Introduction

 

Starting in the early 1990s, I started working with a number of colleagues (Jerry Goldman, Steve Cohen, and the late Sal Soraci) to design a way to use technology to help in teaching and doing research about public decision making.  My primary vehicle for this was the Crime and Punishment criminal sentencing simulation that allowed students or others to play the role of a judge and make decisions about the sentences that should be given to six felony defendants.  This simulation used the best available technology to enable the creation of experiments where the simulation would vary the race, gender, appearance, and the affect of the defendants being sentenced, and allowed comparisons of sentencing decisions by number students and other users to see if there were race differences, gender differences, etc.  This spawned a a conference (funded by the Spencer Foundation) and a book on digital decision simulations where chapter 6 describes this decision simulation.

 

Books

 

2006 -- Virtual Decisions: Digital Simulations for Teaching

Reasoning in the Social Sciences and Humanities. New York:

Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers (now Taylor and Francis).

Co-edited and co-authored with Steve Cohen, Dean Rehberger,

and Carolyn Thorsen.

 

 

 

 

Articles, Book Chapters, and Papers

 

2006 – “Practical Contexts and Theoretical Frameworks for Teaching Complexity with Digital Role-Play Simulations,” Chapter 1 in Virtual Decisions: Digital Simulations for Teaching Reasoning in the Social Sciences and Humanities. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Co-authored with Steve Cohen.

 

2006 – “Teaching About Criminal Sentencing Decisions: The Crime and Punishment Simulations,” Chapter 5 in Virtual Decisions: Digital Simulations for Teaching Reasoning in the Social Sciences and Humanities. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Co-authored with Jerry Goldman.

 

1999 -- “From Analog to Digital: Teaching About Criminal Sentencing with Technology,” in David G. Brown, ed. Computer Enhanced Learning: Vignettes of Best Practice from America’sMost Wired Campuses. Boston: Anker Publishing Co., Chapter 32. Co-authored with Steve Cohen, Jerry Goldman, and Sal Soraci.