Promoting Students’ Global Perspectives: A Simulation of Political and Economic Development for the Classroom

• In Event: SMT - Beyond Boundaries: From Open Textbooks to Teaching Global Perspectives Through Simulations

Short Description

This study examines the impact of an online simulation of political and economic development on middle school students’ conceptual understanding of an interconnected world, and their motivation for social studies. For this study, fourteen students played the simulation for 10 hours over a two-week period. Using a one-group pretest-posttest design, students’ concept maps, essays and responses to two motivation surveys were collected. The results show students’ increased understanding of the complexity of global context and their increased interests in social studies.

Authors

• Seungoh Paek, University of Hawaii at Manoa

• Daniel L Hoffman, Kamehameha Schools

• Helen Au, University of Hawaii at Manoa