2013 World History Association of Texas Presentation

About a month ago we pilot-tested an early version of this simulation at the World History Association of Texas Conference, hosted here at St. Edward’s University.  We got great feedback from session participants.  Feel free to check out our presentation!  You can find the references for the presentation @ https://sites.stedwards.edu/syriasimulation/project-references/

Call for Participation!

This week, project faculty sent out a call for participation to the students and we set the maximum attendance limit @ 50 people.

Syria Simulation Game

Monday, April 22, 5:00-8:00pm

Fleck 305

Are you curious about the civil conflict in Syria? 

Would you like to learn more about the different parties involved and their goals?

Do you enjoy role-playing games? 

 

Join us for the Syria Simulation Game!

You will be assigned to a small group representing a party in the conflict.  Each small group will have the information you need to collectively decide what action your party will take in reaction to particular situations.  Roles include representing the interests of internal groups, such as the Assad government or the Free Syrian Army, or key external players, such as Russia or the US.

The goal is to help you recognize the different perspectives of each player and how they might act or react to any given situation.  You will come away with a better understanding of the complexities of civil or regional conflicts.  You will analyze the factors that promoted conflict and/or peacemaking over the course of the game.

The game will be led by Jason Rosenblum, ITEC Special Projects, Selin Gunar, Assistant Professor of Global Studies, Chris Micklethwait, Adjunct Faculty and instructor of CULF 3331:  Middle Eastern Revolutions, Christie Wilson, Course Coordinator for CULF 3330 and Mity Myhr, Course Coordinator of CULF 3331.

Syria Simulation – Creating a game-like simulation for CULF students

This spring, I’m working with a group of St. Edward’s University faculty members–Mity Myhr, Selin Guner, Christopher Mickelwait and Christie Wilson–to pull together a workshop for students in Cultural Foundations courses around the topic of the Syria conflict.  Our goal for this is to provide an experiential space in which students can learn about the complexities of this conflict by role-playing actors and agencies involved in the conflict.  These represent entities such as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in addition to countries like Turkey in addition to Iran, Russia and the Western Powers.

On April 22, 2013, student groups will role-play these actors and non-actors in a game-like fashion in which they will be given choices of actions to play across a period of 6 game rounds.  Each round will be prefaced by a description of one or more critical events, and students will be asked to make decisions about how to respond.  Play will be divided into 3 phases–Research, Action and Voting.

Students will be asked to research the event and the actions they can take prior to taking action, and non-actors will be asked to cast votes of Confidence or Contempt for these actions.

Actions will generate scores across dimensions including casualty rates and refugee counts and groups will be presented with a “Win” condition to promote peacemaking in the region.

We successfully pilot-tested this design at a recent World History Association of Texas conference and are looking forward to fleshing out this work for the full event in mid-April.

Here’s to a productive next few weeks!