Teaching experience: how to make and use PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for undergraduate IR teaching

This article is about designing and implementing PowerPoint-based interactive simulations for use in International Relations (IR) introductory undergraduate classes based on core pedagogical literature, models of human skill acquisition, and previous research on simulations in IR teaching. We argue that simulations can be usefully employed at the early transition from “novice” to “advanced beginner” in a learning process, where the student begins to leave behind rational rules in favor of an own situational experience. However, currently available IR simulations for teaching purposes are often high-cost/high-tech and especially time-intensive: if they do not require custom-made software packages with difficult interfaces and expensive licensing fees, they are often targeted at course-long or at least day-long activities that demand extensive preparation of both teachers and students, with book-length manuals, intricate rules, integrated assessment tools, and specific secondary literature, and conventionally target more experienced students. This article explains how teachers can create an easily accessible and class-long (50 minutes) interactive experience for undergraduate IR students to encourage theoretical linkage with own in-class experience at a very low cost. We do this by employing PowerPoint, specifically in-built features such as hyperlinks, interactive pathways, or audio or video integration that can be used interactively rather than passively (as in a standard presentatio