Playing Games to Teach Comparative Politics

Session Submission Type: TLC Workshop

Session Description

This workshop will focus on a series of games and exercises that can be used in introductory classes on comparative politics. These exercises and games are designed to allow the students to be “lab rats in their own experiments” so they can apply their own experiences to evaluating the assumptions and arguments of different theories of comparative politics. We plan to teach participants how to use the button button game, the ball toss for extra credit game, the prisoner’s dilemma game as well as other exercises as time allows. The workshop will be fully participatory in nature with all the participants engaging in the games. Our goal for the workshop is to enable participants to leave with the ability to run simulations in their own classrooms and to understand how to best elicit critical thinking about theories related to comparative politics from their students.

Sub Unit

• TLC at APSA

Chairs

• Victor Asal University at Albany, SUNY

• Tanya Brooke Schwarz Pi Sigma Alpha

• Bennett Grubbs APSA

Presenters

• Victor Asal University at Albany, SUNY

• Joseph W. Roberts Roger Williams University