Learn More - CM for United States Courses

1. It demands the active participation of every learner as they become citizens who must “provide” for fictitious families, working to keep them alive by procuring things like food, shelter, life insurance, and also providing them with a good standard of living with things like health care, education, arts and entertainment. Passivity is not an option in this simulation of real life.


2. It provides a learning environment where many civic components are integrated into one country scenario:
   
   
   
   • A live and interactive economy where citizens can buy, trade, and sell goods as well as engage in entrepreneurial activities (the online program manages this almost entirely on its own).
   
   
   • A set amount of land , owned by citizens or the government, that can either be developed for economic gains or preserved for environmental reasons
   
   
   • An abbreviated version of the U.S. Constitution that serves as the law of the land, outlining their political & legal system as well as their rights & freedoms.
   
   
   • A self-running political system modeled after the U.S. Presidential system
   
   
   • A bicameral congress with both 5 student-elected House of Representatives and 3 student-elected Senators
   
   
   • A President as well as a Cabinet (if there are enough participants)
   
   
   • A National Court administered by a student judge & jury where citizens can prosecute one another and their government for breaking laws
   
   
   • An electoral procedure where students can campaign for any of the offices listed above, and participate in the ballot casting procedure
   
   
   • A Town Hall where students engage in civic discourse & debate, learning how to stand up for their rights and assert themselves



3. On top of this, the students are challenged to pursue political, economic, and/or ideological Hidden Agendas that require them to develop peer-persuasion, assertiveness, and/or activism skills.


4. Unlike role-playing activities, The Civic Mirror creates a scenario where students own their learning because they have personal stakes and vested interests in the game. Students work to learn because they want to, not because their instructor tells them that they should.


5. All of the above will provide the learner with a cognitive frame of reference helping him/her to better understand and appreciate the subject of study. It’s constructivist learning at its best.


6. Running The Civic Mirror in your classroom is a more practical and "teacher-friendl" way of providing students with first-hand civic experiences given the unfortunate red-tape, time and financial restrictions that fieldtrips demand of the organizing educator.


7. The Civic Mirror comes with an online community where instructors and students can continue participating outside of the classroom by use of the online discussion boards and wiki technology.


8. The Civic Mirror Community allows students to talk with other students from all over the continent about political, economic, and legal issues. It also allows instructors to talk with other instructors as well as collaborate on all those great instructional ideas we have cooking on our own.

“I really learned a lot this term working with The Civic Mirror. I really liked how you had to learn to come together as a community and try to keep everyone alive. The trials and law making parts were a lot of fun too. This made learning fun and I learned more in this class than in any of my other classes this year.”

Michyla Blackman, senior student at Chemawa Indian School, Salem, OR