Congratulations to Dr. Paul Milliman!

Paul Milliman, Associate Professor, Department of History, receives 2024 SBS Teaching Innovation Award!

Paul Milliman, an associate professor in the Department of History, is committed to continuously redesigning and developing new courses, experimenting with emerging pedagogies, and exploring ways to partner with students in meaningful and fun undergraduate research opportunities. 

Using an experiential learning approach, Milliman employs non-traditional methods to help students combine critical thinking and engage innovatively with the curriculum. Instead of presenting their learning and research in tests and term papers, however, they present their research through experiential learning activities like cooking medieval recipes, creating medieval objects, or making their own games. Milliman encourages this “gamification” approach to learning, which he says started in the Middle Ages. 

"Playing computer games is the first way many young people encounter history,” wrote Milliman. “Teaching with games at universities actually has a very deep history, because professors have been using board, dice, and card games to teach undergraduates since the very beginnings of universities in medieval Europe.” 

Happy to help bring this pedagogy into the twenty-first century, Milliman also helped develop a program awarding college credit for playing Microsoft's Age of Empires IV. Recognizing the role of computer games in shaping historical understanding, he collaborated in creating "Illuminated Histories" as part of the game, offering in-depth historical content and analysis. This initiative aims not only to engage students with history but also to encourage them to pursue further education through Arizona Online.

“In my courses, students do just as much learning and research as in traditional history courses,” wrote Milliman. “They are not just consuming history. They are producing it. They are making history through experiential learning, which is the best way to learn anything."