In-Class History Simulation: WWII Yalta Conference Involving Great Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States (original) (raw)
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International Studies Perspectives 13(4), 437-457
The essay describes new way to evaluate variation among simulations through six distinct categories. The six points involve the content of the simulation, the integration of the simulation with other aspects of the course, the length of a simulation, the strictness of rules, the interaction among students during the simulation, and assessment techniques. The essay assesses the benefits and costs of the simulation and course design through student feedback and instructor evaluation. In addition, the essay uses these six points of variation as a framework to explain a sample simulation integrated with course objectives, goals, lecture material, two short research essays, and other class activities designed to teach game theory applied to current international problems. The simulation uses current world issues to help students incorporate class content, game theoretic modeling, and strategic interaction into an international negotiation conducted in class.
How to efficiently teach in an increasingly complex field like European Studies is subject to a burgeoning literature. At the same time, the use of simulations to convey fundamental concepts and theories at an undergraduate level is catching on particularly in international relations (IR). To complement more traditional forms of teaching at Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) such as lectures, the broadening of pedagogical methods to include simulation-based learning has the potential to impart important competences to the student body, including public speaking, debating, communicating and negotiating skills.
2019
Students are to seek agreements so that the Jews and Palestinian Arabs have a home. This history simulation takes place before the modern nations of Israel and Jordan were created and recognized by the United Nations. Discard everything known about the conflict in Middle East for the past fifty years. This region had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire until 1922 and then the British managed the area as a “mandate” until the Jews and Palestinian people could create one, two, or more new countries. Students are members of the Middle East Conference negotiation teams representing leaders from the Jews, Palestinian Arabs, and the United Nations. To provide three parties for negotiations, the United Nations was added to avoid deadlock between the groups representing the Jews and Palestinians. Also, it was decided to add the U.N. since their priorities are not always the same for either or both of the other groups in real life. Students know the decisions made will be important for cultural harmony in the region. Students are to focus on the needs of their group. The timeframe for this negotiating session is in the mid-1940s before the Jewish people declare formation of the nation of Israel. A major issue for the simulation is that students must discard their current knowledge of the situation of the Middle East and place them in a different time period when decisions could be made before war was near constant in the region. The simulation receives high approval by the students, often listed as their top learning experience. As noted above, an evaluation form is completed by the students. It is partially a reflection on what they learned and partially an evaluation with suggestions to change. Often, those changes are reflected in the curriculum which is updated annually. This simulation has been used each semester for over seven years. It has been effectively used in classes of 95 to 25.
2020
Students take on the personality of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference representing Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States. On alternating days, each student will assume the personality of one of the three leaders. This is a creative writing activity and can be a challenging experience for some. Students work as individuals though they can see the online work being completed by others. A major objective of this activity is to understand the point-of-view of a world leader based on their country's history. While national leaders have their own personalities that impact their style of communication, understanding their country's history provides deeper influences on their desires for their homeland. Their individual actions reflect their historical culture and values. Three times before the end of World War Two, the leaders of Great Britain, Soviet Union, and the United States met to decide how to bring the war to a quick conclusion and how the world would look after World War Two. Only the top leader from each country was authorized to speak on behalf of their nation's interests. Not only were they influenced by the immediate decisions needed to end the war, but also they were consciously or unconsciously influenced by their nation's history while they negotiated with each other. These meetings sometimes took weeks to complete. During the breaks during the meetings, the leaders conferred with their staff to discuss negotiation strategies. These strategies changed dynamically based on the flow of conversations. Reaching agreements was difficult since it required the unanimous agreement of all three nations. Since two of the three countries (Great Britain and the U.S.) represented democratic political systems, the USSR was naturally suspicious when they both agreed on a negotiating item since they feared it would be harmful to interests of the Soviet Union who employed a totalitarian government system. Learning Goal: Understand the point-of-view of a world leader based on their country's history. While national leaders have their own personalities that impact their style of communication, understanding their country's history provides deeper influences on their desires for their homeland.
