Developing Simulations for the Politics and International Relations Classroom

Abstract

Simulations have long been an important pedagogical tool in the fields of Politics and International Relations. Their more widespread use, however, has been prevented by a combination of perceived barriers to entry in required time and planning. This article seeks to help faculty overcome these barriers and to lessen the burdens associated with simulation-based pedagogy by presenting instructors with a clear, systematized, and research-based approach to simulation development.

This article draws from research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Instructional Design, and the learning sciences to provide Political Science and International Relations instructors with a clear model and associated step-by-step approach to designing, implementing, and evaluating educational simulations. This model—which we label DImE for Design, Implementation, Evaluation—is drawn from pedagogical best practice but with a strong consideration for practical implementation of simulations in the university classroom. In short, it seeks to provide faculty with a fundamental piece in their “teaching tool kit” for developing their own simulations.

Keywords:

• Simulations
• instructional design
• political science education

Notes

1. We have found these resources to be a particularly rich sources of ideas for simulations: American Political Science Association’s repository of “Simulations for Teaching Political Science” (http://people.sunyit.edu/∼steve/sync/pos110-fall2011/data/20110622104847/), Council on Foreign Relations’ Model Diplomacy (https://modeldiplomacy.cfr.org/), and Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation (https://www.pon.harvard.edu/store/).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erin Baumann

Erin Baumann is Associate Director of Professional Pedagogy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

John FitzGibbon

John FitzGibbon is Program Manager at the Center for Digital Innovation in Learning at Boston College. He also teaches Comparative Politics and International Political Economy at the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College.