Student-Designed Simulation: Teaching Global Governance in Practice through a Student-Led Role-Play for Practitioners

Abstract

Abstract Building on the growing interest in role-play in international relations pedagogy, this article suggests student-designed simulation as an active learning exercise defined to help students get a nuanced understanding of the way global governance works in practice. Based on a teaching experience for graduate students at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), this article makes two contributions. First, it proposes a concrete roadmap for those who would like to supervise students in creating a simulation for and with practitioners. Second, it shows the benefits of student-designed simulation in terms of learning outcomes for students and participants involved in the role-play. It highlights how the conceptualization of a detailed scenario, on the one hand, leads students to uncover the daily practices through which global problems are (tentatively) governed within international organizations. The implementation, on the other hand, fosters dialogue between aid workers specialized in emergency situations and actors working in the field of (sustainable) development who are invited to swap roles during a two-hour student-led simulation. By promoting this reversed type of simulation, the article intends to further expand the active learning toolbox while proposing a pedagogical activity that builds a bridge between academics and students of international studies and practitioners.