Gaming civics – (almost) a Madison connection

I was preparing to teach next week’s “Quizzing and Gradebook” workshops on our course managment system, Learn@UW. Being a law geek, I thought a short quiz on civics would be an easy way to show off all of the quiz question types–until I saw this:

“Only one-third of Americans can name the three branches of government,” [Justice Sandra Day] O’Connor said, “but two-thirds can name a judge on American Idol.”

Hopefully my quiz won’t be too difficult for the participants, but the surprise in this story is the Madison connection.  Justice O’Connor is heading a project to develop a game called “Our Courts” to help seventh and eight graders learn about our judicial system, and she tapped Madison’s own James Gee (formerly of UW-Madison) to do it.

The game “lets students engage in real issues and real problems,” O’Connor said. It will allow them to “step into the shoes of a judge, a legislator, an executive — teach them how to think through and analyze problems, take action and voice opinions to their elected representatives.”

An early exercise in the game will likely deal with educating students about their First Amendment rights, using examples like Tinker v. Des Moines and the “Bong Hits For Jesus” case.

I love it! Having students step into existing problems is the best way to learn how the courts work–it’s exactly what we do in Intro to Mass Communication Law courses. Maybe the students who have played this game will do better on our hypothetical questions 🙂