DEMOCRACY 3 - HOW DID THE ACTIVITY GO?

I recently posted about an activity that I was attempting to implement for the first time in my politics and economics class.

In the previous post, I had introduced the game Democracy 3 to my students to familiarise them to how the game functions.

Since the first introductory class, I have introduced an assignment whereby students are required to record and analyse every decision that they make in the simulation.

I had some trepidation as I distributed the assignment to the students. I desperately wanted the class to enjoy the activity, as the game acts as a perfect tool to bring together the political and economic concepts that I had sought to share.

Ninety-minutes later, it was clear that the activity was a success. Almost too much of a success. The students were so engrossed in the activity that it was taking far longer than I had anticipated. As I had set the task to be completed in pairs, the students were discussing every decision and considering a range of alternatives to achieve their goal of re-election.

In the end, the activity took three hours. But at the end, the students had reinforced their knowledge and made strong links between the content covered in class.

How did I know this?

The responses on the analysis task that they completed were detailed and clearly demonstrated the relationship between their actions and the outcomes they sought.

Students could easily explain (afterwards) why they had been elected (or defeated), and were keen to do so.

The next step is a whole class reflection activity.

The assessment task and reflective tool are available on the Fisch + Ed Teachers Pay Teachers page.

Fisch + Ed - Teachers Pay Teachers homepage

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DEMOCRACY 3 - ASSIGNMENT IN MIDDLE SCHOOL POLITICS AND ECONOMICS

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