Mercer political science professor brings enjoyable, video games to classroom

Games and simulations are a convention within the programs taught by Phoebe Moon, Ph.D. A longtime lover of video and board video games, the political science assistant professor helps her college students higher perceive advanced subjects and retains them engaged by distinctive actions.

Moon first began incorporating a lot of these studying workout routines as a instructing assistant for varied political science programs at University of California-Irvine whereas pursuing her Ph.D.

“That was a big university, and there were limits to what I could do. Whereas at Mercer, the classroom sizes are smaller,” she mentioned.

Since becoming a member of the Mercer college in 2022, she has continued that momentum by including video games or simulations to the curriculum of most of her lessons. She has taught quite a lot of programs in her division, together with introduction to worldwide relations, political psychology and worldwide relations, East Asian politics, Korean politics, worldwide safety and battle, Model United Nations, political science analysis strategies, and INT 301: Engaging the World.

In introduction to worldwide relations, Moon explains the idea of the prisoner’s dilemma — which is 2 events performing in their very own self-interest could come to a joint determination that’s worse for each — by having her college students take part in a simulated United Nations disaster negotiation. Each pupil is secretly given a blue card, indicating they may cooperate through the talks, or a crimson card, indicating they may defect and betray. Then, they see how negotiations play out in these circumstances.

“The point of this activity is to understand why it’s hard to trust other countries in the international system and what would allow countries to cooperate,” Moon mentioned. “Sometimes, students will say it’s impossible to trust other countries. But sometimes, they will say having a contract or knowing other country members on a personal level helps. That leads to further discussions on how we achieve peace in the international system.”

In the identical class this semester, she can also be main an exercise with plastic fish to clarify tragedy of the commons, when people use a shared useful resource for private acquire till it’s depleted and nobody can use it. The college students should determine whether or not they may take solely as many fish as they want or take extra to make a revenue, on the potential detriment of their village.

Moon has her INT 301 college students use on a web based recreation platform to behave as politicians for their very own international locations and make home and worldwide selections. They also can meet bodily with the opposite politicians — their classmates — to work out secret offers. This demonstrates how, due to restricted assets, leaders could have to decide on between spending cash on a difficulty at residence or one with a neighboring nation.

“So students, by actually acting on these simulation scenarios, can really understand and see for themselves it’s not as one dimensional as they thought,” she mentioned. “There’s a lot more additional calculation going on, and of course there’s an additional layer of, ‘I don’t like this person,’ or, ‘I don’t like this country,’ for whatever reason. While lecturing gives students some base knowledge, actually doing things helps students to grasp the concepts.”

In Moon’s East Asian politics course, a negotiation exercise helps break down the North Korean nuclear situation. She assigns college students to totally different international locations and offers them a listing of their insurance policies and the targets they should attain. As they discuss and negotiate with the opposite international locations, they find out about various insurance policies and political stances and acquire historic context.

For her worldwide battle and safety class final semester, Moon had her college students do mock trial classes primarily based on simply struggle idea — an ethical framework that analyzes when wars are justified and the way justified wars are fought. Half of the scholars served on a world jury, and the remainder have been divided into teams that introduced proof in help of and towards the choice to begin the 2003 Iraq struggle. The train required college students to do their very own analysis, and so they grew to become invested of their arguments, all of which helped them to higher comprehend the idea.

“Students are definitely engaged. That’s how they learn, in a more fun and interactive way. That’s really important to me,” she mentioned. “When it’s fun, you want to know more, and that’s what I ultimately want to do. I want students to want to learn, not learn because I tell them they need to know this.”

Moon mentioned college students in her lessons typically already know one another, and that creates attention-grabbing dynamics through the simulations. It additionally helps deliver them collectively, particularly in lessons like INT 301 the place college students come from quite a lot of majors.

“It’s almost like community building within the classroom, and I know we really value that as well (at Mercer),” Moon mentioned. “If you’re taking my class, then you’re almost guaranteed that you’re going to have that level of interaction with other students, where they really get to know each other and sometimes betray each other, and that’s all very fun and memorable for them.”

Rowan Carter, MUS/CLAS ’27, is at the moment taking her fourth course with Moon. She mentioned her favourite recreation up to now was modeled after the board recreation Risk however as a substitute featured Mercer campus territories that she and her classmates competed to realize management of. Her favourite simulation was a mannequin diplomacy exercise by which college students mentioned the way forward for Taiwan whereas performing as varied East Asian international locations with individualized targets.

“Dr. Moon’s simulations and games helped me understand not only how difficult international relations and communications between countries can be but also helped me learn the material better,” mentioned Carter, a music and worldwide affairs double-major. “The beginning of each semester starts with Dr. Moon explaining different theories that tie into the fundamentals needed for each class. The simulations help us interact with those theories and deepen our understanding of the material. I wish more of my classes used simulations or similar activities when teaching.”

Moon is working to share these instructing and studying strategies with different educators. Over Labor Day weekend, she gave a presentation about a few of her classroom workout routines through the American Political Science Association Conference in Boston.

In addition, she and Cameron Kunzelman, Ph.D., assistant professor of communication research and theater, are collaborating on analysis with the purpose of making a cohesive “how to” information on instructing with video games and simulations. Moon has additionally begun to include synthetic intelligence into her actions, permitting her to create extra in-depth and individualized prompts and situations for her college students.

“In liberal arts, we not only teach some content, but we also try to incorporate oral communication, written communication, negotiation skills, critical thinking, all that good stuff. Simulations and games directly help that process, making our learning more multi-dimensional,” Moon mentioned.