This module is a resource for lecturers
Exercises
This section contains suggestions for in-class and pre-class educational exercises, while a post-class assignment for assessing student understanding of the Module is suggested in a separate section.
The exercises in this section are most appropriate for classes of up to 50 students, where students can be easily organized into small groups in which they discuss cases or conduct activities before group representatives provide feedback to the entire class. Although it is possible to have the same small group structure in large classes comprising a few hundred students, it is more challenging and the lecturer might wish to adapt facilitation techniques to ensure sufficient time for group discussions as well as providing feedback to the class. The easiest way to deal with the requirement for small group discussion in a large class is to ask students to discuss the issues with the four or five students sitting close to them. Given time limitations, not all groups will be able to provide feedback in each exercise. It is recommended that the lecturer makes random selections and tries to ensure that all groups get the opportunity to provide feedback at least once during the session. If time permits, the lecturer could facilitate a discussion in plenary after each group has provided feedback.
It is suggested that the lecturer breaks up the class into groups and has the students complete the following tasks:
Exercise 1: The consequences of firearms
Prior to class, students are assigned to watch a NATO video on the impact of firearms on society and attempts to prevent their misuse and mishandling (6 minutes, 24 seconds) NATO: Small Arms are Real Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Students should be prepared to give a brief report on it and a list of questions it generated.
In addition, students should be asked to select a news source that can reveal incidents involving firearms/SALW in the local or international context.
Exercise 2: Group work
In small groups students give a short summary on a video that they viewed, and the questions about the role of weapons in violence it raised for them.
Students should list the questions on the board or Google doc.
Exercise 3: Consequences of firearms crime
In small groups students should give a short summary of the consequence/negative effect they studied from the news report that they identified in Exercise 1.
Exercise 4: The impact of firearms
In order to explore the extent to which firearms are a symptom and/or cause of social problems, students are asked to consider in small groups, whether firearms "cause" the specific consequences covered in the Module.
Exercise 5: Links between violence and human development
Students are asked to determine the relationship between a country 's rank in the Human Development Index and Indices of peace, violence, homicides, etc. In groups, students are asked to consider questions such as:
What can you conclude about the bottom fifty countries in the HDI and the fifty most violent countries?
If the rankings do not exactly match, develop explanations as to why, for example, a violent country is not too low on the HDI, or vice versa.
- UNODC Homicide Data
- United Nations Human Development Index
- World Bank Governance Indicator - Political Stability and Absence of Violence
Next:
Possible class structure
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