The Narrative History of the Chocolate Wars: A Short and Tasty Bargaining Game

ABSTRACT

This single lesson classroom game is designed to test student knowledge of Realist and Liberal concepts through an imbalanced resource bargaining mechanic. The game is designed for approximately 20 students divided into state teams of three to four students each and uses chocolate to represent the state teams’ economic capacity, military capability, and human security. Each state team had competing goals, over which they must cooperate or conflict for additional pieces. This game also uses an abstract design to maximize active learning through a short course of play while also making the game useful for testing concepts at any point in an International Relations course. In addition to offering a complete yet easily modifiable game for classroom use, this article also describes the game’s pedagogical contribution to the discipline, game design notes, and techniques for preventing students from stuffing their faces with game pieces.     

NO MORE CASEBOOKS: USING SIMULATION‐BASED LEARNING TO EDUCATE FUTURE FAMILY LAW PRACTITIONERS

Teaching family law using the traditional casebook method provides students with marginal knowledge and skills. To practice family law, one needs to know how to interview and counsel clients, negotiate with opposing counsel, file pleadings and supporting documents, draft agreements, and understand tax consequences. Moreover, ethical issues abound in the practice of family law, such as confidentiality, conflict of interest, and fee arrangements. Critics of traditional pedagogies in legal academia have included the MacCrate Report, the Carnegie Report, and Best Practices for Legal Education. The Family Law Education Reform Project has focused its attention on the failure of law schools to keep pace with the ever‐evolving nature and requirements of family law practice. This article offers one answer to those who seek to educate law students in a manner that will better prepare them for the practice of family law. The author, who is the director of Vermont Law School's General Practice Program, describes a family law course she has developed and taught for many years. The course is taught in an integrative fashion, and includes substantive law, practice skills, and ethical and professionalism issues. She offers the course as a response and antidote to the ongoing criticisms of tradition a methods of teaching law.     

GENERATIVE EXPLANATIONS OF CRIME: USING SIMULATION TO TEST CRIMINOLOGICAL THEORY*

This study demonstrates that computational modeling and, in particular, agent‐based modeling (ABM) offers a viable compatriot to traditional experimental methodologies for criminology scholars. ABM can be used as a means to operationalize and test hypothetical mechanisms that offer a potential explanation for commonly observed criminological phenomena. This study tests whether the hypothesized mechanisms of environmental criminology are sufficient to produce several commonly observed characteristics of crime. We present an ABM of residential burglary, simulating a world inhabited by potential targets and offenders who behave according to the theoretical propositions of environmental criminology. A series of simulated experiments examining the impact of these mechanisms on patterns of offending are performed. The outputs of these simulations then are compared with several well‐established findings derived from empirical studies of residential burglary, including the spatial concentration of crime, repeat victimization, and the journey to crime curve. The results from this research demonstrate that the propositions of the routine activity approach, rational choice perspective, and crime pattern theory provide a viable generative explanation for several independent characteristics of crime.     

关于刑事科学技术综合模拟实训的研究

刑事科学技术专业的培养目标是应用型人才，强调动手能力的培养，同时主要专业课程之间关联性很强。如何在所有课程结束后进行综合模拟实训，是关系到学员毕业后能否尽快适应工作的主要条件之一。文章重点研究了综合模拟实训的方法、步骤以及考核形式。模拟过程中主要以真实案例的现场勘查为主线，结合所学专业课程的特点．强调学员对各类痕迹物证的勘验、分析和利用能力，最后以小组的形式完成一个完整的痕迹物证勘验和检验鉴定卷宗。     

DISTINGUISHING FACTS AND ARTIFACTS IN GROUP-BASED MODELING*

Group-based methodology (SPGM) has been presented as suitable to test for the existence of subpopulations not directly observable. Several criminological studies have used this methodology, and it is fair to say that typological theorizing has been spurred by its development. In particular, much of the empirical support for Moffitt's taxonomy (1993, 2006) is from studies using SPGM. In a small simulation experiment, I investigate whether SPGM is suitable for such tests, and I examine the extent to which similar trajectories might equally well result from mechanisms suggested by general theories. I conclude that, as it is usually applied, SPGM cannot provide evidence either for or against a taxonomy and that the usual findings can be explained by competing theories. I argue that this result is not only because of the methodology characteristics but also because of the modeling strategy applied.     

New visual technologies in court: directions for research

Litigation is being transformed by new visual communication technologies, including videoconferencing, PowerPoint, and computer animations. Yet the effects of these visual technologies on legal decision making are largely unknown. In order to understand better the most pressing issues surrounding technology in the courtroom, psychologists, lawyers, and representatives from technology companies and funding agencies attended a Research Conference on Courtroom Technology organized by the Federal Judicial Center. The goals of the conference were to identify issues raised by courtroom uses of new technologies that could be illuminated by empirical research and to suggest designs and methods for conducting that research. This paper emerged from that conference. The authors provide an overview of considerations that should guide research in this area, including a framework that takes into account features of the technology, the audience, and the legal strategy of the user of the technology. They outline a paradigm for conducting such research, illustrate it with several possible empirical studies of varying levels of experimental and conceptual complexity, and identify directions for subsequent research.     

仿真世界中的媒介权力:鲍德里亚传播思想解读

法国当代思想家鲍德里亚以独特的视角透视了现代媒介及其技术造成的后现代社会虚拟代替现实的严峻境况。他认为,当代社会是由大众媒介构建的“仿真”世界,在这个世界中,电子媒介改变了传播的交流情境,新的言语情境和话语结构对主体产生了构建意义。大众媒介通过编辑机制和传播技术为人们生产文化意义,广告则通过提供各种消费符号和影像制造着欲望和诱惑。大众媒介在当代社会中扮演着生活指南的角色,强化了对受众的塑造和影响。     

Assessing Knowledge Retention,With and Without Simulations

This study examines the effectiveness of teaching with simulations, compared to active learning without simulations. It utilizes an anonymous extra-credit pop quiz on four topics, each taught with a different method: (1) simulation and in-class debriefing; (2) simulation only; (3) in-class discussions with an accompanying research essay; and (4) in-class discussions only. The study presents a range of assessment techniques used in simulation literature, and suggests the use of the anonymous extra-credit pop quiz as a simple and familiar teaching practice, but an overlooked assessment tool for simulations. The study presents the “Iranian Plane” simulation developed to teach decision making in crisis situations to political science undergraduates. It analyzes empirical evidence on knowledge retention with and without simulations based on students’ performance on the pop quiz 3 months after the simulation. The analysis shows that learning with simulation and debriefing together attains teaching goals set in advance. Simulation with debriefing was the most effective teaching mode for knowledge retention in terms of students’ performance in the quiz, simulation only was almost as successful, but learning without simulation was less efficient.     

Crimes and the need for Sanction Capacity in the Netherlands: Trends and Backgrounds

This article presents recent trends in, and forecasts of, the need for sanction capacity in the Netherlands. Different types of crime show different trends at the moment. The need for prison capacity is still growing but at a smaller rate than before. The Jukebox-1 model, which is used for (a part of) the forecasts, is described. It relates the trends in the capacity needed for prisons and task-sanctions for adults to trends in crime and law enforcement activities. Trends in crime are in turn related to demographic and socio-economic factors and law enforcement performance indicators. Some policy simulations with the model are sketched.     

对《刑法》中拟制罪名的几点看法

罪名是根据犯罪行为的性质和特征所规定的犯罪的名称。我国《刑法》中拟制的一批罪 名,总的情况是好的。但尚存在不足之处:有些罪名字数较多,可识别性程度不够,概括性不强。