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Policy Memorandum and Government Transparency

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Students imagine themselves to be policy advisers and write a policy memorandum on government transparency and secrecy to the imagined Transparency Reform Council. Goal/s: (1) To familiarize students with a new writing genre. Students with significant...

Education in the Economy

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In this seminar, students work to determine causal relationships and engage with readings about the economic environment of education. Each week the instructor posts questions relating to the readings, and students are encouraged to post their answers...

Crisis Event Simulation

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In this class simulation of a crisis event, students role play as different actors of the US government. They have to collaborate with different actors to formulate an optimal response strategy that is made public in a press conference. Goals: (1) Learn...

Egypt Protest Simulation

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How should Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak respond to the massive protests plaguing his country? This in-class simulation requires students to adopt Egyptian and international actors' perspectives to aid President Mubarak's decision making. This activity...

About

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ABLConnect is an online database of active learning efforts in post-secondary classrooms. ABLConnect is curated by the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University. ABLConnect lets educators easily search the ideas of others in a...

Leslie Finger

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Lecturer on Government and Social Studies.  As a graduate student, Leslie Finger co-founded ABLConnect with Dustin Tingley.  She is currently a Lecturer at Harvard. Her research focuses on the politics of education.  She is also an active teacher of...

Brazil and the Belo Monte Dam

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In this in-class simulation, students adopt the interests and goals of the Kayapó Indians, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the Brazilian government, and Electrobras in order to resolve a conflict over the construction of the Belo...

Chinese Re-Education through Labor Simulation

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In this three-stage simulation, the Chinese government considers the reform of its re-education through labor regime. The objective is for students taking on the perspectives of Chinese politicians to reach a consensus, that can then be justified to those...

Competition, performance and the proper degree of pressure

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I sat in for lunch this week with about 20 Kennedy School faculty colleagues -- quite a large number actually, as our total faculty is in the vicinity of 120 -- for one of the periodic meetings of the Kennedy School Teaching Seminar. These faculty members...

Greenhouse Gas Inventory and Reduction Plan

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Students develop a greenhouse gas inventory and reduction plan for a business, non-profit, government entity, or other institution by working with the organization to understand their sources of emissions and find practical methods of reducing them. Goals...

Those Who Can Do, Teach

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When Dustin Tingley taught the Department of Government class “International Conflict and Cooperation,” his students learned firsthand the role that partisan politics play in shaping the American response to international crises. Read more For one lesson...

Practicing the Rhetoric of Thomas More

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After reading Thomas More’s Utopia, students debate topics related to the text in order to understand More’s use of rhetoric. Before class, students are asked to think about several statements, i.e. "Higher education does not advance the goals of the...