research. In this article, I illustrate how experiments can be used in the classroom environment by describing a module that was implemented in four high school classrooms. The module familiarized students with how the scientific…