Using simulations in the classroom
Flannery Amdahl
Flannery is a PhD candidate in the GC's Political Science department.
Ever found yourself mid-lecture with a roomful of students who are busily engaged in catching up on some sleep or texting all of their friends about Friday night plans? One way to liven up the atmosphere — and go beyond the standard lecture/discussion/term papers model — is to design a simulation that incorporates course materials into an interactive real-world context. An added professional development bonus: when discussing teaching in your cover letters, teaching statements, and during interviews for academic jobs, you’ll need to mention memorable methods that set you apart from other candidates. It’s useful to start thinking about creative ways to engage your students as soon as possible.
Simulations can take a number of forms, including games, role-play activities, and computer-based programs and animations. For a small course I taught on Constitutional Law, for example, I designed a mock Supreme Court in which students took on the roles of lawyers and justices. I chose a provocative case that was constantly in the news that semester, so students seemed to get genuinely excited about concepts like the full faith and credit clause and legal levels of scrutiny (certainly not something that I feel fully confident I could inspire in a lecture myself!).
I did find, however, that setting up the mock court and designing the various assignments that went along with it ended up being a great deal of work for me–one of the big downsides of using simulations. Luckily, there are a number of resources available online with information about simulations that other instructors have already successfully experimented with.
Social Sciences and Humanities
Library research skills:
- Bibliobouts: Useful for courses in any discipline requiring a research paper, this online game helps students master the reference program Zotero (while allowing instructors to offer feedback on their research techniques).
Anthropology:
- The Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing at the University of Kent’s website contains links to a number of simulations.
- The World Simulation, designed by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch, helps students “experience how the world system works and explore some of the most important questions now facing humanity such as those of global inequality, globalization, culture loss, environmental degradation, and in the worst case scenario, genocide.” Wesch’s website includes classroom videos, plus the rules he designed for the game.
Economics:
- The Pedegogy in Action site links to a number of simulations appropriate for an undergrad econ class, such as the MarketSim (which aims to teach students how markets function) and the General Equilibrium Simulation for Microeconomics.
- The Economics Network has instructions for both classroom and computer games (the site also provides an overview of arguments for and against using simulations in the classroom).
- EconPort allows students and instructors to run online economics experiments.
History:
- “Reacting to the Past,” designed at Barnard College, involves a series of games in which students take on roles inspired by classic texts in intellectual history.
Political Science:
- The American Political Science Association provides plans for a number of specific simulations on its website. Simulations are also a frequent topic for discussion at ASPA’s annual Teaching and Learning Conference
- H.T. Reynolds, Professor Emeritus at the University of Delaware, has compiled a list of simulations and games on one of his course websites.
Sociology:
- Professor Robert Hanneman at UC Riverside maintains a list of web resources for sociology simulations.
- The Washington College poverty simulation helps students understand what it’s like to live at the poverty level.
Math and Sciences
Instructors in many of the sciences often have the advantage of using lab time to engage students in hands-on learning. The following websites also offer computer-based simulations and games to help students understand difficult concepts and/or to recreate the laboratory experience:
- There are six Reacting to the Past: STEM Games for use in science, technology, engineering, and math courses.
- The PhET site, from the University of Colorado Boulder, features interaction simulations useful for math, physics, biology, and chemistry classes.
- The Molecular Workbench has physics, chemistry, biology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology simulations available to download.
- Onlinelabs.in provides links to free lab simulations and virtual science experiments in chemistry, physics, and biology.
Biology:
- i-Biology.net has a number of free simulated lab experiments.
- McGraw Hill’s Online Learning Center also features free virtual labs.
Chemistry:
- The American Chemical Society has links to a number of chemistry simulations.
- Professor Thomas J. Greenbowe of Iowa State University has posted experiment simulations and computer animations used in his Intro to Chemistry class.
Physics:
- Find online physics animations at MyPhysicsLab.
- And a list of links to interactive physics sites on The Interactive Library.
