Playing With Conflict is a weekend course for graduate students in Portland State University's Conflict Resolution program and undergraduates in all majors. Students participate in simulations, games, and experiential exercises to learn and practice conflict resolution skills. Graduate students create a guided role-play of a conflict. In addition…

This article reflects critically on simulations. Building on the authors' experience simulating the Palestinian-Israeli-American Camp David negotiations of 2000, they argue that simulations are useful pedagogical tools that encourage creative--but not critical--thinking and constructivist learning. However, they can also have the deleterious…

This research project investigated student reaction to playing the DIFFUSION SIMULATION GAME (DSG) and how an instructor, who is a novice in playing online games, implemented the DSG in an online higher education course. The goal of this research project was to determine whether playing the DSG helps students learn and apply course content. In…

This article considers how the simulation game of DEVELOPMENT MONOPOLY provides insight into poverty and inequality dynamics in a development context. It first discusses how the game is rooted in theoretical and conceptual frameworks on poverty and inequality. Subsequently, it reflects on selected playing experiences, with special focus on the…

The game SO LONG SUCKER was designed in the United States in 1964 with the aim of showing how potentially unethical behavior necessary for winning was inherent in the game's incentive structure. Sessions with East Asian participants, however, led to very different game dynamics in which collaborative rather than antagonistic behaviors occurred.…

DEVELOPMENT MONOPOLY is a simulation game that allows players to experience how power relations influence the agency of different socioeconomic groups, and how this can induce poverty and inequality. Players alter the original rules of the MONOPOLY board game so that they more accurately reflect social stratification and inequalities in the…

Many new teaching assistants have concerns about keeping authority in the classroom. These concerns make it more difficult for the teachers of the composition practicum to focus discussions on other important pedagogical issues. This study found that microsimulations were an effective way of allowing graduate students to respond to challenges to…

This simulation probes what is known as the "foreign" teaching assistant problem. The "problem" can be found at large state universities in the United States where international graduate students are required to earn their scholarships by teaching undergraduate courses and arises because of a combination of issues, including…

What happens to business negotiations when culture gets in the way? Participants are about to find out. This game is an international negotiation simulation for the classroom. Participants learn, through role-playing and observation, how cross-cultural differences complicate international business negotiations. Students are formed into pairs of…

Discussion pf the stress associated with the educational use of games and simulations focuses on a study of graduate students that used the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to determine that people with certain personality types experience stress at different intensities. Also found that all participants, regardless of personality type, needed…

This simulation explores instruction that combines role-play with the word play of "The Three Pigs". Describes efforts to increase fluency and communicative competence in English among graduate English as Second Language students of various disciplines and nationalities and discusses debriefing, students' attitudes, and acceptance of…

Describes a prototype university, Southeast State University, which was created for a simulation game that uses an in-basket format to mix reality with role playing and case study to teach decision making, problem solving, and conflict resolution in higher education administration courses. (four references) (LRW)