QEP-Real World Problem Solving

Journal of Political Science Education 2016, 12(2): 230-240.
From the Journal of Political Science Education- We propose that instructors utilize a variation of the game Monopoly, Ships and Shoes, to teach students how legacies of discrimination affect current racial inequality. To accomplish this goal, Ships and Shoes uses a multistage exercise in which students are arbitrarily assigned different game pieces, receive unequal compensation and are subject to different rules based on those assignments. In the second half of the exercise, we end the original unequal policies and make nominal improvements to the situation of the disadvantaged game pieces. The activity approximates the experiences of racial minorities and whites in the United States during two time periods: before and after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which ended legal segregation. Through our review of qualitative and quantitative data from an introductory social science course, we find that participants of Ships and Shoes better understand how historic discriminatory policies influence modern-day racial inequality.
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The History Teacher 2007, 40(2): 183-201.
The author recounts an experience constructing a syllabus for his U.S. history survey courses with the aim of devising a framework for helping students learn to think like historians. He urges students to immerse themselves in the culture of history and to learn to become comfortable with argument and interpretation and frames of reference.
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The History Teacher 2017, 50(4): 535-549.
A lesson plan is provided that describes the simulation of conflict negotiation in history class using role-playing games to simulate the U.S. Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 2013, 31(3): 182-194.
In order to more deeply engage students in understanding and applying concepts in a fashion history course, the traditional lecture-style course that relied primarily on unit exams for assessment was re-designed to use the Team-Based Learning (TBL) approach. Team-Based Learning is a decades-old teaching strategy that combines individual student work (primarily out-of-class) with heterogeneous student team assignments (all in-class). This study investigated the impact of TBL in the re-designed fashion history class on students' learning. Under the TBL model, students completed text readings, study guides, and two projects individually outside of class. Assignments completed regularly in class as teams included quizzes and activities that applied content prepared prior to class. Student response to the new strategy was largely positive, and findings suggested that TBL was an effective method for teaching this fashion history course. Implications of the new strategy and its applications are included.
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Teaching History 2013, 38(1): 23-38.
Oral history has earned a well-deserved place in the academy, especially among professional historians.' This article grows out of an effort to wed the use of oral history to instruction in an entry-level World History course. At its foundation, the project aimed to strengthen students' skills in communication and critical thinking, to deepen student learning of basic course themes, to increase student knowledge of specific facts and events in the course, and to enhance a sense of democratic empathy among the students. A primary goal of the oral history project was to encourage the students to see themselves as participants, rather than "neutral observers," in the process of understanding and analyzing historical phenomena. 2 The project created a space within which students could analyze course topics through a critical lens on power and privilege, race, gender, class, and identity.
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Teaching History 2012, 37(1): 25-34.
My traditional method of teaching, in lower or upper-level courses, had been to lecture and assign textbook chapters to read to establish context for discussion of primary and secondary sources related to a topic. My research and experience led me to conclude that (1) we need to teach history more consciously as a "thinking practice,"3 whatever the course topic, and (2) we should create doubt and uncertainty about the past through inquiry-or problem-based learning methods that can be adapted to history.
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