Wealth and Power: An online simulation to recreate five structures of International Political Economy

Outcomes • This study presents an online role-play simulation designed to help students understand the intricacies of International Political Economy (IPE). • The activity aims to recreate the five IPE structures: global production, global trade, global financial flows, global knowledge, and global security. • It also seeks to highlight the challenges that countries face to improve their social and economic status, and the potential tensions between countries that may arise because of issues related to wealth and power. Description Higher education institutions are often called on to become drivers for the social, environmental, and economic changes required to face 21st-century challenges. To that end, curricula and syllabi must be adapted to offer a learning experience that prepares graduates to tackle real-world needs and situations by helping them develop key cognitive, skill-based, and affective learning outcomes. The use of technology in teaching social sciences has become increasingly popular in recent decades, and the rapid evolution of the sector has the potential to revolutionize education. Yet, despite the wide range of methods implemented in university courses, more research is required regarding examples of how active-learning methodologies can be combined with technology to foster student learning, raise awareness regarding real-world complexities, and enhance the acquisition of multiple learning outcomes. In this context, International Political Economy must also contribute to students’ understanding of the great challenges facing humanity in the coming decades, and the crucial need to effect a transformation that will make it possible to deal with the complex scenarios likely to be faced. Against this background, we designed and implemented an inventive educational technique based on a role-play simulation following simple global economic rules to recreate interactions between a set of countries. Using a single spreadsheet, the students represented different countries seeking to improve their economic status by producing goods and exchanging them with other countries, all while monitoring their performance in five core areas: production, trade, financial flows, knowledge, and security. These structures and all the economic interactions were managed using a single spreadsheet. The study uses pre- and post-simulation quantitative and qualitative information to assess the students’ perception about the methodology. The simulation was organized as a closing exercise at the end of the semester in an International Political Economy course. As such, this activity allowed the students to apply their new theoretical knowledge in a practical way, helping them better understand the intricacies and complexities of economic interactions between countries at the global level. Moreover, it proved to be a particularly practical learning methodology in a Spanish university dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic when most teaching was done using online platforms. The implementation of this problem-based, online, collaborative learning activity demonstrated that the students perceived the experience as a useful teaching and learning strategy. Since the simulation is based on a spreadsheet, it is quite suitable for both distance and blended learning environments but could be also used in traditional face-to-face classroom settings. Audience engagement The presentation will include a demonstration of how to use the spreadsheet Participation format Face-to-face.