Subject Area

Let’s Try to Stop the Tokugawa Shogunate from Collapsing: Role Playing Historical Decisions

Students travel back in time to 19 th-century Japan, assuming the roles of advisors to the Tokugawa shogunate. They must synthesize primary readings on social and political unrest to propose reforms that could prevent the regime from collapsing...

Library Podcast

After field trips to three different museums, students create a short 90 second podcast in which they discuss one object encountered. Through this project, students engage with primary artifacts and practice their communication skills. Introduction...

The Spectrum Game

Students compare and contrast different philosophers they have read in the course by locating them a spectrum based on various criteria. Introduction: In preparation for their second paper, which required comparing two philosophers, the instructor used...

Equitable Academic Discussion Routines

This activity follows an adjustable sequence of steps and rules for engagement to ensure that all students, even in large classes, are able to find each session clear, accessible, rigorous, and relevant and to feel that the classroom culture offers them...

Reasoning to the Best Conclusion

Students are asked to write down a weird or random fact about themselves on a sticky note and to pass it to the person to their left. Each student is then asked to brainstorm logically possible explanations of the fact he or she has received. Through this...

Being in the White House Situation Room: Developing Strategic Options

Faculty develop a national security crisis and simulate placing the students on the National Security Council Staff to develop strategic options to drive U.S. foreign policy. By thrusting students into positions of responsibility for solutions to real...

Visualizing Humanitarian Crises and Interventions

Student groups are each assigned a region experiencing a humanitarian crisis for research. They produce a visual timeline representing the processes precipitating and leading up to the crisis and the relief efforts undertaken in response. As a final...

Learning through Case Construction

Students familiar with case study analysis construct their own cases to capture a specific ethical question. They then lead their classmates through the case. This case construction gives students the opportunity to try to stump one another with new...

Lord of the Rings - Music Analysis

Students analyze musical themes from "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", first as a partnered homework assignment, then during a class discussion, and finally on their own as they passed by in the film. Introduction: This auxiliary unit...

Parisian Narratives in Virtual Reality

Students engage in cultural and linguistic immersion through virtual reality (VR) film narratives in a beginner’s French class. Introduction: This class is a second semester beginning French class. To encourage student’s engagement, the instructors turned...

Paper Outline Workshop

Students learn to construct a persuasive argument by brainstorming multiple ways to structure their final research paper using post-its, large pieces of paper, or whatever other materials students like. They organize and re-arrange primary sources in a...

Simulated Auction for the Sale of an International Company

This semester-long simulation provides a practical, hands-on experience to help prepare law students for their transition into private practice and the business world. Hear Professor Presser talk about his prize winning activity: Goal: To provide students...