Migration and the Human Process

This activity involves several goals that enhanced student awareness of the dynamics of migration as a demographic, economic, political, and human process. Students developed their capacity to share this knowledge with the broader community, strategizing to support public education and awareness. Student participants navigated library and public survey databases and gather evidence-based information on the demographics, background, legal status, and experiences of local immigrant communities in the Miami Valley. They then critically examine social, political, environmental, and other factors that cause transborder migration through readings, lectures, and films. Students used ethnographic methods to investigate the ways that immigrants in the region interact with public, private, and nonprofit institutions, as well as examine the policies and practices of these institutions in relation to foreign-born residents. They then synthesized this research and produced reusable materials for an immigration simulation resource kit. Finally, students planned and implement an immigration simulation event open to the community.

Students researched, wrote and developed realistic profiles of hypothetical immigrant families in the Miami Valley, and constructed realistic but simplified models of public, private, and nonprofit institutions that interact with immigrant communities. This involved direct interaction with community members as well as open-ended online or community-based research activities. Students were involved in designing the research plan and making any necessary modifications in the plan as they went. The institutional and family profiles they created will be used by participants in the Immigration Simulation. 

For reflection purposes, students responded to pre-and post-reflection prompts regarding their understanding of the immigrant experience locally. They spoke at the Immigration Simulation event and shared the major “lessons learned” with that audience. They also reflected on the Immigration Simulation itself, engaging with participant feedback and thinking critically about the pedagogy of such participatory activities through in-class discussion. For assessment purposes, students took  pre- and post-tests as well as a wrote a short one-page reflection paper assigned after the Simulation EL program advanced UD’s institutional learning goals of diversity. Students developed and demonstrated an informed understanding of immigrants’ experiences. This understanding was reached through mentored research, the designing of the immigration simulation, and through structured opportunities for reflection.