This article introduces a regional trade agreement (RTA) simulation for undergraduate students. The simulation uses a multilevel bargaining framework, in which students can represent not only governments of negotiating countries but also domestic interests. By allowing students to experience international bargaining at different levels, they gain a deeper understanding of controversial international trade processes.
Simulating Two‐Level Negotiations
International Studies Perspectives, 2006
International negotiations can be modeled as a two-level process that involves competing interests within and between groups. This modified simulation of the classic prisoner's dilemma introduces students to the negotiation process and challenges them to consider how different decision structures can affect outcomes. Students fill both leadership and negotiation roles and gain an active learning experience that exposes them to important international relations concepts. All of the instructions, handouts, and materials are included to provide instructors of international relations or comparative politics with a resource that can be utilized with groups of varying size, ability, and composition.
Journal of Political Science Education, 2013
Economics, following periods of study in the UK, Belgium and Germany. His teaching covers a range of comparative and European politics topics, as well as courses on negotiation in politics. His learning and teaching publications have focused on the optimization of simulations and negotiation-based learning environments in political science.
To remedy the problems associated with passive learning, a large number of scholars have advocated the incorporation of active learning methods into the traditional university pedagogy methods of reading assignments and lectures. One of the most often used active learning methods in collegiate classrooms is simulations. Today, there is a plethora of international relations related simulations available for the faculty to adopt to meet the specific needs of their classes. One common drawback of most of the simulations available for use in international relations classes, and comparative politics classes for that matter, today is that they only employ a single level of analysis in the simulation. While there is a value in simulating world phenomena focused on a single level of analysis, which allows the students to gain a basic understanding of how theoretical components relate to the observed phenomena, these simulations do not allow for a comprehensive theoretical understanding of how phenomena observed at one level of analysis is intricately related to the phenomena observed at a different level of analysis. This paper describes the design, implementation, and preliminary results of the Treaty of Versailles simulation that was adopted for the introductory level international relations course at our university that combines both the international as well as the domestic aspects of international politics.
In-Class History Simulation: Mid-1940s India Conference of the Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims
2019
Students are to seek agreements so that the Jews and Palestinian Arabs have a home. This history simulation takes place before the modern nations of Israel and Jordan were created and recognized by the United Nations. Discard everything known about the conflict in Middle East for the past fifty years. This region had been controlled by the Ottoman Empire until 1922 and then the British managed the area as a “mandate” until the Jews and Palestinian people could create one, two, or more new countries. A major learning objective is to understand the point-of-view of a world leader based on their group’s history. While leaders have their own personalities that impact their style of communication, understanding their country’s history provides deeper influences on their desires for their homeland. The United Nations was added to this simulation to avoid a deadlock between the Jews and Palestinians. The U.N. does have its own agenda which is not necessarily aligned with the desires by individual countries or ethnic groups in this simulation with the Jews and Palestinians. While students share a common Google document among the four or five, a student’s grade is solely depended on their own work. Students are placed into a small group so it is easier to see what other students are doing and perhaps receive some encouragement and ideas. The other small group Google documents are open to view as well. Students write interaThe simulation receives high approval by the students, often listed as their top learning experience. As noted above, an evaluation form is completed by the students. It is partially a reflection on what they learned and partially an evaluation with suggestions to change. Often, those changes are reflected in the curriculum which is updated annually. This simulation has been used each semester for over seven years. It has been effectively used in classes of 95 to 25.
International Studies Perspectives, 2013
This article reviews experiences from a large-scale student simulation, which concluded the Istanbul Conference on Mediation: Enhancing Peace through Mediation that took place in February 2012. We share insights on two unique aspects of the simulation. First, the paper examines a rare case where the simulation crossed paths with real life: a number of the impersonated officials (and offices) including the president of the General Assembly of the UN, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, and the Director of the Policy and Mediation Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs were in the audience and shared their impressions. Second, the setup of the simulation was more complex than its typical in-class counterparts. Our insights from this multiday, multi-stage, and multi-issue simulation can inform colleagues who plan to run larger scale simulations. Besides sharing experiences on a number of logistical points, we especially draw attention to the constructive role facilitators can play in augmenting the learning benefits accruing to the students from simulations.