Cable in the Classroom - Civic Engagement -
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Published on: 1/1/2003
Last Visited: 2/21/2005
Jeffrey L. Bernstein, assistant professor of political science at Eastern Michigan University, agrees that simulations are effective for teaching civics."I believe strongly that students learn by doing better than they learn by simply listening to a lecture," says Bernstein, who uses simulations in his university courses and developed the high-school level Winning the Seat: A Congressional Election Simulation for the nonprofit Dirksen Congressional Center.
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"I've had the reality driven home to me repeatedly that high-school teachers have a lot of constraints in curricula and standards and guidelines," says Bernstein."And nobody could ever say a simulation is as efficient as a lecture.In a 10-day simulation I may cover seven or eight days of material, but what I gain is a deeper learning, a valuable civic learning, and civic engagement that a lecture can't provide most of the time."Bernstein backs up this belief with research.For two years, Bernstein and co-author Deborah Meizlish have been working together to evaluate the learning that happens in simulations.
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"We have found that the students who have gone through simulations are retaining the material better," says Bernstein.
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Election process simulation by Jeffrey L. Bernstein
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