This group discussion format can be used in a week that covers several big concepts, each of which can be discussed along a similar ("parallel") sequence of discussion questions. The concepts in this particular class are: Wisdom of crowds, Heuristic decision-making, Groupthink, and Cooperation.
This activity involves learning through "speed dating." The activity centered on the question: how are conceptual and classic understandings of the state (or polis) complicated by globalization and immigration?
This activity brings the real world into the classroom. Eva Millona visited GOV98mg to talk about The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA).
Should anabolic steroids remain banned? What about research cloning? In this activity, students work on constructing clear argumentative moral arguments using bioethical prompts.
How do policy reforms impact different social and economic groups differently? In this role play exercise, students learn that policy-making involves winners and losers.
In this in-class activity, students use their knowledge of democracy to offer recommendations to Egypt as it undergoes its constitutional revision debate.
Is modern representative democracy "better" than ancient Athenian democracy? In this activity, students work together to mine the readings for evidence that will help them answer this question.
Revolutions require collective action. This simple activity, used during the week on revolutions, demonstrates the difficulty of carrying out collective action.
This role play debate has participants take on the perspective of leftist Chilean university students in the late 1960s, just before Socialist Salvador Allende won the presidency and shortly thereafter was toppled by the military.
In this "murder mystery" activity, a beloved professor has been murdered in his mansion. The students have to take on the roles of different characters and, using Portuguese past verb tenses and relevant vocabulary, solve the mystery.
