As a member of a Facebook group of AP US Government and Politics teachers, I have access to a voluminous shared drive of resources. Sometimes I dip my toe in and find something of particular worth, even though I am often averse to using someone else’s work. It is exceedingly rare for me to use something as is and feel any sense of connection to it. I never quite understand the creator’s intent with certain aspects of a presentation or game, and time permitting, I revamp the project to make it my own.
Last year I used a game called “Power Grab” that served as an overview of the checks and balances the three branches had on one another. I used it to help the students become familiar with the Constitution during the Foundations unit. I tried to use the game’s original rules, but I found them to be pretty confusing. Perhaps I wasn’t understanding them, but there seemed to be a lot of dead time while two thirds of the class wasn’t doing anything. So I made some tweaks and it went over pretty well. I didn’t have an answer key, so I had to play along and make snap judgments along the way. Naturally I didn’t think to write anything down and would have to essentially repeat that when I used the game again this year.
I opted not to use the game in the same location and instead moved it to the Branches unit. I think that was actually a mistake as there are a lot of arcane things in the game and locating them was probably a better activity for familiarizing themselves with where everything is in the Constitution. So yeah, I think I’ll be returning it to Unit 1 and later on in the year they might retain a clear vision of the outline of the document.
I don’t actually remember what revisions I made to the game. I think I might have put all three of the clues up on the screen simultaneously — statements of something a branch did in violation of the Constitution — and had students on each team work to find answers to any of the three clues. Maybe? Anyway, this year I decided not to assign each of the groups an identity (e.g., Legislative). I merely put the first clue on the board:
President – A serious economic crisis takes place in the U.S. The President decides to run for a third term.
Whoever buzzed in at this point with the specific item in the Constitution where this was prohibited (22nd Amendment) would get the point for their team. The original game’s rules had both individual and team points, which I thought was a neat innovation, but ultimately too cumbersome to keep track of. I also decided to award bonus points to any group that could make a case for a second location in the Constitution where the action might be prohibited. There were a handful of those (and not just the ones that were later amended).
There was at least one clue that I thought was problematic, specifically something about impeachment for some minor offense. Sorry, but that is, in fact, permissible! Even if it might be petty or unethical, the notion of a legal challenge to impeachment for political reasons seems beyond far-fetched. There were a few others I had issues with as I didn’t like the phrasing or thought were so obscure that they weren’t worth wasting the class’s time. The activity did take most of the period, the students had fun, and they were given a reasonably decent review of existing checks and balances. But the quiz the next day wasn’t an exhaustive focus on that subject, so as I indicated earlier, I’m moving this game to a different unit.
Games are great to be able to employ in the classroom, but outside fun for fun’s sake and general motivation, I think it’s important to consider the actual pedagogical value. I’ll occasionally play a game or have a lighthearted lesson that has little pedagogical value other than giving everyone a mental break, but I won’t prize the lesson plan as a gem. In this case, I think there is pedagogical value, but after a couple of go rounds with it, I think I need to (a) keep it in the right unit, and (b) ditch the items that are truly arcane.
Fenster on Education 