Education Commons^™

Games, Movies, And Zombies: Making Ir Fun For Everyone, Shawna M. Brandle

Publications and Research

Throwing as much fun and pop culture into an international relations class as possible, with the goal of improving student learning (and the likelihood of the course running again). Games proved most effective, while movies were less useful in increasing student learning on international relations.

Opening Up To Oers: Electronic Original Sourcebook Vs. Traditional Textbook In The Introduction To American Government Course, Shawna M. Brandle

Publications and Research

Traditional American Government textbooks are expensive and often unpopular with students. New technologies and Open Educational Resources (OERs) open up the potential for change, but questions of quality are ever present: can OERs really help students learn better, or are they just cheaper? I developed an OER based on original sources and compared student learning outcomes with the OER section to those in a free digital textbook section. While the OER I created did not work as well as I had hoped, I nonetheless developed a redesign of my course and my approach to teaching, which is the true benefit …

Going Beyond The Existing Consensus: The Use Of Games In International Relations Education, Michael Lee, Zachary C. Shirkey

Publications and Research

Despite the popularity of using games to teach international relations, few works directly assess their effectiveness. Furthermore, it is unclear if games help all students equally, or if certain students are more likely to benefit than others. Finally, how closely the game must mirror the concept being taught to be an effective pedagogical tool has received scant attention. We address these points by discussing the use of an updated version of the classic American election game, Consensus, to help illustrate the role of domestic political coalitions in an international political economy course. Assessing the performance of 39 students via …

Reconstructing Education In Post-Conflict Sierra Leone, Grace Pai

Publications and Research

This study finds that by prioritizing universal development programmes instead of employing a conflict-sensitive approach rooted in attending to the specific inequities present in Sierra Leone, the current education system is ignoring the needs and desires of certain subpopulations of youth. Specifically, although the state has been very successful in increasing overall access to basic education for both boys and girls in rural Sierra Leone, the current focus on improving the quality of academic education has sidelined the growth of technical and vocational education that many youth desire. Instead, sectors such as tertiary education are prioritized above all else.

Furthermore, …