Taking a RISK: Students and Professors Collaborate in the Teaching of World History

Military history is an area that interests students and provides an opportunity to engage them, though as a social historian, actual battles and strategy are not my usual areas of focus, even when teaching about conflicts.  Knowing this, a student suggested the game of RISK as a creative and engaging way to teach about conflict.  Collaborating with her and other students, we modified RISK to teach about conflict as well as other aspects of history.  The original rules present ahistorical situations that ignore important historical factors.  Therefore, we altered elements of the game like the starting position of players and integrated factors such as the diplomatic and social elements of conflicts as well as means for peace-making.  The outcome is a game that combines these elements of conflicts to encourage higher order thinking about complex issues of geography, economics, political systems, and military might, and raising questions about the nature and consequences of war.  In collaboration with the director of the Center for Teaching Excellence, we defined meaningfully assessed teaching goals, explored modifications to make the game appropriate and useful for the classroom, and invited discussion of applications and refinements from peers.  The modified game encourages analysis of factors that promoted conflict and peacemaking in the past, establishes a basis for discussion of the role played by factors not simulated in the game, facilitates the discussion of the role of events in conflicts, and encourages discussion of the goals of various actors in a given conflict. My presentation will include discussion of historical scenarios used to modify the game to teach about specific conflicts in history courses.  The presentation will demonstrate ways to use the game to engage students in the investigation of past conflicts and share assessment materials and strategies to measure student learning from the experiential exercise.