Australia has pursued successive strategies of engagement with Asia under both Australian Labor Party (ALP) and Liberal-National Party (Coalition) governments since the mid-1980s. These have ranged from the Hawke-Keating (1983-96) era policies of 'enmeshment' and 'comprehensive engagement' to the Howard Government's (1996-2007) 'practical regionalism', to Kevin Rudd's 2008 initiative for an Asia-Pacific Community. In October 2012, the Gillard Government's (2010-13) Australia in the Asian Century White Paper continued to emphasise the pursuit of deeper and broader engagement across the economic, sociopolitical and security spheres. 1 Coalition Prime Minister Tony Abbott (2013-15) said in 2013 that foreign policy under his government would be '"more Jakarta, less Geneva"'. 2 In 2017, the Turnbull Coalition Government's (2015-18) Foreign Policy White Paper embraced the 'Indo-Pacific' strategic concept as defining the scope of Australia's economic and security engagement with Asia. 3 There is no doubt that these strategies of engagement have resulted in successful economic outcomes. Trade with the Asian region as a percentage of Australia's total trade increased from 38.
This article evaluates a 'real-time' simulation where students role-play a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) negotiation over humanitarian intervention in Syria. This simulation is undertaken in a large introductory International Relations (IR) subject. The article argues that in order to achieve deep learning outcomes across the diverse, contemporary cohort of first-year university students, active learning approaches need to be employed that engage differing learning styles and preferences. Deep learning is assessed across the conceptual and metacognitive knowledge domains with two indicators: (1) students' understanding of IR concepts by applying them beyond the parameters of the Syria case; and (2) students' critical reflection on their moral reasoning elicited by the task. We evaluate 820 students across six cohorts and 21 iterations of the simulation during 2016 and 2017 with a survey instrument and formal reflection assignment. The article finds that the simulation is highly effective at consistently engaging the majority of students' interest and motivation, while illustrating the acute and sometimes tragic tension between moral and political reasoning in International Relations. We found that disrupting student's cognitive structures regarding human rights and justice stimulated not only deeper conceptual understanding, but also emotional reactions that were the catalyst for metacognitive reflection.
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