PeaceMaker: Using an online educational game on Middle East politics as an ‘Object To Think With’ (OTTW) in a Masters-level Public Policy course

Abstract

Teaching causality in complex adaptive systems to tertiary students poses dual challenges: presenting key concepts like tipping points, emergence, nonlinearity, path dependency, and feedback; and then guiding students to grasp the uncertainties these entail for policy and decision-making. While the pedagogical value of educational games is increasingly recognised, there is little consensus on underlying learning theories or game design principles. In particular, as traditional behaviourist approaches do not address the implications of complex systems, the author (teaching a Masters-level Public Policy course) used the Israeli/Palestinian politics game, PeaceMaker, in a more constructivist approach that understands games as 'objects-to-think-with' (OTTWs).