Using Blackboard to Increase Student Learning and Assessment Outcomes in a Congressional Simulation

Abstract

This article explores the integration of a multiweek legislative simulation with the Blackboard (9.1) Platform in an effort to understand how technology may increase student engagement, collaborative learning, and assessment. We consider the ways in which classroom technologies—blogs and online peer and self assessment tools, in particular—can encourage student-to-student collaboration, student-to-faculty collaboration, student-learning outcomes, peer and self assessment, and overall evaluation of the simulation itself.

Keywords:

• assessment
• Blackboard
• blogs
• simulation
• student learning
• technology

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Southwestern Social Science Association and Southwestern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, April 4–7, 2012, San Diego, CA. The authors are grateful for the comments and suggestions provided by panel participants. In addition, the authors are especially grateful to the political science students who gave us permission to share their work.

Notes

A nice review of the terrain of instructional technology in the political science classroom is provided by Mayer and Coleman (2000).

The launch of the journal, Simulation & Gaming (S&G): An International Journal of Theory, Practice and Research in the early 1970s is one mark of the gaming “explosion.”.

The Guidebook used in this simulation was influenced significantly by other simulations running under the guidance of political scientists all over the country, including Jack Pitney (at Claremont McKenna), Rogan Kersh (now at Wake Forest), Mack Mariani (now at Xavier), and others.

In this article, we refer to features of Blackboard 9.1.

Analyzing what Blackboard posts may reveal about student thinking was heavily influenced by Williams and Lahman's “Online Discussion, Student Engagement, and Critical Thinking,” from the Journal of Political Science Education, May 2011