What’s the EU? Achieving Learning Outcomes and Preparing US Students for EuroSim

Abstract

Global learning and high-impact practices often come together in simulations. However, preparing US students for effective and beneficial participation in a simulation of the European Union presents an interesting challenge. Most US students are unfamiliar with the European Union at best and completely unaware of its existence at worst. How does one go about not only introducing the EU but helping students arrive at a point where they are effective and engaged policy-makers within the EU simulation? When carefully crafted, simulations, whether in-class, cocurricular, or extracurricular, provide a high-impact learning experience for students. Most importantly, perhaps, and not covered in the definitions of high-impact practices or affective learning, most of the students who participate in EuroSim find that, while difficult and requiring a great deal of work, learning about such a seemingly distant topic and entity as the EU can be enjoyable. This chapter explores the challenges inherent in preparing US students for EuroSim, the extracurricular benefits for students that come from participation in such a simulation, and the improved achievement of learning goals through the inclusion of a simulation into the curriculum as a high-impact practice.